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THE HEADLINES
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SURVEY SAYS
Online survey company, SurveyMonkey confidentially filed with the SEC for an IPO. The company polled JPMorgan as to whether they thought the offering should move forward. The results? Strongly Agree.
Filing through its parent company SVMK, the preferred tool of family reunion organizers decided to proceed with a “confidential filing.” Privately help companies filing this way don’t have to fully disclose their financials to the public (read: get crucified by the media for unfavorable burn rates).
Thanks to the JOBS Act signed by Obama in 2012, companies can renege on their IPO should they dislike what they hear from investors and discussions with the SEC. Not unlike college basketball players heading back to school if they’re feeling the draft but the draft isn’t feeling them.
The company was last valued at $2B when it raised funds in 2014.
Water Cooler Talking Point: “We don’t know much about what’s under the hood, but have no fear, it’s only a matter of time until TechCrunch pays some SurveyMonkey intern to spill the beans on their financials.”
WWJD.COM
Google plans to invest $550M in the Chinese e-tailer, JD.com. The deal will consist of 27M newly minted JD.com shares. Mmm, I love the smell of fresh stock certificates in the morning.
Google will scratch JD’s back and JD plans to return the favor. The symbiotic relationship will allow JD.com to expand its reach beyond the Chinese market and access the powerful Google Shopping network. And for their part, Alphabet will use the partnership to bypass big brother in a country where Google search and many other functionalities are blocked.
This is just Google’s latest plan to cut Amazon down to size. Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson’s employer has already inked a deal to feature Walmart on Google Home’s voice-shopping function.
Water Cooler Talking Point: “Taking on Amazon? Cue the “good luck” in my best Liam Neeson from ‘Taken’ voice.”
EMPIRE STATE OF MIND
Square customers in New York have been given John Legend’s green light to trade cryptocurrencies on the Cash app thanks to the NY Department of Financial Services granting an elusive bitlicense to Square.
Square’s stock hit an ATH of $66.44 on the news.
Jack Dorsey’s other company is only the ninth firm to receive the nod of approval. Going back in history a bit to 2015, the creation of the bitlicense caused a mass exodus of crypto firms from New York state. If you can make it there, you really can make it anywhere.
The Cash app boasts seven million monthly users. While most users won’t take the plunge, others will surely try to “hodl til they m00n.”
Water Cooler Talking Point: “The news caused bitcoin to jump 4.5%. I guess it’s true what they say: in a New York minute, everything really can change.”
IN OTHER NEWS
- Fujifilm is suing Xerox for $1B after the fax machine maker went all CTRL-Z on their proposed merger. Fuji alleges that Xerox caved to activist investor Carl Icahn’s anti-merger sentiment and goes just short of calling Xerox a “lil b*tch” in court filings.
- Audi’s CEO, Rupert Stadler, was arrested in Germany for allegedly influencing witnesses in relation to the ongoing VW diesel-gate hearings.
- Rent-A-Center, which apparently is not where you rent TVs for the Super Bowl, will sell itself to Vintage Capital in a deal worth $1.37B.
- Got wood? Homebuilder sentiment (yes that’s a real thing, no it has nothing to do with Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor) fell in June due to the rising price of lumber, despite the increasing demand for new homes.
- Microsoft is doing it for the kids. The House that Bill Built will acquire Flipgrid, an educational platform that lets students record and share videos with classmates. So, YouTube? MSFT will make the service free and use it as a gateway to the K-12 market.
- US indices were mixed yesterday:
- DOW: -0.41%
- S&P 500: -0.21%
- NASDAQ: +0.01%