The world’s seventh largest automobile manufacturing company, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCA), has sold its subsidiary, Magneti Marelli, to Japanese automotive company, Calsonic Kansei Corporation, for $7 billion.
According to the official press release, Calsonic Kansei’s holding company CK Holdings Co., Ltd. has bought Magneti Marelli and has changed its name to Magneti Marelli CK Holdings.
With a combined revenue of $17.49 billion, the combined company plans to become one of the largest suppliers of automotive parts in the world. The new company will work from 200 different facilities, and research and development centers located all around the world.
Beda Bolzenius, president and CEO of Calsonic Kansei Corporation, will be appointed as the head of the company while Ermanno Ferrari, CEO of Magneti Marelli, will join the Magneti Marelli CK Holdings team.
Bolzenius expressed his delight in teaming up with a company that has been placed in the top 10 automotive companies of the world. He said:
“Together, we will benefit from complementary geographic footprints and product lines, while our respective customers will benefit from an increased investment in people, processes and innovative new products.”
Ferrari called it a “transformative day” for both Fiat Chrysler and Calsonic Kansei Corporation. He added that the combined company will be secure, confident and ambitious in achieving its goals.
After the news of the merger broke, the shares of Fiat Chrysler leaped by 5% in Milan. Mike Manley, CEO of Fiat Chrysler, said that the merger is an “ideal opportunity” for Magneti Marelli to pursue the growth it promised to its customers.
Manley, who served as the CEO and president of the Jeep brand since 2009, replaced Sergio Marchionne as the CEO a few days before his death. Marchionne is remembered for pushing Fiat Chrysler to success after it suffered huge losses before 2004.
Under his leadership, Fiat Chrysler’s value became ten times higher than its original value. However, he had planned on leaving his position in 2018. He even told Automotive News in an interview in 2015 that he had trained his “crew of kids,” Manley and other executives, extremely well.
Earlier this month, Manley made headway in his plans to improve the performance of Fiat Chrysler in Europe by revealing the new management team.
Pietro Gorlier was appointed as the COO of Europe, Middle East and Africa region after Alfredo Altavilla left his position at Fiat Chrysler.
Manley also sent a letter to his employees telling them about the difficulties that will be faced by the company in the coming five years. However, he said that they will be able to tackle all the problems as well as the competition with “laser focus.”
Are you looking to attract investors? Do you need to find funding for your killer idea that will propel your business or project into the next billion-dollar startup? If you are, you’d better not be flying solo. According to CrowdfundX CEO Darren Marble, the most important ingredient for attracting investors is your team… along with the perfect pitch.
As a UCLA college dropout, Marble had no background in capital markets, banking, or marketing, yet found success as the founder of a company that’s marketed historic Regulation A+ IPOs to NASDAQ, NYSE, and OTC Markets Group.
He’s heard thousands of pitches along the way and assessed all types of projects to work with. So, I figured I’d tap him for advice on what makes the moneymakers get their checkbooks out and what it really takes to attract investors. Check it out:
What Do Investors Look for When Deciding to Fund an Idea?
“A strong team with a compelling product or service, with some unique differentiation from their competitors,” Marble says. “Your team is more important than anything else. Ultimately, investors are asking themselves, “Can this team really pull this off? Do they really have the collective skill sets and resilience to succeed?” If investors lack confidence in your team, they won’t invest, period.
Having tech is great–in fact, it’s a huge advantage–and you certainly need passion as an entrepreneur. But if your core team has gaps, you’re in trouble.
That’s why choosing the right business partners early on is so important. It will likely make or break your company, so choose wisely. Don’t rush into partnerships too quickly. Lastly, you need a proper founder’s agreement, which generally means four years vesting with a one year cliff.”
What Key Elements Does the Perfect Pitch Need?
“The perfect pitch has a strong emotional hook and is backed by the opportunity of tremendous financial reward for the investor. What this means is that your company needs be solving a critical problem in a large market–it can’t be a niche play, or investors generally won’t be interested.
The perfect pitch will sell your vision, mission, and values. Those are things that inspire investors if told right. You shouldn’t be selling the “what,” but rather, the “why.” Why do you do what you do? What’s the driving force behind your company? If you can articulate this clearly and simply, you can effectively inspire investors.
Once you have them hooked, you need to deliver the knockout with the promise of potential returns. How big can your company actually be in success? Truthfully, you should be aiming to build a billion-dollar business–it will excite your investors, and it should excite you, too.
How Long Should the Perfect Pitch Be?
“Generally speaking, less is more. You want to lure in investors by whetting their appetite with a short but compelling pitch and get them to ask you to provide more information.
Go to Apple’s website and see how they advertise their products. Look at Apple AirPods, for instance: they’re marketed as “Wireless. Effortless. Magical.” That’s it. Just three words. It draws you in. That’s what you want your pitch to do–to draw investors in.
You should have a clean pitch for email, and also memorize a 15-second, 30-second, and 60-second verbal pitch. Use your best discretion as to which pitch you use in different circumstances. Ultimately, less is more.
How Should You Pitch? What Comes First? Is There an Order?
“Over email, I would generally start with a few sentences outlining the vision, problem, solution, and market size, and include a link to a ten slide deck. Again, your goal is to make the investor ask for more.
Behind the deck, you should have the following documents prepared and ready to send when asked: a white paper (if you’re in digital securities or cryptocurrency), a 5-year pro forma with use of funds, a pro forma cap table, a term sheet for your round, and all of your company incorporation documents including founder’s agreements.
A common mistake is to send all of these documents at once. A better approach is to think of your dialogue with investors as a drip campaign: start with a simple email and deck, and make them beg for more.”
Is This Something You Can Learn? Can You Train Yourself to Attract Investors?
“You can absolutely learn to pitch investors. Practice with your family, then your friends, then a mentor or advisor. Once you’re comfortable and confident, start pitching small investors, and work your way up the food chain from there.
It’s ok to be shy as long as you learn how to pitch an emotional hook and the opportunity for a financial return. To be sure, being charismatic isn’t a surefire strategy to winning investors, either. If you’re over the top or too aggressive, you can turn off investors quickly.
More than anything else, you need to be authentic, transparent, inspiring, and you need to know your numbers (market size, financials, projections, etc.). If you can master these four pieces, you can raise money.
Before you start pitching investors, you need to ask yourself, “Is my business solving a real problem?” Most businesses fail because their product or service doesn’t deliver real value. Entrepreneurs need to audit themselves and really dig deep to ensure they are not going down a bad path. Once you’re certain that you’re solving a real problem, keep your pitch to investors simple.”
Anything Else You Would Like to Add?
My best advice for an aspiring entrepreneur is this: never give up. Being an entrepreneur isn’t easy. The odds are always against you. Success feels impossible. It will make you question everything. You will find your rock bottom. But sometimes, the moment you’re closest to failing completely is actually the moment you’re closest to breaking through.
It’s possible to succeed through sheer will and perseverance. It helps to have talent, and you can also get lucky with timing. But based on my own journey, my philosophy for success is simple: resilience above all.”
The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX Elon Musk is at it again. He got involved in a dissing contest with Fortnite via their respective Twitter handles on Friday. Apart from shaking investor confidence in Tesla, Elon Musk trolls Fortnite in his spare time as well.
Musk threw the first potshot by sending out a screenshot from a non-existent MarketWatch.com article, with the headline, “Elon Musk buys Fortnite and deletes it.”
Topping the sarcasm was a quote from Musk which was associated with the screenshot reading:
“I had to save these kids from eternal virginity.”
In his own parody-esque commentary to the screenshot, Musk tweeted, “Had to [be] done ur welcome.”
Elon Musk Trolls Fortnite and the Game Fights Back
Fortnite’s official Twitter account was, however, not willing to get trolled and drew its own satire by reminding the billionaire that a whole decade might not be enough for SpaceX to build a base on Mars.
The tweet from the video game company reads: “A whole decade, @elonmusk? Just build, LOL.”
Musk has been quite optimistic about his company’s mission to sustain a human presence on Mars. Last month, he revealed that the company’s famed renderings, showing a series of big falcon rockets stationed on the red planet alongside roads and a more permanent base, could be brought into reality by 2028.
With both companies now locked at each other’s horn, Musk had his unsavory response to Fortnite’s skepticism. He pointed out that the real world is different from the world Fortnite inhabits, by stating that “reality is hard.”
The exchange of banters caught the attention of a Fortnite player who added imagery to the mockery, tweeting to Musk:
“Excuse me Mr. Musk, but I think it is important to me that I actually lost my virginity after playing Fortnite. Just saying.”
To which Musk replied:
“online doesn’t count.”
Going by the vast followings both personalities command on their social media platforms, those observing the seemingly inflammatory scene took sides. Some others preferred to remain liberal while some tried calling both of them to order.
Fortnite was first released as an online video game in 2017, created by game developers Epic Games. The software package comes in different game modes including Fortnite: Save the World and Fortnite Battle Royale. The company now has about 125 million players, a year after it was launched.
Canadian cannabis stores in Alberta and other parts of the nation have run out of legal cannabis just four days after legalization came into effect. Annual sales for the cannabis industry in Canada are expected to reach $6.5 billion… but that won’t happen if stores are already ‘smoked out’ just a few days in.
After the first day of cannabis legalization in Canada, Vice reported that pot stores across Canada’s Northwest Territories, Newfoundland, Quebec, and Saskatchewan were already struggling to keep up with the demand. It appears that when Canadians voted with their lungs to legalese weed, they were deadly serious.
Running out of Legal Cannabis
One of the ongoing issues that the cannabis industry faces is the amount of legally compliant growers is now not enough to feed the rabid demand for marijuana in Canada.
Although cannabis legalization sounds great, there are only a handful of licensed growers and websites in Canada to stock the licensed stores. Stores can’t just buy weed from local unlicensed home-growers or black market green-thumbs.
The owner of Waldo’s 420 licensed cannabis store in Alberta Patrick Wallace summed up the sentiments that Canadian cannabis stores are currently experiencing by telling CBC that:
“It’s a mess. The supply is just a mess.”
Vast Gulf in Supply and Demand
Reports were surfacing after only one day of legalization that cannabis stores across the nation were already struggling to meet the high demand for legal cannabis.
One company out of Winnipeg told Vice that they sold out on the first morning, selling more than $50,000 worth of products. Other news articles reported how Alberta ran dry of Cannabis oil on the first day, although some products were still available across Nova Scotia.
Smaller unlicensed growers across Canada were initially concerned that legalization would affect their underground grow-ops as stores could only buy products from licensed growers of ‘legal’ weed. However, eager consumers might now look to the streets to solve the problem, which is the exact opposite of what the legalization was supposed to achieve in the first place.
It seems that authorities were completely taken off guard by the supply and demand for legal cannabis in Canada. Maybe they were hitting the pipe too hard and thought it seemed like a good idea at the time. Let’s be honest, we’ve all been there!
The US-China trade war shows no signs of slowing down as Trump’s top economic advisor Larry Kudlow accuses China of refusing to engage in trade talks. He went on to say that Beijing was doing “nothing” to defuse the tensions between the two countries.
This comes just ahead of a likely meeting between the Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump in November at the G20 in Argentina. It also dampens hopes of a possible trade war truce between the two superpowers.
The US-China Trade War
The White House’s top economic advisor and director of the National Economic Council Kudlow told the Financial Times that China had shown no signs that it was willing to meet US demands, halting hopes of a breakthrough in the ongoing tariffs feud.
Earlier this year, the US imposed heavy tariffs on some $250 billion of Chinese imports (almost half of all imports), and the Chinese naturally retaliated, slapping tariffs on $110 billion of US goods. This has led to an escalating conflict between the two countries and a worsening global economic outlook.
Source: Shutterstock
Among the demands from the White House are changes to the Chinese economic policy, including a clampdown on industrial subsidies and a reduction in its bilateral trade deficit. Yet Trump’s demands have so far been met with nothing but resistance from Chinese officials, who believe that the demands are unrealistic and go against China’s interests.
“We gave them a detailed list of asks, regarding technology for example, [which] basically hasn’t changed for five or six months. The problem with the story is that they don’t respond. Nothing. Nada… I’ve never seen anything like it.”
As the US-China Trade war rages on, Chinese officials have signaled their complaints over unpredictability and a lack of flexibility from the US, as well as no clear single voice from the White House. The Trump administration, it says, is sending out mixed messages.
The Outlook
If no progress is made over the next few weeks, the trade US-China war could reach drastic heights. In fact, the US is expected to increase the tariff on $200 billion of Chinese imports from 10% to 25% early next year, adding more fuel to the fire. Trump has even threatened to impose duties on all imports from China, which would certainly lead to a backlash from the Asian giant.
From the banal to the downright bizarre, if you hadn’t had enough of picturing yourself with Disney eyes and rabbit ears on Snapchat, you can now do the same with your cat.
In a desperate bid to claw back users (literally) Snapchat now comes complete with special filters just for cats. Which means you can now add glasses, hats, and a host of accessories to your favorite pet as well.
Of course, one could be forgiven for wondering what’s so interesting about that. But then, if you’re an aging millennial short on time and patience, and you’ve never owned a cat, you’re clearly not part of Snapchat’s vacuous target.
Yet it seems that there are tribes of people with too much time on their hands and a penchant for wasting it. Snapchat announced the new feature on their official Twitter account:
Snapchat Appeals to Cat Lovers with Time on Their Hands
The new filters from Snapchat don’t just stop at rabbit ears and glasses. Oh no, you can even “snap” your cat sporting unicorn horns, devil wings, and flower crowns.
“Didn’t this feature exist already?” You may be asking yourself. Well, kind of, although it was previously only available for dogs, and never worked on cats.
This latest update to the photo messaging app has been met with jubilation from its cat loving fans. Considering that cat lovers were found to ‘like’ an average of 398 cat-related posts and watch some 725 cat videos and pictures a year, it seems that the struggling social media giant is catching onto something here.
Not Enough to Rescue Falling Stock or Make Up for Botched Design
While cat fans are all aflutter, these feline filters won’t do anything about the company’s freefalling stock price. Cat lovers are presumably not powerful enough to boost that, make up for a botched redesign, or cash burn problem.
Snapchat is hoping that its new Snap Originals will help to do that and recover ground against rival Instagram. Yet, it’s another expense that’s worrying investors and the outlook is looking decidedly uphill for the young company right now.
But hey, who cares about that when you can decorate fluffy with a flower crown?
eSports brand sponsorship deals are on the rise. And Nike sponsors its first eSports player ever this week in an endorsement deal for the “Dribble &” campaign.
Jian “Uzi” Zihao plays League of Legends for the Chinese organization Royal Never Give Up. He’s now signed an endorsement deal with sportswear giant Nike.
The deal is part of the promotion campaign for LeBron James’ “Shut Up and Dribble” docu-series. Uzi will appear in adverts with Chinese actor Bai Jingting and James. According to reports by eSports Insider, James has helped to motivate Uzi’s gaming performance.
“Carry” on Uzi’s T-Shirt refers to the League of Legends term for when influential players “carry” their teammates to victory.
Uzi Is China’s Best Player
Uzi began his eSports career in 2012, became the Chinese League of Legends champion and qualified for the Season 3 World Championship in 2013. After many more wins and high placings nationally and internationally he’s now tipped as the most popular player in the history of League of Legends and the most iconic gaming figure in China.
He won the League of Legends Pro League in China for the first time in 2018. Uzi’s fans are hoping he’ll win the League of Legends World Championship this year which ends on November 5, 2018.
To date Uzi, aged 21, has earned $469,733 in prizes from 37 tournaments and will have as yet undisclosed earnings from sponsorship deals, appearances and other rewards for this success and fame.
His team, Royal Never Give Up announced a one-year sponsorship from Mercedes-Benz in June 2018 and in September 2018 received a one-year sponsorship from KFC. KFC is producing Royal Never Give Up branded products as a tie into the current League of Legends World Championships.
Growing Brand Sponsorship of eSports
The value of Uzi’s deal with Nike has yet to be revealed. It’s unlikely to match basketball player James lifetime endorsement deal with Nike which is predicted to pay him over $1 billion by the time he is 64.
Big brand sponsorship of eSports is growing rapidly. The estimated spend on such deals for 2017 was around $500 million and is predicted to rise to over $1 billion by 2020. The eSports global audience is expected to be 400 million strong by 2020.
As Nike sponsors its first eSports player, it’s likely taking advantage of an opportunity to reach the lucrative Chinese youth market. It could also be the beginning of the acceptance of eSports as part of the world of sports.
Opinion is divided on this topic but a recent survey in the UK found that eSports and traditional sports are not polar opposites. The report suggested that traditional sports stakeholders’ involvement in the eSports industry will be a key impetus for the growth of the sector in 2019.
With eSports tournament prize pools offering literally millions of dollars in winnings for gamers the industry and its sponsorship deals can only grow.
Dota 2’s International 2018 tournament prize pool was over $25 million. The League of Legends World Championship 2017 awarded nearly $5 million in prizes, and Fortnite’s Fall Skirmish has a prize pool of $10 million and is underway at the moment.
In the first half of the year, French billionaires surpassed everyone else, partly thanks to extremely strong demand from China. However, one Frenchman has lost a lot of his wealth due to fall in the stock market.
France is not necessarily a figurehead of capitalism, in fact, it’s a country with a strong socialist tradition. And this is exactly where the fastest asset growth ever took place, at least considering the 13 richest people in the country. These have,according to Bloomberg data, increased their assets to $27.6 billion in the first five months of the year. That’s 12% more than in the same period of the previous year.
Americans, Japanese, and Chinese could not keep up, even though they got richer as well.
The largest contributor to France’s wealth was Bernard Arnault, the world’s fourth richest man, whose fortunes increased by $14.9 billion to a sum of $78.2 billion, since the beginning of this year. His 81-year-old fellow citizen Francois Pinault is not staying behind and has expanded his holdings from $10.1 billion to the sum of $36.4 billion.
Both men are active in the luxury sector. Arnault owns the LVMH group, which includes brands such as Louis Vuitton, Moet, Hennessy, Dior, Givenchy, Kenzo, Bulgari, and Hublot. Pinault is the head of the Kering Group with the brands Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Brioni, and Puma.
Strong Demand from China
The fact that both were so successful with their companies is mainly due to the extremely strong demand for the corresponding goods from Chinese consumers. They also benefited from the rapid development of e-commerce. Pinault owns the auction house Christie’s in London, which has also a very successful unit in Hong Kong.
At least $2.8 billion richer this year are Alain and Gerard Wertheimer, who call Chanel their own. Bettencourt Meyers, the richest Frenchwomen with $48.1 billion, has also grown her fortune by $3.67 billion this year. The 64-year-old holds 33% of L’Oréal.
The French have certainly made money even outside of the luxury industry. Especially Serge Dassault, the 93-year-old chief of the military aircraft manufacturer Dassault. His fortune grew from $4.89 billion to the sum of $27 billion in the first five months of the year.
However, not everyone won. A famous individual Xavier Niel lost $2.6 billion due to the fall in the stock market of the holding of Iliad, which owns telecom operator Free. The 50-year-old telecommunications shark has amassed his fortune through the adult content industry. Today he is co-owner of French newspaper Le Monde. He also holds the rights of the song “My Way” by Frank Sinatra.
After a troublesome Q3 growth report on Friday and analysts signaling to the trade war between the US and rising interest rates, Chinese stocks rallied this Monday. In fact, not only rallied but are actually on track to make it one of their biggest gaining days since 2015.
This remarkable rebound on Monday came shortly after Beijing made significant efforts to buoy markets by reassuring investor confidence following the steep selloffs of recent weeks. By noon, the CSI 300 index of companies on both the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges was up by 4.4%. This makes for its largest gaining day in three years.
The trend was echoed in Hong Kong, with the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index of Chinese companies also jumping by 3.3%. This would make it its best day since October 2017. Even the technology company Tencent that’s seen its profits affected by tight Chinese gaming regulations also saw a jump of 4%.
China Stocks Rally but No End to Volatility
The crippling selloffs, particularly in tech, over the past couple of weeks, look to be over, at least for today. After a dismal period that saw 23% fall from the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index, the markets are rallying back. Global Market Strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management Kerry Craig said:
“After what has been a tense and terse month for Asia equities as a whole, they’re taking a breather, but that’s not to say volatility is going away… If China sneezes, the rest of the region catches a cold. The A-shares market has suffered a significant sell-off this year, so the rebound is expected after it’s been so volatile.”
Intervention from Authorities
Monday’s bounce-back happened after an intervention from China’s central bank, the securities watchdog, and China’s banking and insurance regulator, who told state media last Friday that the authorities would take the necessary measures to help markets, and that the slump in equities was no reflection on China’s domestic economic health.
Among these measures, the central bank pledged to ensure liquidity in the banking system and the Chinese authorities revealed temporary changes to individual income tax law including special deductions.
This attempt at bolstering confidence came on the back of a weaker-than-expected third quarter growth report of 6.5%.
China’s equity market takes the lead as the worst performing major global market this year, falling 25% from its peak earlier this year, and taking a toll on its national currency. Technology stocks have fared worse recently in the region, with Tencent shares dropping by almost 40% since their height in January.
India, an emerging economic superpower and one of the fastest growing economies in the world is registering a steady growth of millionaires. According to the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report 2018, India added 7,300 millionaires during the last one-year period until May 2018, taking the total number of millionaires to 343,000 with a combined wealth of $6 trillion.
This figure is even more surprising when you consider that India had just 39,000 millionaires back in 2000, and is now expected to reach 526,000 over the next five years; a growth of more than 50%. It’s also the third country on the list of most billionaires in the world.
The report also mentions that the performance would have been better but the slide in rupee has restricted the growth.
The Key Takeaways for India in the Report
According to the report, India is ranked top fifth in the percentage of female billionaires at 18.6%, sharing the rank with Australia. Germany ranks highest at 26%, Sweden at 25%, followed by Switzerland at 23.8%.
Out of 343,000 millionaires, 1,500 have a wealth of more than $100 million and 3,400 have more than $50 million.
In India, compositions of the personal wealth of millionaires are mostly dominated by property and other real estate, which account for almost 91%, with little share in financial and debt assets. This is opposed to the trend in other developed countries like the US, China, and Russia. US households reported 72% of their assets as financial assets, the Chinese reported 62% of their assets in non-financial form, while Russians hold their assets in a mix of real estate and finance.
How Other Developed Countries Fared
Over the last 10 years, the United States has continued to lead the list of the super-rich with a total wealth creation of $6.3 trillion, adding up to $98 trillion. This is followed by China with a total addition of $2.3 trillion, adding up to $52 trillion, and then by India in third place.
Australia, on the other hand, topped the list of the highest median household wealth at $191,453, dislodging Switzerland from the top spot. It is also the second wealthiest nation in the world with wealth per adult at $411,060. According to the report, wealth in Australia is very well distributed among its population, along with other developed countries like the US and UK.
It has 2,910 ultra-high net worth individuals, putting it in 10th place in the global super-rich list, and its composition of wealth is highly inclined towards non-financial assets (60%). Just 6% of its population has a net worth of under $10,000, even lower than the US and UK, reaffirming the strong economic fundamentals of the country.
As a UCLA college dropout, Marble had no background in capital markets, banking, or marketing, yet found success as the founder of a company that’s marketed historic Regulation A+ IPOs to NASDAQ, NYSE, and OTC Markets Group.
