What we’re reading (12/10)
“Investor Group Launches $5.8 Billion Buyout Bid For Macy’s” (Wall Street Journal). “Arkhouse Management, a real-estate focused investing firm, and Brigade Capital Management, a global asset manager, on Dec. 1 submitted a proposal to acquire the Macy’s stock they don’t already own for $21 a share, people familiar with the matter said. That represented a roughly 32% premium to where shares closed the day before.”
“A String Of Lawsuits Takes Aim At Regulators” (DealBook). “When Meta sued the Federal Trade Commission last week — the social networking giant’s latest effort to block new restrictions on its monetization of user data — it used an increasingly common argument against government regulators: The complaint alleged that the structure of the F.T.C. was unconstitutional and that its in-house trials were invalid. The lawsuit is the latest in a growing campaign to weaken regulators that could upend enforcement at a suite of agencies — including the F.T.C., the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Internal Revenue Service.”
“Troubled Retailer Sears Quietly Reopens Two Stores. What Is Behind The Comeback?” (CNN Business). “To the casual shopper, Sears, one of America’s oldest retailers, may appear to be on life support. The department store chain that once reinvented how Americans shopped now barely has a brick-and-mortar footprint after a 2018 bankruptcy and hundreds of store closures. But talk of Sears’ demise may be premature: just two months ago, a previously shuttered Sears in Burbank, California, quietly turned the lights back on. Two weeks after that, another reopened in Union Gap, Washington.”
“The Progressive Case For Bidenomics” (New York Times). “About the good economic news: This week two excellent economic reports were added to the pile. On Wednesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in the third quarter, labor productivity rose at an annual rate of 5.2 percent, which is really, really fast. It’s too soon to call a trend, but there is increasing reason to hope that our economy is capable of growing considerably faster than we previously thought.”
“Big VC Funds Are Underperforming Smaller Ones And Their Future Is Dim” (Institutional Investor). “Only 17 percent of venture funds larger than $750 million have returned to investors more than 2.5-times the total value to paid-in capital, after fees and expenses. Meanwhile, 25 percent of funds smaller than $350 million achieved the same, according to an analysis of PitchBook data on more than 1,300 funds dating back to 1978 by Santé. Put another way: a smaller fund is roughly 50 percent more likely to return more than 2.5-times TVPI than a large one.”
