Weekly Digest 4/30/22
Happy Saturday, April 30!
Hope you all had a great Week 5. Please find below our SWS-curated round-up of interesting articles, resources, information, and opportunities related to real world finance that may be useful to you!
Elon Musk acquires Twitter. The Twitter board agreed on Monday to a $44 billion buyout from Tesla CEO Elon Musk. The fact that Twitter is likely to now go private could have rippling impacts on other social media companies like Meta and tech giants like Apple. With unilateral control over Twitter’s popular platform, Musk could institute changes that put pressure on other tech companies.
The center holds in France. Emmanuel Macron stormed to a second term in France’s presidency, surpassing the nationalist-populist rival Marine Le Pen by 58.5% to 41.5%. Although this has not led to an increase in the Euro, it is believed that this fall is due to Macron being re-elected as a default choice with a low support in public opinion. There are also still questions of who will be his prime minister, which would completely condition his presidency.
Ukraine, Russia & energy. With the current Ukraine war, the IMF forecasts much higher inflation and weaker growth in Europe due to supply shock emanating from the Ukraine war. There are smaller supplies for food, fertilizers and other necessities, as well as energy sanctions to Russia, causing a drastic increase in prices all.
Musk sold $8.5 bn in Tesla stock after agreeing on Twitter deal. In the three days after Elon Musk engineered a deal to buy Twitter, he sold roughly $8.5 billion worth of shares in Tesla to help fund the purchase.
KKR to take Hitachi Transport in $5bn deal. Hitachi will sell its 40 per cent stake in logistics company Hitachi Transport System to US private equity group KKR as part of a $5bn deal that is a major step in the sprawling Japanese group's drive to focus on digital services.
Enjoy the weekend!
Cheers,
The SWS Investment Committee