All posts tagged: bounces

This Is the Year Comic-Con Bounces Back

This Is the Year Comic-Con Bounces Back

Published by skeptic

What often gets lost in the hoopla around Comic-Con is that it’s run by a nonprofit. It’s important to organizers that the event do well so that, frankly, they can do more events, but it doesn’t need to make money, and as long as fans are pleased—whether by Hall H panels or just picking up a Todd McFarlane autograph—the show is a success. Comic-Con International, the organization behind Comic-Con, went into 2020 with roughly $25 million in reserves, and that money got them through the lean years. Perhaps even less than the studios, the organization could use a hit, Salkowitz notes, but it may not need it. Going into this year, organizers were “looking forward to having a normal year—normal being relative, of course,” says David Glanzer, Comic-Con’s chief communications and strategy officer. I’d asked him whether organizers were looking to make a bigger splash this year to recover from a couple of wobbly years at the start of the decade—a notion he pushed back on. The event features some 2,000 hours of programming, he …

John Lewis bounces back to profit but no bonus for workers again | John Lewis

John Lewis bounces back to profit but no bonus for workers again | John Lewis

Published by skeptic

The owner of John Lewis and Waitrose has returned to annual profit but will not pay its workers a bonus for the second year in a row. The John Lewis Partnership (JLP) said it made a £56m pre-tax profit in the year to 27 January, compared with a £234m loss in the previous year. The staff-owned retailer, which employs about 74,000 people – known as “partners” – said that after careful consideration it would not pay its staff an annual bonus for the third time in four years. It said that instead, “at this point in our transformation”, a sustainable business was best served by investing in its retail businesses and the base pay. of its staff. JLP plans to open its first new Waitrose stores in a decade and refurbish 80 more supermarkets while investing in technology to improve the John Lewis website and customer service for shoppers in stores. The company said it was “entering a year of significant investment”, with £542m planned to be spent – up 70% on a year before, …

Polestar (PSNY) outlook bounces back with B in funding

Polestar (PSNY) outlook bounces back with $1B in funding

Published by skeptic

Who needs Volvo anyway? Shortly after co-parent company Volvo Cars announced plans to cut ties with Polestar, the EV-centric brand has turned to an all-star lineup of international banks for external funding totaling close to one billion dollars. Polestar’s other owner, Geely Holding, is still very much involved and will also help Polestar continue work to roll out its two incoming electric SUVs and beyond. Polestar Automotive Holding UK PLC ($PSNY) is an automotive melting pot founded in 2017 with Swedish design roots from Volvo Cars and manufacturing know-how from Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, better known as Geely. During its seven-year run, Volvo and Geely worked together to bring 2.5 EVs to market. That includes the Polestar 1 PHEV, the flagship Polestar 2 BEV, and the new Polestar 3 SUV, which just kicked off production in China this week but has yet to reach customers. Beyond those models, Polestar already has three additional EVs in its pipeline, keeping the company plenty busy through 2026. Following an IPO that wasn’t as successful as anticipated, evoking global …

Lucid CFO bounces after Gravity SUV debut

Lucid CFO bounces after Gravity SUV debut

Published by skeptic

Lucid’s chief financial officer Sherry House is leaving the company to “pursue other opportunities,” the automaker told investors on Monday. The news comes less than a month after Lucid debuted its luxury Gravity SUV, and mere days after Nasdaq bumped the firm from the Nasdaq-100 index (alongside eBay and Zoom). Lucid’s stock ended regular trading down by about 2.5%, at $4.61 per share. The stock sank by more than 3% during after-hours trading, to around $4.47 per share. House’s departure is “effective immediately,” Lucid wrote in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company didn’t say much else regarding the cause for the leadership change, except that the decision was apparently “not the result of any disagreement.” Lucid added that accounting executive Gagan Dhingra will step up as interim CFO.  For their trouble, the outgoing and rising execs will receive the kind of money you’d need to afford a Lucid SUV — given its expected $80,000 price tag.  House joined Lucid in May 2021, after spending close to four years at Waymo, per LinkedIn. …

First Republic bounces back as SVB panic lessens

First Republic bounces back as SVB panic lessens

Published by skeptic

Shares of First Republic Bank, a financial institution in the United States that does business with startups, are rebounding today after a punishing start to the trading week. Caught in the wake of the shock collapse of erstwhile rival Silicon Valley Bank, shares of First Republic fell 62% yesterday. Investors, concerned that actions taken over the weekend by the American government to stem a potentially budding banking crisis might not be sufficient, sold First Republic and other, related banking stocks like PacWest and Western Alliance. Today they are all on the bounce: First Republic is up around 57% as of the time of writing, PacWest is up 76%, and Western Alliance is up a comparatively modest 44%. Before the government stepped in to calm markets by ensuring that depositors were whole and liquid at SVB, there was concern in the financial world that smaller banks (measured by total assets) could lose their appeal as places to do business. After all, why risk banking with a smaller institution if it could fail, whereas larger institutions could …

As the SVB auction continues, the sale of its UK arm bounces between potential suitors

As the SVB auction continues, the sale of its UK arm bounces between potential suitors

Published by skeptic

In the US today, The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. continued the auction process for the beleaguered Silicon Valley Bank, with final bids due by Sunday afternoon, according to Bloomberg. Any agreed sale may not be known until late Sunday, if at all. It’s still possible that no deal will be reached and the bank will become insolvent. SVB had more than $175 billion in deposits and $209 billion in total assets. The FDIC is reportedly attempting to make at least a portion of clients’ uninsured deposits available from Monday. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Sunday that the government would not bail out Silicon Valley Bank with public money, but added it was concerned about depositors – the vast majority being tech companies – reeling from what is the worst bank failure since the 2008 financial crisis. As TechCrunch reported earlier the Silicon Valley Bank crisis also has implications for firms thousands of miles away. For example, over 60 YC-backed Indian startups have more than $250,000 stuck in accounts with SVB. And that’s just the tip …