🧙‍♂ Middle-earth's new kingdom
Hey Snackers,
Mint chocolate chip, cookie dough… dive bar? Miller High Life's newest six-pack might give you brain freeze: the Ice Cream Dive Bar packs 5% ABV and apparently tastes like tobacco smoke. Breath mints not included.
The major US indexes closed essentially flat yesterday. Meanwhile, jobless claims were down slightly despite the Fed's effort to cool the economy with repeated interest-rate hikes.
Swedish gaming giant buys "Lord of the Rings" as big media stocks up on super-sticky franchises
Middle-earth… has a new lord of the rings. Yesterday, Swedish gaming company Embracer announced a deal to buy IP rights for "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit." FYI: Embracer is one of the largest game publishers with 120 in-house studios, 230 games in development, and 850 IPs. Under the deal, Embracer can create and sell LOTR-based films, games, merch, theme parks, and stage productions.
- Gi-Ent sized: The deal was part of six acquisitions that Embracer made, totaling nearly $573M. Presale estimates had put LOTR’s value at about $2B.
- Return of the ring: Amazon spent $250M on LOTR rights for its new "Ring of Power" TV series, which debuts next month. Warner Bros. plans to release an anime LOTR film in 2024, and EA is working on a middle-earth mobile game.
One IP to rule ’em all… Embracer’s been on an M&A spree over the past decade, scooping up smaller developers and the rights to classic franchises (like: “Tomb Raider,” “Hellboy”) to build its gaming archive. Rivals including Microsoft and Nintendo are also droppin' big bucks to bolster their roster of classic franchises, even with gaming sales forecast to shrink 9% this year. So far, stocking up is paying off: Embracer’s sales jumped 107% in Q1 of this year.
Super-sticky franchises can pay off big $$… just ask Disney. The Mouse House has made nearly $5B from "Star Wars" box-office sales alone after buying Lucasfilms for $4B in 2012. By grabbing super-sticky franchises, companies like Embracer can expand beyond gaming with name-brand fan faves, and diversify revenue through new channels (think: hobbit-inspired homeware or a Gandalf spin-off series).
What else we’re Snackin’
- Score: The Big Ten athletic conference signed a record $7.5B deal with CBS, Fox, and NBC. Several networks will broadcast football and basketball games, unlike college sports SEC’s exclusive ESPN deal.
- Cel-sue-us: Celsius customers are trying to recover $180M worth of crypto held by the now bankrupt lender. Bankruptcy docs show Celsius has $4.3B in assets, but that it owes customers $4.7B.
- Flyback: Airline unions (picture: 170,000 pilots, flight attendants, and agents) are urging carriers to spend $$ on workers, not stock buybacks. The industry’s $54B Covid bailout prohibits buybacks till next quarter.
- Affice: Apple says it will make staff work from an office three days a week starting next month. While tech titans like Twitter allow fully remote work, the Fruit’s hybrid policy is among the sector’s strictest.
- Eyes: US employers are tracking workers’ productivity using software, scoreboards, and cameras. Workers say monitoring hurts morale, but investment in performance-measuring tech rose 8X in the past five years.
Friday
- Earnings expected from Deere & Co. and Foot Locker
Authors of this Snacks own: shares of Amazon
ID: 2388081