This Week's Business RoundUp / Playboy to build new mansion in the metaverse / NFL lobbied the SEC over crypto

Plus, the U.S. and U.K. urge their citizens to leave Ukraine.

Inside.com Part of   Network February 11, 2022

Hello Readers, Happy Friday! Moving forward, "This Week's Business Roundup" will be located at the bottom of the Friday Newsletter. Have a wonderful weekend, and be sure to share your thoughts! Vanessa

Image: Getty Images/Trulia Playboy, the media company founded by Hugh Hefner, is looking to relaunch its brand in the digital world. The company plans to build a new Playboy Mansion in the metaverse. Playboy already has thousands of NFTs on sale featuring its classic bunny avatar. Though Playboy stopped its print version of its magazine two years ago, the company still generates millions in consumer spending each year. In December, the company announced a partnership with rapper Cardi B; she is serving as Playboy’s creative director in residence. More:           The company is the subject of a new 10-part series documentary on A&E discussing the company’s past. Playboy has separated itself from the allegations in the documentary. Last month the company’s leadership team in an open letter noted “that the company today is not the same as when Hefner was in charge. Some former Playboy employees in an open letter defended Hefner, noting the allegations in the A&E series were unfounded. Playboy has a platform called Centerfold that competes with content subscription service OnlyFans. In related news: Playboy is not the only company making waves in the metaverse. Luxury fashion houses Prada and Gucci are making big bets on the future of the digital space. Gucci is partnering with The Sandbox to host an immersive experience. Prada is partnering with French gaming company Ubisoft to make clothing for the characters of its outdoor multiplayer sports game, Riders Republic.

The NFL lobbied the SEC from July to December on issues related to blockchain technology, according to lobbying disclosure reports. This was the league's first attempt to influence the financial regulator. The NFL reportedly spent over $600,000 lobbying the SEC, the White House, Congress, and other government agencies. Other issues addressed included federal regulations of sports betting. In 2021, the NFL earned $1.8B in revenue from deals with tech companies and sports betting firms. More: Super Bowl LVI between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Los Angeles Rams will be the first Super Bowl to have cryptocurrency ads and sports betting. A 30-second ad spot for this year's big game is reportedly $7M, up from $5.6M in 2021. The three crypto exchanges expected to have ads during Super Bowl LVI are Coinbase, FTX, and Crypto.com. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, in the past, has stated the agency is working on formal guidelines for the crypto market that will protect investors. No proposal has been made yet. In related news: Jim McIngvale, the owner of Gallery Furniture in Houston, made history by making the largest single legal sports bet. He wagered $5M on the Cincinnati Bengals.

Image: CNBC The EU antitrust body has set March 15 as the deadline on which to provide a decision on Amazon’s planned acquisition of MGM. The commission can approve the deal, with or without changes, or can decide to open an investigation into the deal if it has serious concerns. Amazon initially announced the $8.5B deal in May. The e-commerce giant aims to strengthen its Prime Video streaming service to compete with Netflix and Disney. More: MGM owns the James Bond, Vikings, and Shark Tank franchises. Amazon is also still waiting on U.S. antitrust regulators to approve the MGM deal. Amazon has been facing antitrust and anti-competition challenges over its business practices. On Wednesday, U.S. regulators approved the $43B merger of Discovery and WarnerMedia.

Ford announced on Friday that it is considering restarting automobile production in India, this time focusing on the production of EVs. In September, the U.S. automaker announced it would stop making vehicles in the country after accumulating over $2B in losses in 10 years. Ford is considering producing EVs in India for export to other markets and potentially selling in the country as well. Ford has about a 2% of the passenger vehicle market in India. More: Ford has two car manufacturing plants in India, one in Chennai and the other in Sanand, and 400 Ford sales outlets across the country. Both plants have the capacity to produce about 440,000 vehicles a year. India is expected to become the world’s third-largest car market, after China and the U.S. Ford plans to invest $30B in EVs and batteries by the end of the decade.

Affirm, the "buy now, pay later" fintech, released its Q2 FY2022 earnings on Thursday, beating analysts' expectations on revenue. Affirm's stock fell over 20% in midday trading after it accidentally tweeted its earnings report ahead of schedule. The company, in a later tweet, said the early release was due to human error. Affirm reported revenue of $361M, a 77% increase YoY. Affirm's net loss grew to $159.9M or $0.57 a share, from $26.6M reported a year ago. The company pointed to stock-based compensation following the company's IPO in Jan. 2021. More: Affirm's gross merchandise volume (GMV) – $4.5B, a 115% increase YoY. Active merchants rose from 8,000 to 168,000 in Q2 thanks to its Shop Pay Installments option adopted by Shopify. Active consumers were 11.2 million, a 150% increase YoY, and transactions per active consumer rose 15% to 2.5. Affirm had its public debut in Jan. 2021 at $49 a share. The company has fallen ~60% from its November high of $176.65. Affirm closed at $46.55 on Friday, down ~21% for the day.

Salesforces said it plans to offer an NFT Cloud service to its clients. Co-CEOs Marc Benioff and Bret Taylor made the announcement at a private company event. The company aims to provide a platform for artists to create content to be released on a marketplace like OpenSea. As NFTs have grown in popularity over the last couple of years, companies are looking for new opportunities in the space. According to DappRadar, NFT trading generated over $23B in 2021. More According to those in attendance at the meeting, Salesforce also discussed possibly creating its own NFT marketplace for users to trade their creations. Currently, OpenSea is the largest NFT marketplace, with over $3.5B in monthly trading volume on the platform. In January, OpenSea announced it has raised a $300M Series C at a $13.3B valuation. In a December blog post, Salesforce Director of Market Strategy, Matthew Sweezey, noted 2022 will be a big year for NFTs as more brands look for utility on the tokens.

Quick Hits 3D technology is changing the future of eCommerce. Threedium has just launched the most powerful low-code 3D & AR engine in the world.* Russian teen figure skater Kamila Valieva’s December drug test came back positive for trimetazidine. Valieva won gold in the team figure skating competition after becoming the first female skater to land a quadruple jump at the Olympics. The U.S. government had a $119B budget surplus in January, the first time in over two years, thanks to a 21% increase in January tax receipts to $465B. Sweden, Denmark, and Norway have all lifted COVID-19 restrictions in their respective countries, reclassifying the virus as a disease that does not pose a threat to society. The U.S. and U.K. join a growing list of countries urging their citizens to leave Ukraine as tensions between the West and Russia escalate. Netflix said it will do a series on the New York couple, Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan, who were arrested in connection to the 2016 Bitfinex hack. On Tuesday the DOJ recovered over $3.6B of the stolen coin. Hundreds of thousands of investors are automating their money with this fintech platform.* *This is sponsored content.

Image: Getty Images This Week's Business Roundup Hello Readers! Welcome to this week's Business Roundup, where I summarize the top three business trends/stories of the week. Following our rule of three, this week we have: More Earnings, Metaverse Bets, and Mergers, Acquisitions, and Splits. More Earnings: This week we continued earnings season with reports from tech, big pharma, energy, media, and food and beverage. Twitter held its first earnings call led by new CEO Parag Agrawal, who took over the company in November, announcing a $4B share buyback program. Uber drivers earned almost $10B in Q4, and Disney is inching closer to closing the gap in subscribers with Netflix, adding almost 12 million new subscribers in Q1 FY2022. The food and beverage sectors warned of rising costs eating away at their profits, and Pfizer reported $36.8B in COVID-19 vaccines sales in 2021.   Metaverse Bets: Every industry wants a piece of the metaverse. From fashion to entertainment, from Playboy to Disney, companies are making big bets on the future of the digital space. Playboy announced plans to build a new Playboy mansion in the metaverse. Gucci and Prada are reimaging fashion in new ways, and Disney is exploring new opportunities that blend the physical with the virtual. Plus, private equity giant KKR joined metaverse gaming company Animoca Brands' latest $500M fundraise, which counts Sequoia, George Soros, and the Winklevoss twins as investors. Mergers, Acquisitions, and Splits: This week we had a few couplings and breakups in the business world (Yes, this is a nod to Valentine's Day. It's on Monday — you're welcome). Bumble, the online dating platform, acquired its French equivalent Fruitz, and Frontier and Spirit announced a match made in budget airline heaven. Toshiba went back to the drawing board and announced a two-way split. The company will be spinning off its power semiconductors business. SoftBank canceled its Arm deal with Nvidia, citing regulatory challenges, and Peloton's CEO stepped down and was replaced by Netflix and Spotify's former CFO, Barry McCarthy. Bonus: The DOJ recovered over $3.6B of allegedly stolen bitcoin linked to the 2016 Bitfinex hack. A New York couple, Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan, were arrested as part of the operation. Netflix will reportedly do a series on the couple, which will be directed by Chris Smith, the director of the Netflix series on the Fyre Festival. What stories made your top three for the week? As always, I love to hear your thoughts on any of this week's stories. Feel free to reach out at vanessa@inside.com or on Twitter @Ms_Omeo. To see all Inside Business newsletters from this week, click here. Have a wonderful weekend! Vanessa

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Vanessa Omeokachie is a Researcher at Inside. Her interests include finance, tech, and startups. In her free time, she enjoys reading, hiking, attending music festivals, and traveling.  Connect with her on Twitter @Ms_Omeo. Editor Aaron Crutchfield is based in the high desert of California. Over the last two decades, he has spent time writing and editing at various local newspapers and defense contractors in California. When he's not working, he can often be found looking at the latest memes with his kids or working on his 1962 Ford.

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