FEI Weekly

July 7, 2020

2nd Wirecard exec arrested and inside the Uber-Postmates deal.

PPP Loan Data Has Some Surprises

Reuters

Some 51.1 million jobs were protected by a high-profile pandemic aid program but the data also underlined that, in addition to mom-and-pop shops, the funds went to several well-heeled and politically connected companies. Those include firms which lobby in Washington, private schools, and investment firms, such as those that run hedge funds for wealthy clients, also received checks. The data set released by the Trump administration after some initial resistance, gives Americans their first full look at who got cash from the first-come-first-served program that has been dogged by technology, paperwork and fairness issues.

Inside the Uber-Postmates Deal

Tech Crunch

The deal sprung up in the wake of Uber failing to acquire another competitor, Grubhub, which was instead acquired by Europe’s takeout behemoth Just Eat Takeaway for $7.3 billion.The all-stock deal valuation that Uber is paying out is a slight bump on Postmates’ last valuation of $2.4 billion, which it reached in September 2019 on the back of a private equity round (it had raised just over $900 million in total over 10 years). But with the “money” all in paper, it puts a lot of pressure both on Postmates and Uber to continue to deliver on growth.

2nd Wirecard Exec Arrested

Business Insider

German prosecutors questioned and arrested a second executive on, the managing director of Cardsystems Middle East, Monday in relation to Wirecard's $2 billion accounting scandal. The German fintech's former chief executive Markus Braun was arrested last month on suspicion of fraud and market manipulation. Prosecutors said in a statement that the arrest was made due to "the urgent suspicion of conspiracy to commit fraud."

'Accelerated Darwinism' for Retail

Axios

Malls are going belly up. Familiar names like J.C. Penney, Neiman Marcus and J. Crew have filed for bankruptcy. Increasingly, Americans' shopping choices will boil down to a handful of internet Everything Stores and survival-of-the-fittest national chains. "Accelerated Darwinism" is how Deborah Weinswig, CEO of Coresight Research, describes some of the retail bankruptcies of 2020 (not all of which resulted in widespread store closures). Fashion apparel has suffered the most.

4 Books to Add to Your Summer Reading List

Strategy & Business

Add these titles to your summer reading list: 'Humankind: A Hopeful History' by Rutger Bregman, 'The Power of Experiments: Decision-Making in a Data Driven World' by Michael Luca and Max H. Bazerman, 'American Business History: A Very Short Introduction' by Walter A. Friedman, and 'Overload: How Good Jobs Went Bad and What We Can Do About It' by Erin L. Kelly and Phyllis Moen.