LSEG Data & Analytics

Articles

Breakingviews: Ducking tariffs is only half of US firms’ battle

2 weeks ago | lipperalpha.refinitiv.com | Lauren Tuck

Home Depot says it won’t bring the hammer down on customers. They might take a nasty hit all the same. The $375 billion home-improvement retailer led by Ted Decker is the latest to maintain its guesstimate of where full-year financial results will end up, as it plans to keep prices stable despite the cost-increasing effects of tariffs. While CEOs might be able to lessen their own impact, warning signs of an impending consumer slowdown are flashing.
Breakingviews: Foot Locker deal calls for some fancy footwork

3 weeks ago | lipperalpha.refinitiv.com | Lauren Tuck

Dick’s Sporting Goods is taking a dangerous step. The U.S. retailer of everything from golf clubs to soccer balls agreed to buy sneaker chain Foot Locker for $2.4 billion, expanding its presence internationally and giving it greater negotiating power with vendors. At the price it’s paying, however, boss Lauren Hobart cannot afford any stumbles. This would be the biggest acquisition in Dick’s 77-year history, adding a network of 2,400 stores across 26 countries.
Breakingviews: UnitedHealth faces a long and painful recovery

3 weeks ago | lipperalpha.refinitiv.com | Lauren Tuck

Even UnitedHealth will struggle to overcome parasitic medical costs that Warren Buffett once called a tapeworm eating away at U.S. economic competitiveness. The $300 billion healthcare conglomerate reinstalled Chairman Stephen Hemsley as CEO and yanked its financial guidance. After abruptly losing about half its market value, however, any potential recovery will be long and painful. UnitedHealth stayed hardy for decades.
Breakingviews: Gates can fill only so much of humanitarian void

4 weeks ago | lipperalpha.refinitiv.com | Lauren Tuck

A nation populated by all those alive thanks to Bill Gates and his philanthropic organization would be the world’s 20th biggest, with 80 million residents. The Microsoft co-founder on Thursday vowed to redouble his efforts by giving away nearly all his substantial wealth over the next two decades. Despite the ambitious generosity, his money is having to stretch much further because of President Donald Trump’s unhumanitarian policies.
Breakingviews: OpenAI closes one sticky door but opens another

1 month ago | lipperalpha.refinitiv.com | Lauren Tuck

OpenAI is inviting a fresh round of queries about its large-language model. The owner of the groundbreaking ChatGPT artificial intelligence chatbot scrapped a controversial plan to become a fully for-profit company and opted to leave its nonprofit entity in charge. Who serves on that controlling board and how much clout backers Microsoft and SoftBank get are unanswered questions that will be vital to the technology’s fate.
Breakingviews: Student-loan crackdown pours fuel on debt embers

1 month ago | lipperalpha.refinitiv.com | Lauren Tuck

Getting tough on student loans will be a teachable moment. The U.S. Department of Education is restarting collection efforts on federally backed debt used to pay for higher education, five years after the introduction of a pandemic-related reprieve. It’s a dangerous time to crack down, not least because flagging the liabilities to credit scorers risks making it harder to borrow as concerns about inflation and recession rise.
Breakingviews: Accounting merger helps balance private-fee books

1 month ago | lipperalpha.refinitiv.com | Lauren Tuck

Buyout barons are wearing pocket protectors and green visors with their tailored suits. Baker Tilly, an accounting firm recently backed by private equity shop Hellman & Friedman, unveiled a plan to merge with rival Moss Adams in a $7 billion deal that would create the sixth-largest U.S. bean counter. Like much investment these days, it turns growing public market liabilities into private market assets.
Breakingviews: Worldpay hands planet-sized lucre to buyout barons

1 month ago | lipperalpha.refinitiv.com | Lauren Tuck

Worldpay is a prime exhibit of how sharp-toothed buyout barons are masters of getting a good deal from a flailing industry. The payment processor once part of Royal Bank of Scotland has changed hands four times between 2010 and 2023. Now majority owner GTCR is shuffling it to U.S.-based Global Payments. All along, the only reliable outcome has been profits for private equity firms.
Breakingviews: Argentina’s latest bailout gets a trade war boost

1 month ago | lipperalpha.refinitiv.com | Lauren Tuck

Don’t cry for Argentina just yet. La Albiceleste’s new $20 billion loan package from the International Monetary Fund might seem the dreary continuation of decades of interventions that failed to put the South American nation on stable economic footing. But by dismantling tight controls on the official value of its currency, President Javier Milei is opening the door to international trade just as crushing U.S. tariffs scramble global relationships.
Breakingviews: Stock buybacks present solid trade-war tradeoff

1 month ago | lipperalpha.refinitiv.com | Lauren Tuck

Buying the dip is a good idea for at least one set of investors: CFOs. Chipmaker Broadcom unveiled a $10 billion share buyback plan, in a move that helps buffer valuations suffering even after Wednesday’s tariffs-rollback rally. Unlike many stock repurchases that tend to occur when prices are rising, doing so now would be a shrewd use of corporate capital to buck market trends.