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THE HEADLINES

Estimated Read Time: 3 minutes and 28 seconds

 

WHERE THE RUBBER MEETS THE ROAD

Doing their best Randy Quaid-in-ID4 impersonation, Sears is refusing to go quietly into the night. The struggling retailer has announced a new program for installing car tires purchased on Amazon. What a time to be alive.

This isn’t the first partnership between the two companies. Last year, Sears started selling its Kenmore appliances through the e-commerce giant in the hopes of digging itself out of a massive hole.

It’s unclear what the margins are on sales of the tires, but every set will come with a “Standard Installation Fee” that goes into Sears’ pockets. The company stock jumped 25% during intraday trading, but with $1B debt coming due soon, there isn’t a whole lot of tread left on the tire as Sears tries to get traction.

Water Cooler Talking Point: “If you’re going to create a symbiotic relationship with your last dying breath, Amazon is a good choice. If Sears plays their cards right as a Remora fish they might just be able to pull off the greatest comeback of all time. But probably not.”

 

WALKART

Walmart plans to purchase a 77% stake in the Indian online retailer, Flipkart for $16B.

Walmart’s biggest deal to date gives the Bentonville behemoth access to the world’s fastest-growing economy and strengthens the company’s fashion, electronics, and digital payments sectors.

The natural habit of the “people of Walmart” will also gain access to India’s lucrative e-commerce ecosystem, which is expected to grow from $30B today to $200B in a decade. The aggressive maneuver gives Wally-world high ground in the battle against Jeff Bezos and his legion of e-tail crusaders.

Water Cooler Talking Point: “Walmart, last week: let’s pull out of our UK operations to focus on the US. / Walmart, this week: Let’s make our biggest acquisition to date in India.”

 

IF YOU WORK IN A GLASS BUILDING …

Japan’s Recruit will buy the Yelp for employers, Glassdoor, for $1.2B. The Glassdoor brand will remain independent which will allow the site to focus on what it does best: being a sounding board for disgruntled employees.

Your compensation negotiating resource of choice (because that $60k range Glassdoor reports on your entry-level accounting job is super insightful), has raised $200M to date, with its Series H raising $40M in 2016. The company’s value hovers around $1B. A $1.2B price tag would indicate stagnant growth despite boasting 59M visitors per month.

Recruit, a $39B Japanese entity focuses on HR and recruiting. Its portfolio is a who’s who of US job search sites, including Indeed and Simply Hired. Sorry, Monster.

Water Cooler Talking Point: “The only thing that Glassdoor is good for is reminding you that you’ll never, ever work for one of those companies that make their “Best Paid” or “Best Places to Work” lists.”

 

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IN OTHER NEWS

 

• “How do you do, fellow kids?” BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, with $6.3T under management, is leading a $50M investment in Acorns, an app that invests spare change. BlackRock’s goal is to gain more insight on retail investors, particularly, millennials.
• California has become the first state to mandate solar on new homes.
• 21st Century Fox will buy seven major market Fox affiliate stations from Sinclair for roughly $1B. Sinclair needs to divest some of its local news stations as part of a $4B deal with Tribune.
• RBS will pay $4.9B to the US Department of Justice to settle a probe stemming from the packaging of mortgage-backed securities dating back to the financial crisis. And now, Margot Robbie in a bathtub.
• US indices were up yesterday:
  • DOW: +0.75%
  • S&P 500: +0.97%
  • NASDAQ: +1.00%