What's the buzz?
Platform pivot at BuzzFeed
Good morning, clickbait chasers. This is your Stock Market Rundown for May 27th, 2024. Thanks for joining me for another week of finance frippery. Let’s get started:
TODAY’S TOP STORY: CLICKBAIT COMEBACK
Like many a mainstream media business, BuzzFeed has gone from pop-culture phenomenon to cash-incinerating fiasco. So why did its stock recently pop by over 50%? Could this busted brand make a comeback?
If you were online in the teens, you knew Buzzfeed. Founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti, it exploited viral traffic from social media—remember The Dress? The site specialized in clickbaity pop-culture news and goofy quizzes like “Which Disney princess are you?”
Soon, ad dollars from its lowbrow content were being redeployed to hire investigative journalists, whose reporting scored awards and accolades. By 2014, BuzzFeed was an unstoppable content machine, winning millions in funding from venture capital firms.
In 2021, BuzzFeed’s owners jumped on the SPAC boom to go public. But a swoon in the tech industry and a soft advertising market caused financial results to stumble.
Fast forward to today: BuzzFeed’s valuation had been decimated, and the employee base hollowed-out by hundreds of layoffs. The award-winning news operation was scrapped.
So what’s got BuzzFeed’s stock price perked up recently? Well, former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy just revealed that he’s snapped up a 7.7% stake in the business. And he has a few bright ideas on how BuzzFeed can “maximize shareholder value.”
Ramaswamy is a pro at courting publicity (and clicks). He made a fortune as a biopharma entrepreneur, then leveraged that into a political career that—even though he got nowhere near being president—made him a household name.
If he plays his cards right, his ideas could reinvigorate the business. But if not, the next BuzzFeed quiz might be: “which defunct online media platform are you?”
SO WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?
Attention, Target shoppers. The retailer is lowering prices on thousands of items to boost store traffic. Now I can grab that Guy Fieri titanium cookware I’ve always wanted at a discount.
The chief exec of Prada is “cautiously positive” about the US luxury market this year. The “caution” part is probably because a Prada handbag can easily cost more than a monthly mortgage payment.
Looks like BMW’s supply chain took a wrong turn on the Autobahn. The carmaker is in trouble for using parts that may have employed forced labor in manufacturing.
At Shell’s annual meeting, shareholders rejected a resolution urging the energy company to reduce its emissions. Sorry, activists—Shell exists to pump oil, not save polar bears.
That's all for today, valued colleagues; let’s reconvene tomorrow morning, at the usual time.. Yours in capitalism, The Axe
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