Morning Brief: Spotify rival Tencent Music preparing for IPO
Monday, April 23, 2018
What to watch today
In the week ahead, both the economic and earnings calendar will bring investors an almost overwhelming amount of possible catalysts.
On the earnings side, results from Google parent company Alphabet (GOOGL), Facebook (FB), and Amazon (AMZN) will be the main highlights, with results out of Microsoft (MSFT), which has been a market leader alongside other tech giants in the past 18 months, serving as the most closely-tracked earnings releases.
All in, over 170 companies in the S&P 500 are slated to report results this week, according to data from Bloomberg, and other notable results should include United Technologies (UTX), Coca-Cola (KO), Verizon (VZ), Caterpillar (CAT), Lockheed Martin (LMT), 3M (MMM), Boeing (BA), Twitter (TWTR), General Dynamics (GD), Comcast (CMCSA), Visa (V), AT&T (T), PayPal (PYPL), Chipotle (CMG), eBay (EBAY), Ford (F), Time Warner (TWX), PepsiCo (PEP), UPS (UPS), Domino’s Pizza (DPZ), General Motors (GM), Expedia (EXPE), Starbucks (SBUX), and Intel (INTC), among others.
Top news
Tencent Music plans IPO; valuation could exceed $25B: Tencent Music Entertainment Group, China’s largest music-streaming company, is preparing what would be one of the biggest technology IPOs ever following the successful debut of its European counterpart, Spotify Technology SA (SPOT). The digital-music business of Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd. plans to interview potential underwriting banks over roughly the next month, according to people familiar with the matter. The IPO, potentially coming in the second half of 2018, would be one of the largest deals of the year, some of the people said. Tencent Music is expected to list in the U.S., but it is unlikely to make a final venue decision for several months, they said. [The Wall Street Journal]
Google CEO set to cash in $380 million award this week: Google (GOOG, GOOGL) Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai is about to have a very big week. On Wednesday, an award of 353,939 restricted shares he received before a promotion in 2014 will vest. At the end of last week, the grant was worth about $380 million, making it one of the largest single payouts to a public company executive in recent years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. [Bloomberg]
Survey: Economists’ outlook is sunny but not due to tax cuts: America’s business economists are sketching a bright picture for the coming months, with a survey finding that more of their companies foresee rising sales and expect to continue hiring and raising pay. At the same time, nearly two-thirds of respondents in the latest survey by the National Association for Business Economics say President Donald Trump’s tax cuts, which were promoted as likely to spur hiring and investment, haven’t affected their plans. [AP]
Walmart close to $12B-plus deal for Flipkart: Walmart Inc. (WMT) is close to finalizing a deal to buy a majority stake in India’s leading e-commerce company for at least $12 billion and may complete the agreement in the next two weeks, according to people familiar with the matter. All the major investors in Flipkart Online Services Pvt are now on board with the Walmart purchase, after an earlier debate over an Amazon.com Inc. acquisition, said the people, asking not to be named because the matter is private. [Bloomberg]
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