Friday, November 8, 2013
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Twitter Raises $1.82 Billion, Pricier Value Than Facebook (Via Bloomberg)
Twitter Inc. (TWTR) is poised to begin trading in New York today after raising $1.82 billion in its initial public offering, seizing on surging investor demand to price at a more expensive valuation than rival Facebook Inc. (FB)
The pricing puts the onus on Twitter, which starts trading today on the New York Stock Exchange, to deliver on its promises of fast growth after earlier pitching shares as low as $17. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Philippe Laffont, founder of Coatue Capital Management, talks about technology stocks, investment strategy and the outlook for Twitter Inc.'s initial public offering. He speaks with Erik Schatzker and Stephanie Ruhle on Bloomberg Television's "Market Makers." (Source: Bloomberg)
Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Bob Nardelli, Cerberus Capital Management LP senior adviser and former chief executive officer of the Home Depot Inc., talks about Twitter Inc.'s initial public offering and market sentiment on technology stocks. Nardelli speaks with Betty Liu on Bloomberg Television's "In the Loop." (Source: Bloomberg)
A banner with the Twitter Inc. logo hangs outside the New York Stock Exchange in New York. Photographer: Ron Antonelli/Bloomberg
Chief Executive Officer Dick Costolo has rallied investor interest in Twitter’s rapid sales curve - with revenue more than doubling annually - even with no clear path to making a profit. Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg
Twitter’s $26 a share IPO price values the microblogging service at 12.4 times estimated 2014 sales of $1.14 billion, according to analyst projections compiled by Bloomberg. That’s higher than the 11.6 times that Facebook was trading at yesterday and similar to LinkedIn Corp. (LNKD)’s multiple of 12.2 times sales. The shares could begin trading today by 10:15 a.m., Duncan Niederauer, chief executive of NYSE Euronext said on CNBC, describing that as his “best guess.”
The pricing puts the onus on Twitter to deliver on its promises of fast growth after earlier pitching shares as low as $17. Chief Executive Officer Dick Costolo has rallied investor interest in Twitter’s rapid sales curve -- with revenue more than doubling annually -- even with no clear path to making a profit.
“People are really looking all the way out to their 2015 and 2016 revenue estimates to price this,” said Larry Levine, a partner in financial advisory firm McGladrey LLP in Chicago. “The risk to buying Twitter is if Twitter does not achieve its very lofty growth estimates.”
At NYSE
Twitter’s $1.82 billion IPO is almost as much as the $1.9 billion that Google Inc. raised in its 2004 IPO and makes it the largest IPO by a U.S. technology company since Facebook’s debut in May 2012. It puts the market capitalization of Twitter at $14.2 billion, more than double that of Groupon Inc. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) led the sale, working with Morgan Stanley (MS)and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)
CEO Costolo will be at the New York Stock Exchange for the stock’s debut under the TWTR symbol, along with CFO Mike Gupta. Twitter co-founders Evan Williams, Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey will also be in New York, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Lawrence Haverty, a fund manager at Gamco Investors Inc. (GBL), said $26 was a fair price.
“They could have gotten a higher price, and they chose not to because they didn’t want to replicate the Facebook situation,” he said.
Price Range
Twitter had sought to avoid the hype that surrounded Facebook’s initial share sale last year, leading bankers to overestimate demand for its shares. Twitter filed for an IPO confidentially with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this year, and originally set an offering price range at a discount to its Internet peers.
Demand for the stock exceeded the supply even before bankers started formally asking for orders, people familiar with the matter have said. On Monday, Twitter raised the proposed price range for the 70 million shares sold in the IPO to $23 to $25 each, up from the earlier range of $17 to $20.
A market operated by IG, a company that allows clients to place wagers on the direction of stocks without owning them, signaled Twitter may have a market value of about $23 billion after the IPO, according to prices supplied by the London-based firm. With 544.7 million shares outstanding, that suggests a share price of about $42, according to calculations by IG and Bloomberg.
“When you see something with the user volume that Twitter has today and the engagement that they continue to have among their user base, you can confidently invest,” Matt Krna, a principal at Softbank Capital, which has a small stake in the company through its acquisition of Bluefin Labs, said before the final pricing. “There was a period of skepticism over consumer technology after Facebook’s IPO, and now people are running back.”
Zulily, Chegg
Twitter’s IPO will be followed by consumer-Web companies including Zulily Inc., an online seller of apparel for moms and babies, and digital-education service Chegg Inc., which are set to debut next week. Care.com Inc., owner of a site used to find babysitters, plans to hold an IPO early next year, people familiar with the matter said in August.
“Twitter is every bit as prominent an IPO as Facebook,” said Ted Hollifield, co-head of the venture and merger and acquisition practice at law firm Alston & Bird LLP in Menlo Park,California. “There will be a number of consumer-facing companies that would love to follow in their footsteps.”
User Growth
Twitter will have 544.7 million shares of common stock outstanding after the IPO, its filingsshow. Including restricted stock and options, Twitter will have about 694.8 million shares outstanding. By that measure Twitter is valued at $18.1 billion. The sale doesn’t include an extra 10.5 million shares that underwriters have an option to buy, according to the company’s prospectus.
Twitter, whose website and applications let people post 140-character messages to friends and online followers, still needs to deliver on its business model. Twitter’s loss widened to $64.6 million in the September quarter from $21.6 million a year earlier, and it is unlikely to be profitable until 2015, according to the average estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. LinkedIn and Facebook were both profitable at the time of their IPOs.
While Twitter’s revenue has surged, reaching $534.5 million in the 12 months that ended Sept. 30, user growth is slowing, filings show. The service had 231.7 million monthly users in the quarter that ended in September, up 39 percent from a year earlier. That compares with 65 percent growth in the prior year.
Mobile Users
Twitter has been touting its engagement with mobile users, where other Web companies have struggled. About three-fourths of Twitter’s active users accessed the service from mobile devices in the three months ended in September, compared with 69 percent in the year-earlier period, according to the filing. More than 70 percent of advertising revenue comes from those devices, a higher proportion than Facebook.
The money from the public offering will help Twitter build its business outside the U.S., where it got 77 percent of users yet only 26 percent of revenue in the third quarter. The company will also expand its infrastructure and work on products that will help it attract more users and advertisers.
Facebook’s debut was plagued with technical snafus on the Nasdaq exchange -- something Twitter may be trying to avoid by listing on the New York Stock Exchange. Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. paid $10 million to settle charges that the malfunction violated securities laws.
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
The Flipping of Supreme (Great read via The New Yorker)
Inside a run-down mall off of Elizabeth Street in Chinatown, down an escalator to the basement and past a raft of empty storefronts, is a minuscule store, the size of a walk-in closet, that’s quietly at the center of a peculiar global fashion empire. It has no sign and it’s not on the mall directory. It’s impossible to find on Google.
The enterprise, which its owner refers to as Unique Hype Collection, is in the business of buying clothing from the skate-inspired men’s fashion brand Supreme at retail prices, waiting until the items have sold out at Supreme’s physical stores and online shop, and then putting those items up for sale in the mall and on eBay at significant markups. Much of its merchandise goes to Japan, where Supreme goods can cost twice what they do here at retail. On a recent Friday afternoon, a cap that had gone on sale on Thursday at Supreme for forty-eight dollars was on the shelf at Unique Hype Collection for eighty-five dollars, where teen-agers were eyeing it jealously. The store even uses authentic Supreme shopping bags, recycled from purchases made at Supreme.
“I’ve brought in seven figures a year for the last two years,” said Peter, the owner of the store, a thirty-year-old who refused to give his last name or be photographed. “I can’t show my face—I’m under a lot of eyes,” he said, sitting on a stool inside Unique Hype Collection last week. (Peter was actually under only four eyes: two posters of Lady Gaga looking at the camera while modelling a Supreme T-shirt hung on the ceiling above him.) “I do everything myself. With the eBay store, I even pack it and ship it myself,” he said, before pausing and thinking about this for a second. “Actually, I don’t drive myself. I have a driver.”
Peter, who was born in Guangzhou, refers to himself as a “major flipper,” a businessman who will buy and resell, well, anything: “clothing, real estate, food, anything. Like, the day after Obama was elected, I got copies of the Daily News for fifty cents each. I bought every copy. Now they’re twenty dollars!” He adds, “I used to do green-tea Kit Kats. You could sell the bags for sixteen dollars each. There were only two stores in New York that had them, so I called the stores and told them I wanted to buy everything they had whenever they got the Kit Kats in.”
Peter, who has been buying and wearing Supreme clothing since the nineteen-nineties, communicates with other “major flippers” online, discussing potential markets and keeping tabs on the companies whose wares they sell. One major flipper, username “croatianstyle,” a friend of Peter’s (“I party with him when I go to Cali”), recently got a call from Nike after he bought a hundred pairs of Air Yeezy sneakers, the ones designed by Kanye West that can sell for upwards of five thousand dollars a pair on eBay. Peter was more careful: “I only got thirty-five pairs. He attracted too much heat. Too much attention.” Because Peter and other resellers deal in goods whose demand generally wildly exceeds their supply, they don’t compete with each other on price. “If they want to undercut me on price, go ahead. I’ll wait until they sell out and then sell them for even more!”
Supreme clothing is Peter’s signature stock in trade, although he resells a handful of pieces by similar menswear brands if their prices are right. (He also owns a collectible-card store.) The real Supreme has been based out of a store on Lafayette Street in SoHo since it was established in 1994 (and now operates stores in London, Los Angeles, and six in Japan). It was founded by the then-thirty-year-old British émigré James Jebbia, who also had a hand in starting up the downtown skate meccas Union and Stüssy. He is now known among fans of Supreme for his reclusiveness and gruff demeanor, especially with the press, because of his dissatisfaction with Supreme being pigeonholed as skateboarding clothing, and therefore crappy.
Now Kanye West, Drake, Lil Wayne, and Justin Bieber wear its gear. Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Damien Hirst, and Richard Prince have designed some of its skateboard decks.Hypebeast, a popular men’s fashion Web site, operates a message board on which a posting about Supreme’s current season has generated more than five million views and nearly eighty thousand replies. Some users post their salaries and discuss how much Supreme clothing they can buy after they pay their taxes. When the brand releases a new season of clothing, Supreme fans set up a sidewalk tent city outside the Lafayette Street store, sleeping on the street for as long as six days for the chance to get the first crack at the merchandise.
Some of the people standing in the Supreme line are secretly Peter’s employees, mostly teen-agers whom he recruits for the line-standing job while they mill around in his collectible-card store. “Everybody has a price,” he notes. “Sometimes it’s only fifty dollars.” The usual rate is a hundred dollars per day of waiting in line. There’s no bonus for inclement weather. He hires between ten and thirty people to stand in line each time Supreme releases clothing, which is generally every Thursday. How do the kids know what to buy? “They know what to buy cuz they been working for me for quite some time lol,” Peter explains via text message.
Supreme has reached its level of popularity through business practices that most brands would find unconscionable. The brand, as a whole, does not seem eager to please. The in-store staff is mostly aloof, surly. (In the nineteen-nineties, staff members were known for walking up behind customers and menacingly telling them that they could not touch the clothing until they bought it.) Staff members keep a handful of sold-out items in the back for when their friends come in. The store’s speakers play rap and heavy metal at nearly wall-shaking volume in the middle of the afternoon. Perhaps most important, the brand makes a lot of clothing that its employees know they will not sell—they sometimes express surprise that customers are buying certain items.
This season, Supreme is selling a zip-up hoodie with a quotation, attributed to the skateboarder Mark Gonzales, that reads, in bright letters across the back, “I’ve never wanted to piss on someones face more than I want to piss on yours.” Many of Supreme’s items sell out online within seconds of going on sale, but the “Piss Face Zip-Up” has not sold out in any color after weeks on the Web site. “I didn’t stock any,” Peter explained. (Perhaps Peter miscalculated—mysteriously, the Piss Face Zip-Up, which costs a hundred and thirty-eight dollars, is sold out in blue in Japan, where it costs two hundred and fifty-eight dollars and thirty cents.)
In the event that an item does sell, according to Peter, Supreme has a plan: “Every other brand besides Supreme sees a design that sells out, and so they make it over and over. But if Supreme knows an item is selling, they’ll stop making it, never make it again, and try something else.” This is why, as Peter explains, “Supreme is the only brand whose clothing becomes more expensive as time passes. Every other brand, except Polo maybe, if you don’t sell it this season, it’s not going to move.”
Inside Unique Hype Collection on a recent Thursday, three teen-age shoppers jostled for space, literally bumping into each other. There was nowhere to stand. Two more, who couldn’t fit, waited their turns outside. Peter wore a Supreme football jersey. On a stool behind the counter sat Lam Xie, Peter’s mother, who gives her age as “fifty-two or fifty-three.” She runs the day-to-day operations and speaks with an encyclopedic knowledge of Supreme clothing and Nike skateboarding sneakers. Her expertise is unexpected in the context of her otherwise limited command of English. She is proud to note that people who work at Supreme are aware of Unique Hype Collection—the brand’s employees have been there.
Ms. Xie grew up in China and got a business degree before moving to the United States and working as a babysitter, which is what she was doing when Peter asked her to run the store. Although many of her customers know her by name and greet her like an aunt, she occasionally embodies the same brusque attitude toward customers that Supreme itself does: “People say it is expensive? You don’t buy! You say, ‘Is it real or fake Supreme?’ If you don’t know, you don’t buy! Get out, don’t buy.”
Monday, November 4, 2013
Friday, November 1, 2013
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Monday, October 21, 2013
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
2013 BET Hip-Hop Award Winners
Check out the full list of award winners below:
Best Hip-Hop Video: Drake "Started From The Bottom"
Best Collabo (Duo or Group): A$AP Rocky f/ 2 Chainz, Drake & Kendrick Lamar "Problems"
Best Live Performer: Jay Z
Lyricist of the Year: Kendrick Lamar
Video Director of the Year: Benny Boom
Hustler of the Year: Jay Z
Made You Look Award (Best Hip-Hop Style): A$AP Rocky and Nicki Minaj
Best Hip Hop Online Site: World Star Hip Hop
Best Club Banger: French Montana f/ Rick Ross, Drake & Lil Wayne "Pop That"
Producer of the Year: Mike Will Made It
DJ of the Year: DJ Drama
Album of the Year: Kendrick Lamar, Good Kid m.a.a.d. City
Sweet 16: Kendrick Lamar "Problems"
Impact Track: J. Cole f/ TLC "Crooked Smile"
MVP of the Year: Kendrick Lamar
Track of the Year: "Started From The Bottom," produced by Mike Zombie and Noah "40" Shebib
Best Mixtape: Big Sean, Detroit
Who New? Rookie of the Year: A$AP Ferg
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
24 Kilates x Le Coq Sportif Flash
The 24 Kilates x Le Coq Sportif Flash will be available on October 26 exclusively in store at24 Kilates, with very limited quantities available at select retailers including Hanon the following week.
Friday, October 11, 2013
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Nike Air Max 95 "Ekiden Pack"
The Air Max 95 has sported a plethora of colorways and design upgrades throughout 2013. Having already been a part of quite a few interesting collections, it looks like the next set of themed Nike Air Max 95’s all of you sneakerheads will see, will be this rather colorful “Ekiden Pack”. For all of you non-Japanese speaking sneaker fiends out there, we’ve got a quick translation to share with you. The word “ekiden”, represents a long distance road race that is practiced in that country. While we have that portion of this upcoming collection covered, it’s time to tackle some of the color schemes involved. With each of the shoes involved having names like the Komazawa University and the Waseda University, we think it’s safe to assume that this a definitely some sort of collegiate-themed grouping. Aside from the names, each pair of kicks also sports the infamous grey gradient throughout its build that has become synonymous with the AM95. Although these kicks represent the academic side of Japan, we know that many of you sneakerheads are hoping that these won’t be a release that is only exclusive to that country. Since we have no information to either confirm or deny that notion, you’ll all just have to chill and wait until more info surfaces. (Via- Complex)
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Friday, October 4, 2013
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Shawn Carter By Hublot Classic Fusion
Black ceramic editions will be limited to 250 pieces at $17,900 USD each while the $33,900 USD yellow gold version will be limited to just 100 production models.
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Nike "The Glove" Pack - Release Info
Nike Air Zoom Flight The Glove
Black/White-University Red
616772-001
10/12/13
$145
Black/White-University Red
616772-001
10/12/13
$145
Nike Air Force 1 Low CMFT LW GP
White/Black
616760-100
10/12/13
$180
White/Black
616760-100
10/12/13
$180
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