Latest / What the Flux / Freedom Furniture is ready for sale | Trump's latest crypto piggybank | Anthropic's $61 billion capital raise

Transcript

Freedom Furniture is ready for sale | Trump's latest crypto piggybank | Anthropic's $61 billion capital raise · What the Flux

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: This is lot of Flux.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: I'm Brett and I'm justin. As Friday, the seventh of March.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Boy, the latest gender pay gap figures in Australia have
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: been released by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency and the
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: research shows that only twenty one percent of employers have
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: no gender pay gap between men and women and Juzy Boy.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: While these numbers are slightly better than last year, this
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: agency says we still have a long way to go.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Very true, Block Sam. If you want to kick off
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: the weekend on a high, there is one place to be.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: It's winning fifty bucks in the Flux app this Friday.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: All you've got to do is download the app the
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: the quickest person to get the three quick six questions correct,
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: and the fifty bucks is all yours to make sure
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: to download their Flux.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Apps to get involved three marketable stories today, Juzzy Boy,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Let's do it for our first freedom. Furniture is officially
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: up for sale after its parent company looks to find
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: a new owner after its big turnaround.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: And nothing says Cozy Home vibes like a new furniture
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: auction be Man, so tell me more.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: And Furniture was founded in nineteen eighty one in Sydney
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: and has spread its stylish She had Affordable Empire to
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: sixty stores across Australia and New Zealand.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Think plush couches, trendy rugs, flower pots, outdoor furniture and
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Jusie boy.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: It's been through more owners than a well loved vintage
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: arm chair.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was owned by the founding family, then acquired
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: by a private equity company.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Then it actually listed on the ASX, and then it
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: was taken private by Steinhoff International, which also owned.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Best and Less, Harraska, Fantastic Furniture and.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Plush, and then spun out into a rebranded company called
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Greenlit Brands. Now get this, jazzy boy. Freedom struggled in
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: the late twenty tens but went through an extensive turnaround.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: And now it generates more than four hundred million revenue
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: per annum and twenty bill in ebitdak.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: But with this positive turnaround, Greenlit Brands reckons their work
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: is done and it is now time to sell Freedom.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: And who might the buyer?
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Bab Man Well, private equity firms that specialize in retail
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: turnarounds are pretty much expected to show the most in here,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Judy Boy. So what is the key learning here to
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: private equity firms, struggling retailers are just untapped gold mines. Sometime.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Private equity firms have a history of snapping up struggling
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: retail brands and giving them a strategic makeover. Remember private
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: equity firm Anchorage Capital.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Snapped up David Jones for just ninety two and a
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: half million bucks, which.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Was a steal considering Woolworth South Africa plaid two point
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: one billion dollars for David Jones just nine years earlier.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Anchorage Capital Partners has already raided greenlit brands.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: Yep, It's acquired a bundle of retailers like Best and Less,
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Harris scaff and Debenham's Australian are.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: The goal of private equity is to strip out costs
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: from the retailer, refine the strategy, and ultimately make the
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: company more profitable.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: And eventually sell it for a juicy return on its investment.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: But Freedom Furniture is already quite profitable, so unlike.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: The usual private equity rescue missions, this one might just
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: be about sprucing things up For our second story.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Donald J. Trump has announced plans to build a strategic
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: reserve of five cryptocurrencies and no prizes here. Crypto saw
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: a three hundred billion US dollar rally.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Sometimes you just feel that Trump's treating the economy like
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: one big reality TV show, don't you. Yeah, what is
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: happening here?
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: So in July last year, Donald Trump strutted onto the
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: stage at a major bitcoin conference.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was at the time he was campaigning to
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: become the forty seven Prayers of the United States, and
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: he outlined a plan for the US to have a
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: national bitcoin stockpile.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: And the price of bitcoin skyrocketed.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: Then Trump announced an executive order in January this year
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: calling for the formation of a group to make recommendations
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: around crypto, and the price of bitcoin jumped again. But
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: since then, being man, Trump's been a little quiet on
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: this concept of a plan.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: In fact, the price of bitcoin actually dropped around twenty
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: percent from its previous peak because crypto had started to
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: doubt whether this reserve was actually legitimate.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: And then in comes Trump to save the day for
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: bitcoin and other currencies.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: He's just announced plans to implement a strategic reserve of
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: not only bitcoin.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: And not just one other digital currency.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: We're talking five cryptocurrencies in the supposed strategic reserve.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: We're talking Ripple, Solana, Cardano, etherorem and Bitcoin.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: And while there are no clear details on how much
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: or when this is all happening, the market didn't care.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: The prices of some of these coins jump more than
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: twenty percent.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: So what is the key learning here?
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: A strategic reserve is essentially a country's emergency piggy bang,
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: and it's usually filled with things like oil and gold, cash,
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: and even food supplies.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: The idea is to have a backup in case of
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: major world crises.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: It might be a major supply chain disruption or even
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: geopolitical risks, and given US strategic reserves a kind of
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: end of world type staff, adding digital currencies is a
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: big move.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, Why is that?
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: Well, it could change the way that digital assets are
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: viewed globally.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: It kind of moves crypto from a speculative investment to
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: much more legitimate financial safeguard, and if.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: The US actually follows through, it could set a precedent
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: for other nations to do the same.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: And further legitimize crypto as an asset class with real
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: world economic influence. For our third and final story, Anthropic,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: the AI competitor to chat GPT, has raised a new
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: of capital that values the company had more than sixty
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: one billion US dollary dues.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: The race to consumer and business wallows is heating up
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: in the iras b Man, so tell me what's going
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: on here.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: So Anthropic is an AI startup that was founded in
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty one by former open Ai employees and b Man.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: Anthropics developed a family of large language models also known
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: as llm's and this one's named Claude. It's a competitor
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: to chatchbt Grock three, Deep Seek, and Google's Gemini. Last November,
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: Amazon through casual four billion US dollars to Anthropic.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: And while open Ai is growing, Claude is also rapidly expanding.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: In fact, Beman Anthropics and Your revenue run rate from
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: Claude was reportedly around one billion US dollars last year.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: And does boy that number has increased by thirty percent
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: so far in twenty twenty five.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: So now Anthropics rates another three and a half billion
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: US dollars at a post money valuation of nearly sixty
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: two billion US dollars.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Its plan is to use this cash to expand its
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: compute capacity and deepen its research capabilities, and.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: Ultimately accelerate its international expansion in the AI race.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Fascinating, So what is the key learning here?
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: AAR companies need two things to be sustainable, cutting edge
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: technology and a way to scale it profitably.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: You see, training AI models cost billions, but so does
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: getting them in front of users.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: In fact, be Man Andthropy expects to burn three billion
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: US dollars this year.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: OpenAI lost about five billion US dollars last year and
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: is expecting to lose up to fourteen billion by twenty
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: twenty six.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: That's why these companies are basically in never ending funding rounds.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: But this is where strategic partnerships come in.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah. These partnerships hopefully allow AI companies to get distribution
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: without the exorbitant acquisition costs. Open Ai has Microsoft, Google
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: has Gemini, and of course Anthropic has Amazon.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Right now, AI is a game of who can outlast
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: the competition without bleeding out financially.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Flat Sam. If you've been listening to the pod this week,
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: then you are in the pole position to win quick
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: six today. To make sure to download the Flux app
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: your chance to win.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening and we'll see you on Monday