Latest / What the Flux / Stan locks in the Premier League | Miro sells at a steep discount | Zurich bets on hands-free Teslas

Transcript

Stan locks in the Premier League | Miro sells at a steep discount | Zurich bets on hands-free Teslas · What the Flux

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: This is What The Flux. I'm Brett.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: And I'm Justin. And it's Friday the 18th of September.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Jazzy boy, while most alcoholic beverage companies have seen their
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: sales go backwards recently, one Irish beer founded in 1759
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: is booming.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Get this one.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Guinness saw a 13% rise in global sales last year
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: and 41 million pints drunk in Australia alone.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: The reason?
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Influencers on social media trying to split the G. Yep,
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: seen it everywhere. So even 250-year-old companies can go viral
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: in the new age. Wow.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Flux fam, it is Friday and that means we are
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: playing our weekly game Quick Sticks where you can win
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: $ 50 just for being in the Flux app and answering
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: three quiz questions correctly first. If you want to win
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: $ 50 today and kick off the weekend on a high,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: make sure to download the Flux app, turn your notifications
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: on for your chance to win.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Brilliant stories today, Jazzy Boy.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Let's do it.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: For our first, Nine Entertainment has doubled down on the
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  Speaker 2: English Premier League until 2034 for its streaming platform, Stan,
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: as it goes harder on live sport.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: $ 830 million bet is not small. Got to be pretty
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: confident in this one. So tell me.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: So Nine Entertainment is the ASX listed media and entertainment company.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Obviously the company behind Channel 9, but it also owns
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: the Australian Financial Review, the Sydney Morning Herald.
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  Speaker 2: As well as its golden child, Stan and Stan's brother,
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  Speaker 2: Stan Sport.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: And B-Man, Optus Sport previously had the EPL broadcast rights
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: from 2016, but it blew the full-time whistle on Optus
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Sport last year.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: And then Nine swooped.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: And now Nine's gone back for more, extending their EPL
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: deal all the way until 2034. How much are we
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: talking here? We're talking around 600 million US dollars or
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: 830 million Aussie dollars paid out over nearly a decade.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: That's a lot of money to watch Manchester United attempt
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: another rebuild.
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  Speaker 1: And B-Man, Stan's subscriber count has been stuck between 2.2
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: to 2.4 million subscribers for around five years. But sport
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  Speaker 1: is the trump card. Yeah, Stan's sport actually helped them
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  Speaker 1: drive 50% subscriber growth in the past year.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: But Jazzy Boy, might I remind you that the entire
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Nine Entertainment is currently worth around... 1.2 bill.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: The total cost of this deal is worth two thirds
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  Speaker 1: of its entire value.
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  Speaker 2: But clearly the real appeal of live sport is that
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  Speaker 2: Nine can double dip its revenue.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: So what is the key learning here?
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  Speaker 2: Live sport is the one place viewers will happily pay
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: full price and sit through the ads anyway.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Get this one, B-Man. 64% of viewers actually pay attention
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  Speaker 1: to ads during live sport.
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  Speaker 2: And 69% of 16 to 34 year olds show higher
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  Speaker 2: ad tolerance specifically during live programming. So why does sport
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: get away with this when a Netflix drama can't? Because
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: sport already has built-in pauses, half-times, drinks breaks, VAR decisions.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: But a Netflix show has no natural pause. There ain't
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: no half-time in the middle of a murder mystery plot twist.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: So it has to invent an interruption, which is often pretty,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: pretty jarring. Yeah. So when Nine locks in the Premier
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: League for $ 830 million, it's not just getting paid soccer subscribers.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: No, it's also getting fans who are willing to pay
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: to watch the game and watch the ads without complaint.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: For our second story, Miro, the digital sticky note platform,
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  Speaker 2: has agreed to sell itself to Bending Spoons for just
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: over $ 1.
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  Speaker 1: 3 billion. billion in enterprise value or less than 90%
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  Speaker 1: of its previous value.
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  Speaker 2: Bending Spoons, the grim reaper of the corporate world these days,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Jazzy Boy, hunting a bargain. What's going on here?
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: So Muriel's founded in Russia back in 2011 and makes
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: digital whiteboard software.
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  Speaker 2: Teams use it for brainstorming, planning, and moving little colored
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  Speaker 2: boxes around until everyone agreed we've been productive now.
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  Speaker 1: Then COVID hit, and suddenly every remote team wanted to
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: replicate the office whiteboard from their kitchen table.
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  Speaker 2: And jazzy boy Miro rode that wave very hard. They
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: grew from 5 million users to 30 million in just
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: two years.
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  Speaker 1: And so did its paying customer base, which grew 550%
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  Speaker 1: over that same period. By January 2022, Miro raised 400
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  Speaker 1: mil at a $ 17. 5 billion US dollar valuation. Peak pandemic crisis.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: Collaboration tool mania.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Fast forward to today and Miro's agreed to sell
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  Speaker 1: to Bending Spoons for $ 1. 35 billion in enterprise value.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Jazzy boy, that's a 92% dip from its 2021 price tag.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: But interestingly, the business itself hasn't collapsed.
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  Speaker 1: Nah, Miro still has 4 million paying customers, 600 million
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  Speaker 1: annual recurring revenue.
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  Speaker 2: And it's profitable. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So why sell now, B-Man?
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  Speaker 2: Well, because SaaS multiples have really been hurt as companies
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: cut software subscriptions. And not to mention the rise of AI.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: So what is the key learning here?
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  Speaker 2: Sometimes a business doesn't get worse necessarily, but the price
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: that the market is willing to pay for it, that
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  Speaker 2: does get worse. So this is really a story about
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: a whole category falling out of favor.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, get this. According to the SAS Capital Index, valuations
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: peaked in August 2021 when SAS companies were valued at
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: an average of, get this, 16.9 times their revenue.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: By mid-2026, that same index had fallen to just 3.2
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  Speaker 2: times revenue.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: For example, Asana, also in the work management category, saw
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: its stock fall around 50% since the beginning of 2025.
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  Speaker 1: Then there's also Benning Spoon's other acquisition we spoke about, Airtable,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: which had purchased 81% below its 2021 valuation.
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  Speaker 2: So it seems like Miro is taking the cash now
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: while someone's still willing to pay for it.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: For our third and final story, Zurich, the major insurance company,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: is offering Australian Tesla owners discounts if they take their
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  Speaker 1: hands off the wheel.
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  Speaker 2: That does not sound safe. What is going on here?
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so Zurich is the global insurance company that's been
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: operating in Australia since 1920.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: And it insures 2.3 million people across Australia.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: And New Zealand. And B-Man, Zurich's been a long-standing insurer
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: of Tesla, but now it's offering a discount on car
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  Speaker 1: insurance for specific Tesla drivers.
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  Speaker 2: And potentially other cars in the future.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: So basically, they're offering cheaper insurance premiums if you promise
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: not to put your hands on the wheel.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: They literally have to hand the wheel over to Tesla's
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: self-driving tech.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Yep, around 50% of Tesla owners currently opt into this
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: self-driving tech that lets cars navigate themselves on set routes
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: while a driver supervises. It makes Zurich the first insurer
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: in Australia and the second in the world to use
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: self-driving technology as a risk rating factor.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Which could set a whole new precedent for insurance risk-based
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: pricing in Australia. So what is the key learning here?
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: Risk-based pricing is when insurance companies set a precedent. premium
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: based on how likely it is that an insured customer
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: will get into a situation where they need insurance. Typically,
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: this is based on a customer's age, their location, or
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: their relevant history. But now Zurich is insuring based on
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: something other than the driver.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Yep. It's insuring based on the technology that the driver
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: opts into.
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  Speaker 2: Get this one. Tesla says it collected over 132 million
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: kilometers of self-driving data. and reckons cars with the technology
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: had one-seventh as many collisions.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: That's good.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: But self-driving technology used by Tesla is still pretty new
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  Speaker 2: and has already been linked to several crashes in the US.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: That's bad. So for insurers, this could end up being
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: a crash course in a successful or very unsuccessful risk-based
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: pricing strategy. FluxFam, if you want to win $ 50 to
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: kick off the weekend, today is the day. Make sure
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: to download the Flux app, turn your notifications on and
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: be the first to answer our three quiz questions correctly.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening and we'll see you on Wednesday.