Catch up on the weekend’s top five stories with this list compiled by The Fly: 1. Thomson Reuters (TRI) confirmed that it and private equity funds affiliated with Blackstone (BX) are in discussions related to a possible acquisition of Refinitiv by the London Stock Exchange (LNSTY) for a total enterprise value of approximately $27B. New London Stock Exchange shares are contemplated to be issued as consideration in full for Refinitiv’s equity value, after adjusting for Refinitiv’s net debt and other adjustments. The parties anticipate that the transaction would result in Thomson Reuters holding an approximate 15% stake in the London Stock Exchange if completed. The Refinitiv business is currently 55% owned by private equity funds managed by Blackstone and 45% by Thomson Reuters. Reuters News 30-year agreement signed last year with Refinitiv will continue if ownership of Refinitiv changes. 2. Using his Twitter account, Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk said that, “Ability to stream YouTube (GOOGL) & Netflix (NFLX) when car is stopped coming to your Tesla soon! Has an amazingly immersive, cinematic feel due to the comfy seats & surround sound audio. (…) When full self-driving is approved by regulators, we will enable video while moving.” 3. Cable – and its satellite TV sibling – was an awesome technology 20/30 years ago when competition was over-the-air broadcasting but in the era of Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming services, cable is fading, Eric Savitz wrote in this week’s edition of Barron’s. Between AT&T (T), Comcast (CMCSA), Dish (DISH), Verizon (VZ), Charter (CHTR) and Altice USA (ATUS), subscriber losses in just two years reach about 8M, but investors don’t seem to mind as losing video subscribers actually boots the profitability of the cablecos and telcos, since video carries lower profit margins than broadband, which continues to thrive, the author contended. And while the trend should be a boon to virtual cable services like AT&T’s DirectTV Now and Google’s (GOOG) YouTube TV, the virtual TV bundles are no magic cure for what ails pay tv and a wave of price increases has made services less appealing, the report added. 4. Disney’s (DIS) “The Lion King” took in $75.5M in its sophomore outing for a domestic cume of $350M and a global cume of $962.7M. As the movie approaches the $1B mark, Disney also announced that it has now reached $7.67B in 2019 global ticket sales, surpassing the industry record it set back in 2016 with $7.61B. “The Lion King” received 55% on Rotten Tomatoes and an A CinemaScore. 5. PG&E (PCG), Microsoft (MSFT), Cisco (CSCO), IBM (IBM), HP (HPQ), Texas Instruments (TXN), Intel (INTC), Oracle (ORCL), Apple (AAPL) and SoftBank (SFTBY, SFTBF) saw positive mentions in this week’s edition of Barron’s.
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