Get smarter than your boss in 5 minutes with today's business news.
💸 Industry super funds could become insolvent from January
👑 Crown may be about to open their books to Blackstone
🎮 Graphics leader Nvidia launch the omniverse
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Here's everything you need to know today - in under 3 minutes.
💸 Industry super funds could become insolvent from January
👑 Crown may be about to open their books to Blackstone
🎮 Graphics leader Nvidia launch the omniverse
Looks like snagging an original US government document is tougher than Nicolas Cage makes it look. The crypto group that tried to raise enough Ethereum to buy an original print of the US Constitution were outbid by private investors. Now, ConstitutionDAO need to return around US$45 million to 17,000 donors.
Background: Industry super funds are Aussie super funds that started out being specifically for workers in certain industries (i.e. HESTA for nurses, Rest for retail workers). And they carry around $850 billion of super money.
What happened: These super funds are not-for-profit and membership-based, which means they don't have any shareholders. And without any shareholders, they've only got around $1 of actual cash in their bank accounts. Yup, you read that right.
What else: Earlier this year, the government passed a new amendment called the Section 56 Amendment. And now, these industry super funds are saying if they get hit with a fine, they could become insolvent.
💡The Section 56 Amendment means that industry super funds aren't allowed to use their members' money to pay for fines from January 1 2022.
💡 The scary thing is that industry super funds only have a couple bucks in their accounts (the other $850 billion belongs to members). This means that if a super fund gets fined, it could cause the super fund to become insolvent (because they don't have enough money to pay the debt).
💡Now, industry funds are trying to find out whether they can charge members a new fee...or use their existing reserves of cash...to pay a fine if they cop one. Eeep!
Background: Crown Resorts are the Aussie casino group majority owned by billionaire James Packer. And they've been in a little...ok, a lot...of trouble lately.
What happened: Earlier this year, there was a Royal Commission into whether Crown Melbourne should be allowed to hold its casino licence (yes)...then again, for its Sydney location (no)...and again for its Perth location (the jury's still out).
What else: Blackstone are a US private equity firm with major stakes in Ancestry.com, Bumble and Spanx. And this crew have been chasing Crown all year. They've just made their third (and largest) takeover offer of $8.5 billion, and experts say Crown should let them take a peek at their books for a lil due diligence.
💡Due diligence is where a buyer (aka Blackstone) reviews information that's provided by a seller (Crown). Then, the buyer can progress with buying the company if it likes what it sees.
💡But the seller (Crown) is actually under no obligation to hand over all their private info (like balance sheet, company processes and procedures) if they aren't keen on the offer.
💡In this case, analysts reckon Blackstone's offer is finally good enough for Crown to let them take a peek.
Background: Nvidia are a US tech company that design graphics processing units (GPUs) - aka a tool that creates images, animations and graphics...and displays them on a computer screen or gaming console (i.e. the Nintendo Switch).
What happened: With a US$822 billion market cap, they are America's most valuable chip company. In fact, they raked in around US$7.1 billion in sales last quarter alone.
What else: While Nvidia's bread and butter comes from gaming, their CEO reckons the omniverse is the next big opportunity for graphics companies.
💡If the metaverse is a new virtual space where people can meet up...the omniverse is exactly the same as the world we live in, but just in a digital format.
💡Nvidia's Omniverse is already being used by BMW to build factories by simulating their manufacturing plants (kinda like a 'digital twin').
💡With 40 million creators and designers around the world...Nvidia reckons there's an untapped US$40 billion market out there. Kaching!
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