Zoom is worth billions more than Pinterest as both go public — even though it's half the size - CNBC

When it comes to emerging tech companies, investors are clearly rewarding growth and profitability above all else.

Videoconferencing company Zoom and social media site Pinterest both debuted on the public markets today and immediately rallied from their IPO prices. But Zoom went up significantly more, giving it an early valuation of $16.7 billion, topping Pinterest's market capitalization of nearly $13 billion.

That's a surprising development considering that Zoom is less than half the size of Pinterest, based on the latest full year of sales. Zoom reported revenue of $330.5 million, while Pinterest generated sales of $755.9 million. Pinterest generates revenue by selling ads, while Zoom sells its videoconferencing software to businesses, including 344 that spend over $100,000 a year.

Pinterest also has the much better-known brand, with 265 million monthly active users posting and looking at recipes, vacation pictures and photos of shoe collections.

But Zoom is growing faster: Sales grew 118% between the last two fiscal years, while Pinterest grew 60%.

Zoom is also profitable. It recorded $7.6 million in net income, while Pinterest had a net loss of $63 million.

"Zoom is that most unusual beast, which is a profitable IPO coming out of the tech sector," said Roger McNamee, co-founder of investment firm Elevation Partners on CNBC on Thursday morning. "From a stock market point of view, that's the one I find really compelling."

By creating a product that's spread rapidly in the corporate world without having to spend a ton on marketing, and by keeping development costs relatively low with a big development team in China, Zoom has reached profitability much faster than most tech companies.

Zoom also raised money at a much more measured pace than Pinterest and other high-profile tech start-ups such as Uber, Lyft and Slack. According to Crunchbase, Zoom raised $160 million as a private company while Pinterest raised about $1.5 billion.

That's allowed founder Eric Yuan to keep ownership of about 20 percent of the company.

By contrast, Pinterest co-founder and CEO Ben Silbermann owns 11 percent of that company, and Evan Sharp, the other co-founder, controls 2.1 percent.

WATCH: Opening Bell, April 18, 2019

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https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/18/zoom-is-worth-more-than-pinterest-after-their-ipos.html

2019-04-18 16:18:34Z
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T-Mobile is Now a Mobile Bank, Offers No Fees and 4.00% APY - Droid Life

T-Mobile has disrupted the mobile industry enough. Now it’s taking on the banking industry. Announced this week is T-Mobile Money, a mobile-focused banking solution for the US, a country that is managing its money more and more via mobile devices.

The Basics

What you need to know about T-Mobile Money is very straightforward. This is a checking account, managed with a smartphone app, where eligible T-Mobile customers can get 4.00% APY on account balances of up to $3,000. For every dollar over that, you’ll receive 1.00%. A lot of different banks carry different annual percentage yields, but considering the national average of just 0.06% APY, T-Mobile’s offer is very good if you’re someone who sits on their money.

Fees are the next big thing. According to T-Mobile, there are none, but there is fine print here. For example, there is no overdraft fee, unless you overdraft over $50 or don’t have a positive balance within 30 days of the initial overdraft. There is also no monthly fee associated with the checking account, no minimum account balance required, and there is a network of 55,000 no-fee ATMs available for access with a dedicated T-Mobile Money debit card.

Much like it does when comparing itself to wireless carriers, T-Mobile took plenty of time to compare its offering to the major US banks.

Another attractive aspect of T-Mobile Money is the customer support. As detailed, members have access to 24/7, 365 specialist support through the dedicated T-Mobile Money app. You never know when money issues will arise, so having that support line could always be beneficial.

Anyone can sign up for T-Mobile Money, but it appears that being a T-Mobile wireless customer will get you the best perks, such as the 4.00% APY. If you want to check out T-Mobile Money for yourself, download the app by following the link below.

Google Play Link | Apple App Store

// T-Mobile

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https://www.droid-life.com/2019/04/18/t-mobile-money-bank/

2019-04-18 16:01:00Z
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Sears sues former CEO, Eddie Lampert, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and others for 'thefts' of billions from bankrupt retailer - CNBC

Sears on Thursday lodged a lawsuit against its former CEO, Eddie Lampert, and a string its high-profile past board members, including his former Yale roommate Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, for allegedly stealing billions of dollars from the once storied retailer.

Sears Holdings filed for bankruptcy this past October, after years of losses under Lampert, who was then its chairman, CEO and largest shareholder. Lampert saved the retailer from complete liquidation by buying it through Transform Holdco, an affiliate of his hedge fund ESL Investments.

But Sears' unsecured creditors repeatedly argued that Lampert was the cause, not the mere solution to Sears' downfall. They believe that Lampert, along with Sears' biggest shareholders, unduly benefited from deals that occurred under Lampert's watch including: its spinoff of Lands' End in 2014, transactions with Seritage Growth Properties, a real estate investment trust Lampert created through some Sears' properties a year later.

Those allegations laid the groundwork for the unsecured creditors to pursue its claims against Lampert and other on behalf of Sears. Lampert had requested a release from potential ligation as part his deal to buy Sears out of bankruptcy, but was denied the protection.

"Altogether, Lampert caused more than $2 billion of assets to be transferred to himself and Sears' other shareholders and beyond the reach of Sears' creditors," the lawsuit alleged on Thursday.

It further alleged that, "In an effort to create a false record to cover up their asset stripping, at Lampert's personal direction, Sears employees repeatedly produced financial plans reflecting fanciful, bad-faith predictions that the company would experience an immediate and dramatic turn-around from deep and mounting losses to sudden profitability."

The suit names numerous defendants besides Lampert and Mnuchin, including two high-profile directors Bruce Berkowitz, a hedge fund manger who was a large investor in Sears, and Kunal Kamlani, president of ESL.

"ESL Investments, Inc. vigorously disputes the claims in the debtors' complaint against ESL, Mr. Lampert and Mr. Kamlani, which repeats baseless allegations and fanciful claims. As we have previously said, the debtors' allegations are misleading or just flat wrong," a spokesman from ESL said.

Mnuchin, who resigned from the Sears board when he was nominated to head Treasury, wasn't immediately available to comment.

"Fairholme is in the process of reviewing the filings," said a spokesman for Berkowitz's hedge fund, Fairholme Capital Management.

Berkowitz took his own swing at Lampert's management of Sears last year, when a lawyer for Fairholme told the bankruptcy court that Sears was "not so much a melting ice cube as it is a puddle." He called the retailer's tumble from grace a "multi-year liquidation" that happened "without court supervision."

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https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/18/sears-sues-eddie-lampert-steven-mnuchin-others-for-alleged-thefts.html

2019-04-18 15:56:27Z
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Zoom begins its first day of trading at $65, surging 80% - CNBC

Videoconferencing software company Zoom made its debut Thursday on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol "ZM," and surged 80% to $65.

The initial pop gives Zoom a stock market value of $16.7 billion. Zoom is among a growing crop of tech companies going public in 2019, but with a twist: it's profitable.

After filing to go public on March 22, Zoom estimated two weeks later that it would price shares in the range of $28 to $32. Zoom increased the range to between $32 and $35 this week, and on Wednesday it priced above the top of that range, valuing the company at $9.2 billion.

Zoom raised $356.8 million after selling 9.91 million shares in the IPO. Existing shareholders, including Emergence Capital, Sequoia and CEO Eric Yuan, sold another 11 million shares.

The IPO market is picking up, with Lyft and PagerDuty debuting in recent weeks, and Pinterest opening alongside Zoom on Thursday. Uber released its IPO filing earlier this month, while Postmates and Slack have confidentially filed.

Typically at the time these companies hit the market they're still burning significant amounts of cash. Zoom is an exception, in that it earned $7.58 million in net income last year. Revenue surged 118% to $330.5.

"We are impressed with Zoom's rapid growth while generating both cash and GAAP profitability, and enterprise traction," Rishi Jaluria, an analyst at D.A. Davidson, wrote in a note March 25. "Furthermore, our due diligence suggests Zoom is gaining mindshare and could become the de facto standard for videoconferencing."

At its opening price, Zoom is valued at about 50 times its enterprise value, which is by far the highest multiple for U.S. software companies. Zscaler, a security software company, has an enterprise value to sales ratio of 30, according to FactSet.

WATCH: Study finds IPO first day returns don't predict long run returns

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https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/18/zoom-ipo-stock-begins-trading-on-nasdaq.html

2019-04-18 15:25:45Z
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Shares for another company called Zoom are flying, but some might be trading the wrong stock - CNBC

Shares of Zoom are in high demand on Thursday morning but there's one problem: It appears to be a case of mistaken identity.

Zoom Technologies (ticker ZOOM) is not the company Zoom Video Communications (ticker ZM) that began publicly trading on the Nasdaq on Thursday.

Rather, Zoom Technologies is a tiny Chinese wireless communications company that "does not have significant operations," according to its profile on Yahoo. But within two hours of trading, shares of ZOOM surged more than 80%, with trading volume that was quadruple the amount of shares that change hands on the average day.

Zoom Technologies also has a market value of just $14 million and began 2019 trading at $0.01 a share. Hitting a high of $5.50 a share in midday trading, the stock is up more than 47,000% so far this year.

Shares of ZM had yet to begin trading. But Zoom Video Communications stock is in high demand, as Nasdaq indicated the stock is set to IPO at about $62 a share – nearly double the $36 a share the company priced at on Wednesday.

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https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/18/investors-appear-to-trade-wrong-zoom-company-shares-before-ipo.html

2019-04-18 15:19:51Z
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Pinterest: Priced For Failure - Pinterest, Inc. (NYSE:PINS) - Seeking Alpha

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1. Pinterest: Priced For Failure - Pinterest, Inc. (NYSE:PINS)  Seeking Alpha
2. Pinterest and Zoom make their public debut: Morning Brief  Yahoo Finance
3. Pinterest prices IPO at $19, valuing social media company at $10 billion  CNBC
4. Pinterest IPO priced at $19 per share  CNN
5. Pinterest and Zoom IPOs: Here's how to avoid another Lyft disaster  Yahoo Finance
6. View full coverage on Google News

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4255183-pinterest-priced-failure

2019-04-18 13:35:00Z
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Amazon will no longer sell Chinese goods in China - CNN

It will close its marketplace in China in the coming months, meaning Amazon customers in the country will no longer be able to buy goods from Chinese merchants.

Amazon (AMZN) did not explain why it was withdrawing its marketplace service, saying only it will instead focus on selling goods shipped from other countries into China.

"We are notifying sellers we will no longer operate a marketplace on Amazon.cn, and we will no longer be providing seller services on Amazon.cn effective July 18," the company said in a statement.

Amazon's platform competes for Chinese sellers with Tmall, owned by the country's e-commerce leader Alibaba (BABA).

Amazon first entered the Chinese market 15 years ago, when it acquired an online book retailer, but it has struggled amid fierce competition. Research suggests that the company's market share in China was miniscule compared to local rivals.

China's online retail market is huge, notching up about $2 trillion in sales annually, according to research firmer eMarketer. The US market is worth just over one quarter of that.

The Chinese market is dominated by Alibaba, which accounts for more than half of all transactions, and local rival JD.com (JD), eMarketer data shows.

"There is too much domestic competition and Amazon lacks the kind of brand awareness that Tmall or JD.com have," said Ben Cavender, an analyst at China Market Research Group. "That leaves Amazon in a position where it has to spend a lot of money to acquire customers while also competing aggressively with multiple strong players on price."

Singles Day, Alibaba's annual online spending blitz, regularly racks up bigger sales than Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.

Users logging onto Amazon's Chinese site after July 18 will see products sold from its global store, the company said.

"Over the past few years, we have been evolving our China online retail business to increasingly emphasize cross-border sales, and in return we've seen very strong response from Chinese customers," Amazon said.

It will retain its other operations in China, such as cloud computing services. It will also continue to sell its Kindle e-readers and content in the country.

"Amazon's commitment to China remains strong. We have built a solid foundation here in a number of successful businesses and we will continue to invest and grow in China," the company added.

Michelle Toh contributed to this report.

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https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/18/tech/amazon-closes-china/index.html

2019-04-18 14:13:00Z
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