Twitter Sells Mobile Ad Platform

Twitter just sold MoPub, its mobile ad platform, to a game maker/marketing software provider called AppLovin. MoPub sold for $1.05 billion in cash. 🤑

As Twitter seeks to revamp other areas of its business, the company announced its decision to sell MoPub in October 2021 after the platform unveiled its lofty plan to double its revenue in 2 years. Twitter’s GM of Revenue Products, Bruce Falck, shared: 

With the sale of MoPub completed, we continue to concentrate our efforts on enhancing ads across our platform. Our goal is to deliver faster growth in key areas and accelerate our product development.” 

MoPub brought Twitter $188 million in revenue in 2020, but the platform has since decided to focus on the expansion of its communities and subscription services instead. $TWTR closed down 1.3%. 

Justice Department Targets UnitedHealth

With the upcoming presidential election looming, the current administration is itching to accomplish more before a potential shakeup. While antitrust regulators have had a field day with big tech, airlines, grocery chains, and others this year, they’re taking another look at UnitedHealth, especially given its recent cybersecurity issues. 🕵️‍♂️

The Justice Department is poking around to figure out the relationship between the company’s UnitedHealthcare insurance unit and its Optum health-services division. They’ve asked how UnitedHealth’s acquisitions of doctor groups might affect competitors and consumers. 🤔

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Boeing Loses Altitude (Again)

If you’re an investor in airlines or airplane manufacturers, this is not the type of headline you want to wake up to. Unfortunately for Boeing and several others, the news is not great. So let’s dig into it. 👇

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Peloton’s New Partnership

With Peloton’s turnaround strategy not yet bearing the fruit it had anticipated, the company continues to lean on partnerships to grow market share. For example, in September, the company entered a 5-year strategic partnership with Lulemon to bring its content to the athleisure brand’s exercise app. It also made Lululemon Peloton’s primary athletic apparel partner. 👟

It’s still too early to tell whether or not that cooperative effort is working, but management seems to think further initiatives like it will help boost revenues. As a result, it’s partnering with TikTok to bring short-form fitness videos and other content to the social media platform.

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Investors Are Losing Trust

It’s been a rough eighteen months or so for real estate investment trusts (REITs), with higher interest rates giving investors alternative sources of yield and pressuring commercial real estate’s asset values. Unfortunately for Medical Properties Trust (MPT), that pain continues today, with its shares falling back to their Great-Financial-Crisis lows. 😬

The medical-related real estate property operator revealed to investors that one of its tenants, Steward Health Care System, is roughly $50 million behind in rent payments. As a result, MPT will take a $225 million noncash charge to write off rent receivables and other items. 

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