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Capri Holdings (CPRI) tumbles after judge blocks $8.5B sale to Tapestry (TPR). (00:24) Spirit Airlines (SAVE) to sell Airbus planes, cut jobs to boost liquidity. (01:27) Ioneer (IONR) wins Biden administration’s first approval for U.S. lithium mine. (02:23)
This is an abridged transcript of the podcast.
Capri Holdings (NYSE:CPRI) is down 45% in premarket action after a federal judge blocked its $8.5 billion planned sale to Tapestry (TPR). Shares of Tapestry are up 13% premarket.
US District Judge Jennifer Rochon put the deal on ice after saying that it would be anticompetitive, according to a court filing on Thursday. The judge granted the Federal Trade Commission’s motion for a preliminary injunction to block the combination.
The FTC sued to block the handbag deal in April, saying the combination would eliminate competition between Coach, Kate Spade, and Michael Kors, specifically in the market for “accessible luxury.” Tapestry (TPR) and Capri (CPRI) argued that the FTC’s market definition of “accessible luxury” is not a relevant market and that the handbag retailers compete with hundreds of other handbag makers and new entrants all the time.
Tapestry (TPR) plans to appeal the decision, the company said in a statement.
Representatives for Capri didn’t immediately respond to Seeking Alpha email requests for comment.
Spirit Airlines (NYSE:SAVE) disclosed plans to sell 23 Airbus planes, scale back flight capacity and cut jobs to boost liquidity.
Spirit is up 13% premarket after closing 21% lower on Thursday.
The airline plans to sell 23 A320ceo/A321ceo planes to aviation aftermarket services provider GA Telesis for about $519M. The jets are planned for delivery starting this month through February 2025.
Spirit (SAVE) expects the sale proceeds, combined with discharging the aircraft-related debt from its balance sheet, will benefit its liquidity by around $225M through year-end 2025.
Spirit (SAVE) also identified around $80M of annualized cost cuts it will begin implementing in early 2025, driven primarily by layoffs commensurate with expected flight volume.
Ioneer (NASDAQ:IONR) closed +17% in Thursday’s trading after saying it received final federal approval for its Rhyolite Ridge lithium-boron project in Nevada from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
This is part of the Biden administration’s attempt to boost domestic production of minerals seen as critical for electric vehicle batteries.
Ioneer (IONR) said Rhyolite Ridge will be the first U.S. lithium project approved by the Biden administration, and the project is planned to supply batteries for more than 370K U.S.-made electric vehicles annually.
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Catalyst watch:
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The two-day DareTable event will begin in New York City. Analysts have pointed to Asana (ASAN), Monday.com (MNDY), and Atlassian (TEAM) as companies that could generate some buzz.
Now let’s take a look at the markets as of 6 am. Ahead of the opening bell today, Dow, S&P and Nasdaq futures are in mixed territory. Crude oil is up 2% at $72/barrel. Bitcoin is up 0.5% at $66,000.
In the world markets, the FTSE 100 is up 0.6% and the DAX is up 0.5%.
The biggest movers for the day premarket: Seadrill (SDRL) shares surged 12% following reports of ongoing discussions with Transocean (RIG) about a potential merger.
On today’s economic calendar: