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SODIC is being courted MENA
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The UAE is ready to make some big real estate moves. A consortium led by property giant Aldar and holding company ADQ has made a tender offer of $1.27 per share to buy control of Egypt's property developer SODIC. The consortium, which is owned 70% by Aldar and 30% by ADQ, seeks a minimum of 51% of SODIC (OCDI) — valuing the company at $453m. After the interest was made public, SODIC's shares jumped 3.67% on the Egyptian Exchange.
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SODIC is one of Egypt's leading real estate agencies, having delivered 120 units in the first quarter of 2021 and having reported a $54m revenue — up 60% from the first quarter of 2020. A new residential project in West Cairo generated 35% of the quarter's sales, accounting for 52 sold units. The company is mainly focused on residential real estate, with non-residential projects accounting for only 3% of the company's gross contracted sales in 2020 — so if you're looking for office space in Cairo, probably don't ask SODIC.
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Why it matters
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Egypt's real estate market is hot. The new urban expansion sponsored by Egypt Vision 2030 will open up new opportunities.
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Introducing the McPlant INTL
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Feeling like having a midnight snack, but you have vegan friends over? No worries, McDonald (MCD) has got your back, or at least if you're living in the UK and Ireland, for now. You see, the world's largest fast-food chain will begin rolling out the McPlant burger after having previously run vegetarian versions of the patty as a trial back in 2020.
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The meat-free, all-vegan patty was the result of a strategic global agreement with Beyond Meat (BYND), in which the company will become McDonald's preferred supplier for the McPlant burger. The two companies also agreed to explore new plant-based options that will enrich McDonald's broader McPlant platform. By partnering up with McDonald's, Beyond Meat has avoided a potential competitor in the meat-free industry, while also dipping its feet in the fast-food industry. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, right?
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Why it matters
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McDonald's is just the latest fast-food chain adding meat-free options to their menu. Burger King (BURGERKING) has recently signed a partnership deal with Unilever's (ULVR) subsidiary The Vegetarian Butcher for their Rebel Whopper burgers and with Impossible Foods for their Impossible Burger 2.0. Meanwhile, KFC partnered with Meat Zero to supply their vegan fried chicken.
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Visa wants none of privacy finger-pointing INTL
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We live in a world where personal data is considered to be the liquid gold of the 21st century. It thus sounded pretty odd when Visa (V) announced that it's bringing down the shutters on its business that sells personal data. You see, Visa Ad Solutions has been giving advertisers access to Visa's massive customer base since 2015. Through its partnership with Oracle Data Cloud, the data could recommend the parameters for ad campaigns targeted at specific customer segments.
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Visa has provided no explanation for shutting down Ad Solutions, with the company's spokesperson simply stating that other data-driven services will be explored instead. This leads us to think that Visa won't be completely doing away with selling personal data anytime soon.
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Why it matters
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Visa's closure of Ad Solutions is good news for Mastercard (MA) and American Express (AXP). The two competitors hold similar data business companies and could benefit from a surge of clients looking for a new place to buy personal data.
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Alipay, not you too! INTL
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Would the sun be rising in the morning if we didn't talk about China's crackdown on tech companies? Well, to avoid taking any risks, let's cover China's plans to break up Ant Group's Alipay. If you've been reading our newsletter, you probably know by now that China is on an ultimate quest to fight tech monopolies and regulate data security protection.
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Jack Ma's Alipay will be forced to create a separate independent app for its loans business. This new app will be controlled by a new credit scoring joint venture with the Chinese government, which will be able to access all of Alipay's user data regarding loans. After the news came out, Ant Group's e-commerce affiliate Alibaba lost more than 4% on the Hong Kong Exchange.
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This is not the first time that Chinese regulators have targeted Jack Ma's empire. Last May, Alibaba had to pay $2.8b to settle an investigation into anti-competitive practices, while back in 2020, Ant Group was forced to step down from a $34.5b IPO.
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Why it matters
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Though this news was all about Alipay, other tech companies suffered as well, with Tencent dropping 2.45% and Meituan falling 4.47%. The tech-heavy index Hang Seng lost more than 2%.
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Cheerio, Palantir INTL
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The UK government is retracing its steps on a data-sharing agreement with the US tech firm Palantir (PLTR). Following criticism from privacy groups about a lack of transparency, the Department of Health and Social Care was forced to end its contract with Palantir and switch to a new system called Edge. The lack of transparency regarded how contracts were awarded to Palantir and how the US data giant handled personal information.
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The NHS allowed Palantir to access sensitive data of patients, even though the agreement stated that all personal information should have been either stripped of personal identifiers or aggregated before being shared with the US company.
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Why it matters
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The UK government has been under severe scrutiny for violating EU's GDPR laws during the Covid-19 pandemic. On a parliamentary hearing on Wednesday, former senior government advisor Dominic Cummings admitted to ignoring EU data protection laws to better coordinate the country's response to the virus. We may see other cases similar to Palantir going forward.
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