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Bloomberg Host
You.
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Bloomberg Host
Little M& a trait today here. Not so little for the seller here, but where? Amazon Amazon, which doesn't do a lot of acquisitions, they agreed to acquire satellite operator Global Star in a roughly $11.6 billion deal to boost its satellite operation. Okay, Michelle Davis, she's got the details. Senior deals reporter for Bloomberg News here. Michelle, what's Amazon up to these days?
Michelle Davis
You know this deal is all about basically, you know there's a massive rate to race to dominate space based connectivity. All the tech giants are trying to do it. SpaceX is obviously the leader. Amazon also has a big ambition to be a leader in satellites and this Deal is all about spectrum. Global Star has really valuable spectrum, which is, think of it as real estate. That's a scarce asset. Whoever got it first was able to sell it later on. And that's how Global Star ended up being able to sell this to Amazon. And not only are they getting spectrum with this deal, they're also getting infrastructure on the ground and a massive customer in Apple. Apple's one of Global Star's big customers. As part of the deal, Amazon was able to negotiate basically keeping Apple on board. Apple will be using its services to provide emergency services. If you're out hiking and there's no cell service, you can use satellites to call 911 or people can find you on Find My Friends basically.
Paul
Is there reason to think that anyone would raise their hand and object to this deal? Would regulators get in the way?
Michelle Davis
It's a good question. We've seen regulators be pretty open to these spectrum deals. I mean the reg themselves are the ones who auction off Spectrum when it is kind of available in the open market. But in a deal like this where, you know, Global Star was the owner of it, of course, you know, they get to be the, the ultimate decider of who buys it. And because Amazon isn't the big leader in this space, you know, it doesn't seem like it'd be an issue but, but you never know. I think what's interesting about but all of this is while this does kind of help Amazon accelerate its ambitions to be a big leader in satellite SpaceX, still, you know, light years ahead of it, has way more satellites in orbit. Amazon hasn't been able to launch as many as as Space X. So that will be something else that it has to do.
Paul
And Paul, I was just noticing that Global Star CEO is Paul Jacobs, the former CEO of Qualcomm.
Bloomberg Host
Ah, very good. Okay. So I mean Amazon does have this low earth orbit satellite network. Amazon Leo, Exactly. But I don't hear much about that.
Michelle Davis
It's not really in use yet. They're still kind of literally getting it off the ground. And they're hoping that by 2028, especially after this deal, they will be able to launch a direct to device service, which is like having a cell phone tower up in space. And it basically means consumers companies would be able to get voice, text data without having to use a cell tower, but by using their satellite.
Paul
Paul, you had mentioned that Amazon does not make a lot of big deals. If you go to the BUP function on the Bloomberg terminal, it shows you the buyer profile. And the biggest deal is that Amazon has made direct M and A Whole Foods was back in 2017 for $13.6 billion. Global Star, of course, what we're reporting on today and MGM holdings, the library for 10.2 billion, that was back in 2021. Otherwise Amazon kind of builds it itself and we'll see how things shake out before it decides whether to.
Bloomberg Host
I know this one.
Paul
Yeah, you could sort by recent and by largest.
Bloomberg Host
Cool. So what's Amazon saying is their strategy here? I mean, are they going to invest in this business?
Michelle Davis
Yeah, I mean what they're really saying is that this, you know, is part of their vision to provide connectivity to people and be a leader on earth. Connecting people, you know, through groceries and deliveries and now, you know, voice, text and data.
Bloomberg Host
And this is separate from Jeff Bezos own little rocket.
Paul
Yeah, well that's why Michelle said on Earth because at some point it's going to expand to in space as well. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
Coinshares Narrator
For years the conversation around Bitcoin was the same. Is it real and does it belong in a portfolio? While others debated, Coinshares got to work. In 2015, they launched the world's first Bitcoin EDP, regulated, listed and built for institutional investors long before the US market caught up. Today they manage over $6 billion in assets and have remained profitable through every market cycle, including the 2022 downturn. What sets them apart? They're not a crypto exchange chasing trading fees, not a company betting its balance sheet on bitcoin, not a mining operation. Coinshares is an asset manager with recurring fees, a fixed cost base and a business model you can actually model now listed on NASDAQ under ticker CSHR. Learn more at coinsharesipo.com.
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Paul
Let's talk about another group that obviously is affected directly by the surge in oil prices and that is the airline sector. There's a really interesting story today, Paul, about the United CEO pitching President Trump about a possible combination with American. That, that kind of just struck me as bananas because it would create a behemoth.
Bloomberg Host
Yep. And they didn't let smaller airlines get together. I'm not sure why they let these big ones get together.
Paul
All right, so let's bring in Sid Philippe. He's our chief correspondent for Global Aviation. Sid, I mean, as Paul pointed out, they didn't let JetBlue and Spirit get together. Why would someone okay, a United American Airlines combination?
Sid Philippe
So, Scarlett, this is obviously a story that we sort of heard from multiple sources. And I think the airlines are looking to test the administration on how willing they would be to approve of deals. I mean, the last administration was pretty clear that they did not see consolidation as sort of beneficial to customers, but they sort of, Trump administration's been more business friendly. And so United Airlines has sort of floated this idea to the precedent in terms of merging with American Airlines. I mean, it would create the largest airline on the planet and it still wouldn't be, I mean, they still only have a third of the US Market share combined. So it's not quite, this would sort of dominate the market. I mean, it, it would because I mean, they would have all the important routes like Dallas and Chicago where United and American control a large chunk of the market, but in other places like we've seen other airlines as well. So it does look like it's unlikely to go through because, I mean, this would be opposed by all the airlines who are not part of it. It would be opposed by consumer rights activists and may also sort of not find favor with the legislators. And so we just have to see how this will go through.
Bloomberg Host
Do we have any feeling from the regulators in the past? Because again, as Scarlett mentioned, all we kind of know is, is observers is that they didn't want, they didn't let too little itty bitty airlines get together. How would this happen?
Sid Philippe
So we still, we're still looking on, we're still waiting to see any sort of commentary from it. I mean, the sort of. The most direct commentary we've heard was from Sean Duffy, the Transportation Secretary, when he spoke last week and told cnn, the cnbc, that the president likes big deals and he would any sort of. And when asked about a specific large merger, he said that they may have to shed assets. And so that's the only thing we've really heard. But in terms of whether or not this administration will be willing to sign off on such a big deal, that's still to be seen.
Paul
Okay, so there's a bit of a backstory here in that United CEO Scott Kirby was the one who said that this is something he kind of floated and he has a history with American Airlines. So it didn't come from out of nowhere.
Sid Philippe
Absolutely. I mean, this is also personal for Scott Kirby because Scott Kirby was previously the president of American Airlines, and He left in 2016 when it became clear that he wasn't going to be CEO of American Airlines. And then he sort of joined the United Airlines and he rose to the top job. And that's really his sort of backstory. And so American and United have been sort of always been up one upping each other. I mean, at the most recent is that they've been battling in Chicago over gates and market share. And then the FAA had to come in and sort of restrict flights because there's too many airlines adding flights in Chicago and the airport can't actually handle those.
Bloomberg Host
So what does it mean for. I mean, I'm looking at JetBlue, that stock's up 11% today. Are people in the industry saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, people could talk about it. United and American. How about everybody else getting together?
Sid Philippe
Absolutely. I mean, the fact that this deals out there, it also sort of opens the doors for other combinations. I mean, especially at times of crisis for the airline industry, mergers and acquisitions tend to happen. I mean, we saw that in the aftermath the 2008 financial crisis. And for the airline industry at the moment, this sort of surge in oil prices is a massive blow because there's only a limit as to how much a consumer will be willing to pay before they sort of say, okay, we'll hold off on travel this summer. And for the airlines, fuel is the biggest sort of single biggest cost, aside from staff costs. And so they have to sort of figure out how they can actually make money on with fuel being where it's at. And that sort of time when typically consolidation happens, where weaker players tend to get snapped up by the more sort of robust financially. Financially robust ones stay with us More
Bloomberg Host
from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
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Bloomberg Host
I'm not into the EV thing yet. I did get one hybrid for the number four offspring and that's who's in California.
Paul
So that's the context here.
Bloomberg Host
$6 gas. So one of the EV companies I kind of forget about, it's just me is Lucid group they make because you're
Paul
not a Timothee Chalamet fan.
Bloomberg Host
Oh, is that it?
Paul
Yeah, he's the global brand ambassador.
Bloomberg Host
All right. The stocks, you know, got $2.9 billion valuation, down 16% this year, down 65% over the trailing 12 months. But they have some news out today. They're going to new CEO and now it's $750 million of fresh investment from two big backers here. So let's see what's going on with Lucid Ticker. LCID is the Bloomberg Ticker. Craig Trudeau, Global Autos Editor for Bloomberg News. He joins from London. Craig, what's Lucid doing here to try to turn things around.
Craig Trudeau
We knew it was going to be a busy morning for them. It was an even busier morning than we anticipated. We spoke with Silvio Napoli, the former head Schindler holding, holding of elevator and you know, moving walkway fame. He's going to take over as CEO. The, the person who's been filling that seat for over a year now on an interim basis, Mark Winterhoff, he will return to the role of CEO. He took over, you know, from, from the CEO who actually kind of took this company public. I think, you know, Lucid, in addition to, you know, you mentioned the, you know, commitment as the Saudi public investment fund and Uber, the other news here was as part of this capital raising which they're doing some, some raising beyond just from the piff and Uber is releasing some preliminary earnings which did not look great. So this is a company that has really been, been struggling to execute, make some really appealing and interesting electric vehicles, but has really struggled to make them in higher volumes and doing so in profitable or remotely profitable. You know, I think in short, Napoli has his work cut out for him.
Paul
I mean, is Lucid's goal to be a mass market EV company? From what I can find, it doesn't deliver a lot of cars. In 2024, for instance, it delivered more than 10,000 vehicles. But I mean that's nothing compared to something like Tesla.
Craig Trudeau
Yeah, it's a fraction, you know, and I do think it's been a case where the company has been sort of feeling around what exactly its play is. I think, you know, for a time they were trying to go lower volume, higher, higher prices and you know, kind of casting themselves as a premium player. But later this year they will start production of a midsize vehicle where they've, they flagged the rough pricing of that being around $50,000. So that would put them more at least closer to the sort of mass market where you see, you know, like a Model Y, you can get, you know, price in that range. So, you know, this is a company that has, has tried to compete with like the Mercedes and the Porsches of the that really difficult and they are doing a bit of pivoting how much that has been a sort of like change in plan versus the plan all along is a little bit unclear and is kind of dependent on who you ask. I think the CEO who was replaced about a year ago would have preferred they stayed premium. And I think they've, they've changed tack a little bit under the new regime.
Paul
So right now the Lucid's big thing, of course, is this partnership with Uber. And this was first announced in July where Uber said it would buy at least 20,000 Lucid Gravity SUVs. That new vehicle you were talking about, has this partnership with Uber amounted to anything just yet? I mean, is it getting its name out there?
Craig Trudeau
Yeah, I think it's going to be really interesting to see if that, you know, is able to get off the ground. They have a third party that's involved in that partnership, a company called Neuro that itself was working on delivery robots and has pivoted to getting into autonomous vehicles and trying to compete with the likes of Waymo. You know, this is still very much in the sort of prototyping and testing phase and we've not seen them actually launch vehicles. But I'm endlessly fascinated by just how much money Uber is throwing at trying to kind of, you know, have its own fleet of self driving vehicles and, and have, you know, some competition for Waymo. Even as it partners with Waymo, there's a lot of experimenting and playing around with business models in this space. And we are still. So for all the headlines we read about, you know, new cities that Waymo is entering, they still have just a few thousand cars out on US roads across the various cities where they have deployed. And so this is really, really early innings, even if people are increasingly having their first experiences with getting into a fully driverless car.
Bloomberg Host
Craig, what's the, what's the latest with Tesla? And it's bringing in a lower priced model?
Craig Trudeau
Yeah, that was, there was an interesting report out of Reuters about maybe they're dipping their toe back to making a vehicle price below the Model 3 and the Model Y. We saw Tesla China representatives deny that that report. But what made that so fascinating is it's, it's speaking of sort of, you know, changes in strategy by companies, you know, I think Elon Musk has sort of, you know, minced no words about, in his words, it being stupid for, for Tesla to sort of bring cars to market that are lower price. You know, because in his mind, you know, you know, every day is, is, you know, going to be the day that Tesla sort of flips a switch and is able to render its cars capable of driving themselves. I think regulators are extremely skeptical of that in part because, you know, those days keep coming and going without that capability, really being ready to where, you know, people behind the wheel can actually tune out and not pay attention to the system that Tesla sells. Full self driving, which just has not lived up to the name yet.
Coinshares Narrator
Yeah.
Paul
I mean, there's two components to that, right? The fact that a switch could be flipped on that and whether regulators would allow it technologically, whether we're there yet and whether the regulators have given that the okay. Do consumers want that?
Craig Trudeau
That. And that's a great question too. I think, you know, some consumers, absolutely. And you know, you will see Tesla super fans, many of whom happen to be investors, you know, sharing, you know, indications of progress where you they are fond of taping their drives, where things go well. And, and yet the questions that you sort of naturally, you know, raise are how sort of choosy are they being about what clips they show and don't show. And you still continue to see incidents where, you know, Teslas that aren't being supervised are getting into really troubling crashes.
Paul
Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
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Paul
us live on YouTube, it is earnings season. The big banks began reporting yesterday with Goldman Sachs kicking things off, which is kind of unusual because it's usually not the first bank to report. Yep, that would be J.P. morgan, J.P. morgan, Citigroup and Wells Fargo reported today. So four out of six big banks have reported. Herman Chan of course is our senior bank analyst here at Bloomberg Intelligence and of course we needed to bring him in. Is it as simple as to say that the volatility in the markets is just unidirectionally good news for these big banks?
Herman Chan
It is, at least for the ones that reported today. So JP Morgan Citi posted really strong results on trading equities and on the fixed income side. I would contrast that a bit with what Goldman did yesterday where they disappointed a bit on the fixed income side of the trading house that was driven by areas like rates and mortgage which seemed like they were not positioned correctly with the volatility that happened in March.
Bloomberg Host
What happened or what's going on with Wells Fargo?
Herman Chan
Yeah, Wells Fargo, it's interesting story. They reported really strong earnings from a EPS standpoint but the disappointment came from the net interest margin. It was down 13 basis points Quarter over quarter. Management talked about some areas that were driving that growth in some lower yielding markets. Businesses that they're intentionally growing due to the fact that they think that will bring along business in other areas like trading and the prime brokerage business. So it's sort of like build it and they will come type action going on and they expect some further compression in the second quarter which is driving some of the weaker market sentiment that we're seeing today.
Paul
Wells Fargo had its asset cap lifted by the Federal Reserve which means that it can now get bigger. So do we expect to, you know, some more spending, some, you know, tighter margins for the foreseeable future as it tries to really build on its assets?
Herman Chan
Yeah, you see the assets growing really quickly. They're probably going to be the the fastest growing G sib bank that we cover. The largest banks that we cover in terms of loan growth that's about 5%
Paul
quarter of make up a lot of lost ground.
Herman Chan
It does, it has to make up a lot of lost ground and they're sort of growing the the balance sheet to hope to help offset some of the margin compression that I mentioned earlier. But that also portends a higher cost in areas like advertising and headcount growth potentially over time. But definitely you're seeing it in the advertising spend.
Bloomberg Host
Are the banks in general, are they lending money these days? How's loan origination look?
Herman Chan
Yeah, they are in pockets. Right. So there's not a lot of growth in areas like mortgage because of the rate environment. Card is seasonally softer this quarter, but it was strong last quarter given the holiday season. A lot of the growth is areas like lending to non bank financial institutions. That's been the rage in the industry. Lending to these private credit firms that are in the news. Lending to areas like venture capital and mortgage companies. So it's a bit of a mixed bag in terms of where the loan growth is coming from.
Paul
We talk a lot about a K shaped economy where the upper leg of the K is doing very well. The wealthy are getting wealthier, the less wealthy, the, the ones that are really struggling through this are suffering more. Are banks actively using that as their strategy as well? I'm wondering if the services that they're offering, the areas they're choosing to grow are. Is pursuing that higher end of that
Herman Chan
K. Yeah, that's right. That's been a trend over time where, where the largest banks are really focused on that prime customer. So there's not a lending activity towards the bottom half of the K shape, but there is deposit activity on that front. Right. So Wells Fargo mentioned that the higher gasoline prices is increasing the spend on energy by about 1 percentage point over a quarter. And that can change over time. They're not seeing any changes in the non discretionary spend. That happens gradually. And if we do see these persistent higher energy costs, that could change as we. Well, all right.
Bloomberg Host
My good friends over at Citi, the worst elevators on global Wall street, my former employer.
Paul
Worst elevators.
Bloomberg Host
Yeah, there's, there's two stacked on each other. Have you ever been one of those things? So you. It. Sometimes it stops on your floor, sometimes it doesn't. Oh, you're not really sure why. And it. I was there for like three or four years. I still didn't figure it out.
Herman Chan
So I'm a former city employee as well. I remember 388Greenwich. You just had to wait forever for those elevators.
Paul
There probably is several subreddits devoted to this.
Bloomberg Host
Oh yeah, there is. They've turned the corner. It looks like they. We can give Jane Frazier, you know, I mean, a pat on the back, right?
Herman Chan
Yeah, yeah. You're seeing that across the board in their first quarter reporting where they're showing really strong revenue growth throughout their businesses services, which is their primary crown jewel, the trading business and markets, banking, US cards. Everything's been going really well. And you can see that in their return on tangible equity profitability metric, which was 13.1% they're targeting something about 10 or 11% for the year, so already cleared that at least in the first quarter. And they alluded to the fact that in their upcoming investor day next month that they'll, they'll increase their targets for, for profitability as well. So strong momentum there. It's going to get better.
Paul
It's going to get better. And of course there's a lot of excitement about what Jane Frazier has been able to do because she streamlined this company down and really deleted all these extra management layers. She made it slimmer does that. And of course, this being banking, the next question is is she going to make it bigger? Is she going to buy something else?
Bloomberg Host
Right.
Herman Chan
That was a question on the call today. It was one of the first questions from the analysts because, and the analyst was referring to a Bloomberg News article saying that Citigroup might be interested in buying a large regional bank here in the US to improve their deposit funding base. Jane was unequivocal saying that they're not interested in doing any deals. They're really focused on organic growth in order to avoid any sort of distractions that come from a merger. So we'll take her by her word and looking forward to seeing more improvements in the franchise over the next coming quarters.
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Episode: Amazon to Buy Satellite Operator Globalstar for $90 a Share
Date: April 14, 2026
Hosts: Paul Sweeney & Scarlet Fu
This episode centers on Amazon’s high-profile acquisition of satellite operator Globalstar for $11.6 billion and what it means for the race to dominate space-based connectivity. The conversation expands to regulatory concerns around the deal, Amazon’s broader M&A history, and strategic ambitions in space. The episode further explores major happenings in aviation, the electric vehicle (EV) sector, and bank earnings, offering a multifaceted look at current investment news and trends on Wall Street.
(02:20 – 06:17)
The Deal:
Strategic Rationale:
Market and Regulatory Landscape:
Future Plans:
Amazon’s M&A History:
(08:47 – 13:20)
Potential United and American Airlines Merger:
Industry Impact:
“For the airline industry at the moment, this sort of surge in oil prices is a massive blow because there's only a limit as to how much a consumer will be willing to pay before they sort of say, okay, we'll hold off on travel this summer.” — Sid Philippe, Chief Correspondent for Global Aviation (12:26)
(15:12 – 22:12)
“This is a company that has really been, been struggling to execute, make some really appealing and interesting electric vehicles, but has really struggled to make them in higher volumes and doing so in profitable or remotely profitable.” — Craig Trudeau, Global Autos Editor (16:00)
“Those days keep coming and going without that capability, really being ready to where, you know, people behind the wheel can actually tune out and not pay attention.” — Craig Trudeau (20:14)
(24:08 – 30:45)
Earnings Highlights:
Citigroup’s Transformation:
“Jane was unequivocal saying that they're not interested in doing any deals. They're really focused on organic growth in order to avoid any sort of distractions that come from a merger.” — Herman Chan, Senior Bank Analyst (30:06)
**“That's been a trend over time where, where the largest banks are really focused on that prime customer.” — Herman Chan (27:47)
“This deal is all about spectrum. Global Star has really valuable spectrum, which is... a scarce asset. Whoever got it first was able to sell it later on.”
— Michelle Davis (02:41)
“SpaceX, still, you know, light years ahead of it, has way more satellites in orbit. Amazon hasn't been able to launch as many as SpaceX.”
— Michelle Davis (03:47)
“This is a company that has really been, been struggling to execute, make some really appealing and interesting electric vehicles, but has really struggled to make them in higher volumes and doing so in profitable or remotely profitable.”
— Craig Trudeau (16:00)
“Jane was unequivocal saying that they're not interested in doing any deals. They're really focused on organic growth in order to avoid any sort of distractions that come from a merger.”
— Herman Chan (30:06)
| Segment | Timestamp | |-----------------------------------------------------------|---------------| | Amazon’s acquisition of Globalstar | 02:20 – 06:17 | | Airline sector merger talk & industry pressures | 08:47 – 13:20 | | Lucid & EV market shifts (w/ Tesla updates) | 15:12 – 22:12 | | Big bank earnings & strategy (JPM, Citi, Wells Fargo) | 24:08 – 30:45 |
The discussion is direct, analytical, and colored with insider knowledge and occasional industry humor. The hosts and guests maintain neutral-to-positive tones, focusing on facts, implications, and broader context, often digging deeper into “why” and “what’s next.”