International
All You Need To Know About Robotaxi App Rise, An AI Pioneer’s New Startup And Mobility Event Highlights
Hello and welcome back to The Station, a weekly newsletter dedicated to all the ways people and packages move (today and in the future) from Point A to Point B. Welp, the mobility event is over and we had loads of interesting interviews — and anyone…
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I think it’s not as simple as opening up an office, right? It’s much more than that, to be able to succeed in the market. You need to build the landscape, you need to build the ecosystem, your own partners. The whole ecosystem chain is quite long. It’s quite complicated, involving government relations. It also involves the data that you have already accumulated. The driving experience has to fit in the local world. Many things comes into play.Other highlights included my interview with Mate Rimac of Rimac Automobili, who disclosed how close the company came to failing, provided advice to fellow and aspiring founders and explained his interest in electric robotaxis. Then there was the discussion about the AV industry between Motional’s Karl Iagnemma and Aurora’s Chris Urmson — not an interview to miss. More recaps of the event will be published in the coming week. Some other coverage from the event:
- Why Mate Rimac is working on electric robotaxis
- Scale to launch a mapping product to address the changing needs of its autonomous driving customers
- Motional CEO hints at an autonomous future in logistics
- Joby Aviation eyes Asia and Europe as early markets alongside North America
Micromobbin’
This week, as Kirsten Korosec mentioned above, we had our big Mobility event, where the leaders, upstarts and startups of the mobility world joined us on our virtual stage to talk about the future of moving people, goods and even ideas. I led a panel with Remix co-founder and CEO Tiffany Chu, community organizer, transportation consultant and lawyer Tamika L. Butler and Revel co-founder and CEO Frank Reig. We discussed the importance of mobility companies being equitable and accessible to everyone in a city, especially the most vulnerable, and how that affects profitability. Something interesting that came out of my questioning was Reig’s comments about Revel achieving profitability. (The revelations about profitability were first shared in May, although Reig did provide a bit more color during the event.) For three months in the summer of 2020, Revel was full-company profitable, “so beyond just market profitability, beyond just unit economics,” said Reig. “I’m talking my salary and everything else that’s involved in running a company.” This was back when Revel was only an e-moped company and before it added several other business lines, including EV charging hubs, e-bikes and ride-hailing. We don’t know exactly how Revel is measuring profitably — are we talking EBITDA? Gross profit? — and on the panel we didn’t have time to dig into the money salad. But it is notable as the company settles into its newest business line of ride-hailable Tesla vehicles. We’ll be watching Revel closely as it continues to ramp up its different revenue streams. Maybe someday they’ll go public so we can have a closer look. Let’s get back to the important issue of whether or not mobility companies, like Revel, can help cities achieve equitability of movement. Movement should be a right, not a privilege, but it often feels like we’re playing the same game with different vehicles today. Mobility has always benefited those at the top more, so why should it be any different today? Does the moral highway really drive us toward justice? What good reason do companies have to spend their time and money actually making sure their services help cities achieve equity of movement? “I think if you’re doing the work that theoretically is to serve people then you should want to serve all people,” said Butler. “For companies, I would say that people like to say it takes too much time or costs too much money to do things equitably, but whether or not you’re retrofitting a house or retrofitting your company, whenever you retrofit something it costs more money. So if you think about equity as something you build in from the beginning, it will actually save you money and take less time than if you try to do it later because someone tells you to do it or you’ve had some controversy.” You can watch the full talk on Extra Crunch. Some micro morsels… Leo Riders, an e-scooter platform for those in the hospitality industry, is expanding into Athens, Greece, with more than 20 agreements with local hotels. Hotels like Brown Hotel and Colors Urban Hotel will now be able to offer guests e-scooters to ride around the city. Sounds sick. What could go wrong?! E-scooter subscription and sales company Unagi is expanding its “All-Access” service” to Chicago, D.C. and some other regions around those two great American cities. Lime is extending its “Ride to Recovery” initiative — which provides free e-scooter and bike rides to vaccine appointments — to the Fourth of July. Riders can access a promo code for two free 15-minute rides here, as well as information on vaccines and where to get one. Future Motion’s Onewheel, the unique and fun-looking vehicle that’s like a skateboard with a giant wheel in the middle of the board, has reached 52.5 million miles. They wanted me to tell you that’s 220 trips to the moon and back, 2,100 times around the earth and nearly 18,000 trips between Santa Cruz, California and NYC. — Rebecca BellanDeal of the week
Didi, the Chinese ride-hailing company, has already raised tens of billions of dollars from the private market. Now it’s ready to tap the public one.
The company filed for an IPO, and digging a bit into the filing here’s what we find. As TechCrunch’s Alex Wilhelm notes, the S-1 shows how quickly and painfully COVID-19 blunted Didi’s global operations. As COVID-19 numbers have fallen and economies have opened back up, Didi has settled back to late-2019 gross transaction volume numbers.
Didi manage a GTV recovery in China. However, its aggregate numbers are flatter, and recent quarterly trends are not incredibly attractive. And taking a historical look at its financial figures, it’s clear that Didi has never generated positive operating income. The company’s revenues in Q1 2021 were smaller than its Q3 and Q4 2020 numbers, for example.
A few other items of note, the company reported a $1.7 billion loss on $21.6 billion in revenue for 2020. And some of its largest stakeholders are SoftBank with 21.5%, Uber with 12/5% and Tencent with 6.8%.
Other deals that got my attention …
Branch Insurance, a startup offering bundled home and auto insurance, raised $50 million in a Series B funding round led by Anthemis Group. Acrew, Cherry Creek Holdings and existing backers Greycroft, HSCM Bermuda, American Family Ventures, SignalFire, SCOR P&C Ventures, Foundation Capital and Tower IV also participated in the round. The startup has raised $82.5 million in total funding since its inception in 2017.
A couple of Chinese grocery delivery companies filed for IPOs this week. First up is Dingdong, which previously raised more than $400 million from investors including General Atlantic, Sequoia Capital China, Starquest China, Qiming Venture Partners, Bertelsmann Asia Investments and General Atlantic. The regulatory filing shows that Digndong had a net loss of $485 million on $1.73 billion in revenue last year. Then there’s Missfresh, which has raised more than $2 billion from investors, including a fund under state-backed China International Capital Corporation, ICBC International Securities, Tencent, Abu Dhabi Capital Group, Tiger Global and a fund managed by the government of Changshu county. Missfresh reported a $252 million net loss on $956 million in revenue in 2020, according to the filing.
Circulor, a supply chain traceability and CO2 tracking company, raised $14 million in a Series A funding round. The Westly Group led the round, with participation by Salesforce Ventures, BHP Ventures, Future Positive Capital, 24Haymarket and Sky Ocean Ventures, alongside existing investors in the company. Circulor’s product is used by Volvo Cars to trace the cobalt used in its all-electric XC40 Recharge and by Polestar to assess the environmental and human rights risks of sourcing cobalt, lithium, nickel, lithium and mica for its electric cars.
Embraer’s electric vehicle takeoff and landing unit Eve Urban Air Mobility is in talks to merge with special purpose acquisition company Zanite Acquisition Corp. The deal would value the combined entity at about $2 billion, Bloomberg reported.
Hesai, a Shanghai-based lidar maker founded in 2014, raised more than $300 million in a Series D funding round led by GL Ventures, the venture capital arm of private equity firm Hillhouse Capital, smartphone maker Xiaomi, on-demand services giant Meituan and CPE, the private equity platform of Citic. Huatai International Private Equity Fund, the USD investment arm of Huatai Securities, Lightspeed China Partners and Lightspeed Venture Capital as well as Qiming Venture Partners, also participated.
Incari, a Berlin-based HMI startup, closed a €15 million ($18.1 million) Series A financing round led by Lukasz Gadowski, the founder of Delivery Hero and Team Europe.
Kitty Hawk, the eVTOL company backed by Google co-founder Larry Page, acquired 3D Robotics. Under the deal, 3D Robotics co-founder Chris Anderson will become chief operating officer at Kitty Hawk, Forbes reported. The article also revealed that Kitty Hawk engineer Damon Vander Lind, who built the initial versions of Heaviside, was dismissed, CEO Sebastian Thrun confirmed to Forbes.
Nvidia is acquiring DeepMap, the high-definition mapping startup announced. The company said its mapping IP will help Nvidia’s autonomous vehicle technology sector, Nvidia Drive. Nvidia is expected to finalize the acquisition in Q3 2021.
Trucks Venture Capital, the venture firm that backs early-stage entrepreneurs in transportation, is launching two new funds. Its new core fund, known as Trucks Venture Fund 2, was raised over the last year and recently closed on $52,525,252. The fund is backed by three auto OEMs and three auto suppliers that make everything from bicycles to Class 8 big rig trucks, as well as one communications company, according to Trucks VC. The VC’s new follow-on fund, Trucks Growth Fund, will provide later-stage capital to some of the most promising companies already in Trucks’ portfolio.
Waabi, a new autonomous vehicle startup founded by AI pioneer and chief scientist at Uber ATG Raquel Urtasun, raised $83.5 million in a Series A round led by Khosla Ventures, with additional participation from Uber, 8VC, Radical Ventures, OMERS Ventures, BDC and Aurora Innovation, as well as leading AI researchers Geoffrey Hinton, Fei-Fei Li, Pieter Abbeel, Sanja Fidler and others. Urtasun said she is taking what she describes as an “AI-first approach” to speed up the commercial deployment of autonomous vehicles, starting with long-haul trucks.
WhereIsMyTransport announced it is set to raise $14.5 million in a Series A extension round led by Naspers Foundry, Cathay AfricInvest Innovation Fund and SBI Investment. Other participants confirmed in the extension are Capria Ventures and Wuri Ventures, Mission Gate, B&Y and KDDI Open Innovation Fund managed by Global Brain.
Robotaxi apps on the rise
Last week, I shared the Waymo One app information courtesy of Sensor Tower, the mobile app market intelligence firm. There are not many other AV developers that have launched ride-hailing apps, although that might be changing.
Argo AI and Zoox have job listings for Android software engineers. Zoox is looking for an iOS engineer as well.
Sensor Tower did note to TechCrunch that Pony.ai has launched a few apps. PonyPilot+ has hit about 6,000 installs on China’s App Store. PonyPilot has seen about 2,000 in the U.S., most of which happened in the first three months of 2020, according to Sensor Tower. The company also has two apps available in Russia called PonyExpress+, which has seen about 1,500 installs, and PonyFleetGO. There are no download estimates for PonyFleetGo.
AutoX also has an app available, AutoX Food Delivery, which has reached about 200 installs in the United States.
Policy corner
President Joe Biden has set his sights on hardening the country’s supply chains for essential goods and critical minerals. The White House said on June 8 it had created a task force aimed at addressing supply chain bottlenecks, including in semiconductors and critical minerals used in EV batteries.
Biden wants to get many more Americans driving electric vehicles, but the majority of key critical minerals in batteries, like lithium and graphite, are mined and processed abroad. As part of a Fact Sheet also released on June 8, Biden’s administration said it would create a task force to identify opportunities to produce minerals domestically — something that until now has kicked up a lot of controversy amongst environmental groups.
The U.S. Department of Energy released a blueprint for lithium batteries through 2030 that calls for eliminating two key minerals from batteries — cobalt and nickel — as a way of fortifying the supply chain. The DOE says it will support R&D efforts to develop batteries without these minerals, which are largely found in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo or Indonesia, and are processed mainly in China. Scientific innovation is certainly one way to reduce America’s dependence on foreign adversaries for its batteries.
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee passed a sweeping $547 billion infrastructure package after a whopping 19 hours of debate (pour one out for the Congressional interns). The final vote was 38-26. As a reminder, the INVEST in America Act would largely fund improvements to roads, bridges and passenger rail, but earmarks $4 billion in electric vehicle charging infrastructure and around $4 billion to invest in zero-emission transit vehicles.
Just two Republicans on the committee voted in favor of the bill. The INVEST in America Act is still very, very far from becoming law: It now advances to the full House for further debate, then would be sent to the Senate for further rehashing, etcetera etcetera… nevertheless, it’s an encouraging sign, especially as legislators managed to work out over 200 proposed amendments to the legislation.
GM is changing its tune on proposed tailpipe emission rules in California. The country’s largest automaker had previously opposed California’s tough emissions limits for passenger vehicles, which it reached in concert with five other automakers: Ford, Honda Motor Company, Volkswagen AG, Volvo and BMW. The New York Times reported that GM CEO Mary Barra said in a Wednesday letter to EPA Administrator Michael Regan that “GM supports the emissions reduction goals of California through model year ’26,” and that, “the auto industry is embarking upon a profound transition as we do our part to achieve the country’s climate commitments.”
However, she said that GM “believes that the same environmental benefits can and should be achieved through a high-volume electric vehicle pathway.” That is to say, she said the best way to reduce emissions is to boost EV sales through government incentives, rebates and other programs.
The EPA will be publishing its proposed tailpipe emissions reductions and fuel economy standards in July. Regan has been meeting with major OEMs, including GM, in advance of that release.
— Aria Alamalhodaei
Extra Crunch: Air taxi market analysis
Image Credits: Bryce Durbin
International
Net Zero, The Digital Panopticon, & The Future Of Food
Net Zero, The Digital Panopticon, & The Future Of Food
Authored by Colin Todhunter via Off-Guardian.org,
The food transition, the energy…
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Authored by Colin Todhunter via Off-Guardian.org,
The food transition, the energy transition, net-zero ideology, programmable central bank digital currencies, the censorship of free speech and clampdowns on protest. What’s it all about? To understand these processes, we need to first locate what is essentially a social and economic reset within the context of a collapsing financial system.
Writer Ted Reece notes that the general rate of profit has trended downwards from an estimated 43% in the 1870s to 17% in the 2000s. By late 2019, many companies could not generate enough profit. Falling turnover, squeezed margins, limited cashflows and highly leveraged balance sheets were prevalent.
Professor Fabio Vighi of Cardiff University has described how closing down the global economy in early 2020 under the guise of fighting a supposedly new and novel pathogen allowed the US Federal Reserve to flood collapsing financial markets (COVID relief) with freshly printed money without causing hyperinflation. Lockdowns curtailed economic activity, thereby removing demand for the newly printed money (credit) in the physical economy and preventing ‘contagion’.
According to investigative journalist Michael Byrant, €1.5 trillion was needed to deal with the crisis in Europe alone. The financial collapse staring European central bankers in the face came to a head in 2019. The appearance of a ‘novel virus’ provided a convenient cover story.
The European Central Bank agreed to a €1.31 trillion bailout of banks followed by the EU agreeing to a €750 billion recovery fund for European states and corporations. This package of long-term, ultra-cheap credit to hundreds of banks was sold to the public as a necessary programme to cushion the impact of the pandemic on businesses and workers.
In response to a collapsing neoliberalism, we are now seeing the rollout of an authoritarian great reset — an agenda that intends to reshape the economy and change how we live.
SHIFT TO AUTHORITARIANISM
The new economy is to be dominated by a handful of tech giants, global conglomerates and e-commerce platforms, and new markets will also be created through the financialisation of nature, which is to be colonised, commodified and traded under the notion of protecting the environment.
In recent years, we have witnessed an overaccumulation of capital, and the creation of such markets will provide fresh investment opportunities (including dodgy carbon offsetting Ponzi schemes) for the super-rich to park their wealth and prosper.
This great reset envisages a transformation of Western societies, resulting in permanent restrictions on fundamental liberties and mass surveillance. Being rolled out under the benign term of a ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’, the World Economic Forum (WEF) says the public will eventually ‘rent’ everything they require (remember the WEF video ‘you will own nothing and be happy’?): stripping the right of ownership under the guise of a ‘green economy’ and underpinned by the rhetoric of ‘sustainable consumption’ and ‘climate emergency’.
Climate alarmism and the mantra of sustainability are about promoting money-making schemes. But they also serve another purpose: social control.
Neoliberalism has run its course, resulting in the impoverishment of large sections of the population. But to dampen dissent and lower expectations, the levels of personal freedom we have been used to will not be tolerated. This means that the wider population will be subjected to the discipline of an emerging surveillance state.
To push back against any dissent, ordinary people are being told that they must sacrifice personal liberty in order to protect public health, societal security (those terrible Russians, Islamic extremists or that Sunak-designated bogeyman George Galloway) or the climate. Unlike in the old normal of neoliberalism, an ideological shift is occurring whereby personal freedoms are increasingly depicted as being dangerous because they run counter to the collective good.
The real reason for this ideological shift is to ensure that the masses get used to lower living standards and accept them. Consider, for instance, the Bank of England’s chief economist Huw Pill saying that people should ‘accept’ being poorer. And then there is Rob Kapito of the world’s biggest asset management firm BlackRock, who says that a “very entitled” generation must deal with scarcity for the first time in their lives.
At the same time, to muddy the waters, the message is that lower living standards are the result of the conflict in Ukraine and supply shocks that both the war and ‘the virus’ have caused.
The net-zero carbon emissions agenda will help legitimise lower living standards (reducing your carbon footprint) while reinforcing the notion that our rights must be sacrificed for the greater good. You will own nothing, not because the rich and their neoliberal agenda made you poor but because you will be instructed to stop being irresponsible and must act to protect the planet.
NET-ZERO AGENDA
But what of this shift towards net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and the plan to slash our carbon footprints? Is it even feasible or necessary?
Gordon Hughes, a former World Bank economist and current professor of economics at the University of Edinburgh, says in a new report that current UK and European net-zero policies will likely lead to further economic ruin.
Apparently, the only viable way to raise the cash for sufficient new capital expenditure (on wind and solar infrastructure) would be a two decades-long reduction in private consumption of up to 10 per cent. Such a shock has never occurred in the last century outside war; even then, never for more than a decade.
But this agenda will also cause serious environmental degradation. So says Andrew Nikiforuk in the article The Rising Chorus of Renewable Energy Skeptics, which outlines how the green techno-dream is vastly destructive.
He lists the devastating environmental impacts of an even more mineral-intensive system based on renewables and warns:
“The whole process of replacing a declining system with a more complex mining-based enterprise is now supposed to take place with a fragile banking system, dysfunctional democracies, broken supply chains, critical mineral shortages and hostile geopolitics.”
All of this assumes that global warming is real and anthropogenic. Not everyone agrees. In the article Global warming and the confrontation between the West and the rest of the world, journalist Thierry Meyssan argues that net zero is based on political ideology rather than science. But to state such things has become heresy in the Western countries and shouted down with accusations of ‘climate science denial’.
Regardless of such concerns, the march towards net zero continues, and key to this is the United Nations Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development Goals.
Today, almost every business or corporate report, website or brochure includes a multitude of references to ‘carbon footprints’, ‘sustainability’, ‘net zero’ or ‘climate neutrality’ and how a company or organisation intends to achieve its sustainability targets. Green profiling, green bonds and green investments go hand in hand with displaying ‘green’ credentials and ambitions wherever and whenever possible.
It seems anyone and everyone in business is planting their corporate flag on the summit of sustainability. Take Sainsbury’s, for instance. It is one of the ‘big six’ food retail supermarkets in the UK and has a vision for the future of food that it published in 2019.
Here’s a quote from it:
“Personalised Optimisation is a trend that could see people chipped and connected like never before. A significant step on from wearable tech used today, the advent of personal microchips and neural laces has the potential to see all of our genetic, health and situational data recorded, stored and analysed by algorithms which could work out exactly what we need to support us at a particular time in our life. Retailers, such as Sainsbury’s could play a critical role to support this, arranging delivery of the needed food within thirty minutes — perhaps by drone.”
Tracked, traced and chipped — for your own benefit. Corporations accessing all of our personal data, right down to our DNA. The report is littered with references to sustainability and the climate or environment, and it is difficult not to get the impression that it is written so as to leave the reader awestruck by the technological possibilities.
However, the promotion of a brave new world of technological innovation that has nothing to say about power — who determines policies that have led to massive inequalities, poverty, malnutrition, food insecurity and hunger and who is responsible for the degradation of the environment in the first place — is nothing new.
The essence of power is conveniently glossed over, not least because those behind the prevailing food regime are also shaping the techno-utopian fairytale where everyone lives happily ever after eating bugs and synthetic food while living in a digital panopticon.
FAKE GREEN
The type of ‘green’ agenda being pushed is a multi-trillion market opportunity for lining the pockets of rich investors and subsidy-sucking green infrastructure firms and also part of a strategy required to secure compliance required for the ‘new normal’.
It is, furthermore, a type of green that plans to cover much of the countryside with wind farms and solar panels with most farmers no longer farming. A recipe for food insecurity.
Those investing in the ‘green’ agenda care first and foremost about profit. The supremely influential BlackRock invests in the current food system that is responsible for polluted waterways, degraded soils, the displacement of smallholder farmers, a spiralling public health crisis, malnutrition and much more.
It also invests in healthcare — an industry that thrives on the illnesses and conditions created by eating the substandard food that the current system produces. Did Larry Fink, the top man at BlackRock, suddenly develop a conscience and become an environmentalist who cares about the planet and ordinary people? Of course not.
Any serious deliberations on the future of food would surely consider issues like food sovereignty, the role of agroecology and the strengthening of family farms — the backbone of current global food production.
The aforementioned article by Andrew Nikiforuk concludes that, if we are really serious about our impacts on the environment, we must scale back our needs and simplify society.
In terms of food, the solution rests on a low-input approach that strengthens rural communities and local markets and prioritises smallholder farms and small independent enterprises and retailers, localised democratic food systems and a concept of food sovereignty based on self-sufficiency, agroecological principles and regenerative agriculture.
It would involve facilitating the right to culturally appropriate food that is nutritionally dense due to diverse cropping patterns and free from toxic chemicals while ensuring local ownership and stewardship of common resources like land, water, soil and seeds.
That’s where genuine environmentalism and the future of food begins.
Government
Five Aerospace Investments to Buy as Wars Worsen Copy
Five aerospace investments to buy as wars worsen give investors a chance to acquire shares of companies focused on fortifying national defense. The five…
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Five aerospace investments to buy as wars worsen give investors a chance to acquire shares of companies focused on fortifying national defense.
The five aerospace investments to buy provide military products to help protect freedom amid Russia’s ongoing onslaught against Ukraine that began in February 2022, as well as supply arms in the Middle East used after Hamas militants attacked and murdered civilians in Israel on Oct. 7. Even though the S&P 500 recently reached all-time highs, these five aerospace investments have remained reasonably priced and rated as recommendations by seasoned analysts and a pension fund chairman.
State television broadcasts in Russia show the country’s soldiers advancing further into Ukrainian territory, but protests have occurred involving family members of those serving in perilous conditions in the invasion of their neighboring nation to be brought home. Even though hundreds of thousands of Russians also have fled to other countries to avoid compulsory military service, the aggressor’s President Vladimir Putin has vowed to continue to send additional soldiers into the fierce fighting.
While Russia’s land-grab of Crimea and other parts of Ukraine show no end in sight, Israel’s war with Hamas likely will last for at least additional months, according to the latest reports. United Nations’ leaders expressed alarm on Dec. 26 about intensifying Israeli attacks that killed more than 100 Palestinians over two days in part of the Gaza Strip, when 15 members of the Israel Defense Force (IDF) also lost their lives.
Five Aerospace Investments to Buy as Wars Worsen: General Dynamics
One of the five aerospace investments to buy as wars worsen is General Dynamics (NYSE: GD), a Reston, Virginia-based aerospace company with more than 100,000 employees in 70-plus countries. A key business unit of General Dynamics is Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation, a manufacturer of business aircraft. Other segments of General Dynamics focus on making military products such as Abrams tanks, Stryker fighting vehicles, ASCOD fighting vehicles like the Spanish PIZARRO and British AJAX, LAV-25 Light Armored Vehicles and Flyer-60 lightweight tactical vehicles.
For the U.S. Navy and other allied armed forces, General Dynamics builds Virginia-class attack submarines, Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines, Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers, Expeditionary Sea Base ships, fleet logistics ships, commercial cargo ships, aircraft and naval gun systems, Hydra-70 rockets, military radios and command and control systems. In addition, the company provides radio and optical telescopes, secure mobile phones, PIRANHA and PANDUR wheeled armored vehicles and mobile bridge systems.
Chicago-based investment firm William Blair & Co. is among those recommending General Dynamics. The Chicago firm gave an “outperform” rating to General Dynamics in a Dec. 21 research note.
Gulfstream is seeking G700 FAA certification by the end of 2023, suggesting potentially positive news in the next 10 days, William Blair wrote in its recent research note. The investment firm projected that General Dynamics would trade upward upward upon the G700’s certification.
“General Dynamics’ 2023 aircraft delivery guidance of approximately 134 planes assumes that 19 G700s are delivered in the fourth quarter,” wrote William Blair’s aerospace and defense analyst Louie DiPalma. “Even if deliveries fall short of this target, we believe investors will take a glass-half-full approach upon receipt of the certification.”
Chart courtesy of www.stockcharts.com.
Five Aerospace Investments to Buy as Wars Worsen: GD Outlook
The G700 is a major focus area for investors because it is Gulfstream’s most significant aircraft introduction since the iconic G650 in 2012, DiPalma wrote. Gulfstream has the highest market share in the long-range jet segment of the private aircraft market, the highest profit margin of aircraft peers and the most premium business aviation brand, he added.
“The aircraft remains immensely popular today with corporations and high-net-worth individuals,” Di Palma wrote. “Elon Musk has reportedly placed an order for a G700 to go along with his existing G650. Qatar Airways announced at the Paris Air Show that 10 G700 aircraft will become part of its fleet.”
G700 deliveries and subsequent G800 deliveries are expected to be the cornerstone of Gulfstream’s growth and margin expansion for the next decade, DiPalma wrote. This should lead to a rebound in the stock price as the margins for the G700 and G800 are very attractive, he added.
Management’s guidance is for the aerospace operating margin to increase from about 13.2% in 2022 to roughly 14.0% in 2023 and 15.8% in 2024. Longer term, a high-teens profit margin appears within reach, DiPalma projected.
In other General Dynamics business segments, William Blair expects several yet-unannounced large contract awards for General Dynamics IT, to go along with C$1.7 billion, or US$1.29 billion, in General Dynamics Mission Systems contracts announced on Dec. 20 for the Canadian Army. General Dynamics shares are poised to have a strong 2024, William Blair wrote.
Five Aerospace Investments to Buy as Wars Worsen: VSE Corporation
Alexandria, Virginia-based VSE Corporation’s (NASDAQ: VSEC) price-to-earnings (P/E) valuation multiple of 22 received support when AAR Corp. (NYSE: AIR), a Wood Dale, Illinois, provider of aviation services, announced on Dec. 21 that it would acquire the product support business of Triumph Group (NYSE: TGI), a Berwyn, Pennsylvania, supplier of aerospace services, structures and systems. AAR’s purchase price of $725 million reflects confidence in a continued post-pandemic aerospace rebound.
VSE, a provider of aftermarket distribution and repair services for land, sea and air transportation assets used by government and commercial markets, is rated “outperform” by William Blair. The company’s core services include maintenance, repair and operations (MRO), parts distribution, supply chain management and logistics, engineering support, as well as consulting and training for global commercial, federal, military and defense customers.
“Robust consumer travel demand and aging aircraft fleets have driven elevated maintenance visits,” William Blair’s DiPalma wrote in a Dec. 21 research note. “The AAR–Triumph deal is valued at a premium 13-times 2024 EBITDA multiple, which was in line with the valuation multiple that Heico (NYSE: HEI) paid for Wencor over the summer.”
VSE currently trades at a discounted 9.5 times consensus 2024 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) estimates, as well as 11.6 times consensus 2023 EBITDA.
Five Aerospace Investments to Buy as Wars Worsen: VSE Undervalued?
“We expect that VSE shares will trend higher as investors process this deal,” DiPalma wrote. “VSE shares trade at 9.5 times consensus 2024 adjusted EBITDA, compared with peers and M&A comps in the 10-to-14-times range. We think that VSE’s multiple will expand as it closes the divestiture of its federal and defense business and makes strategic acquisitions. We see consistent 15% annual upside for shares as VSE continues to take share in the $110 billion aviation aftermarket industry.”
William Blair reaffirmed its “outperform” rating for VSE on Dec. 21. The main risk to VSE shares is lumpiness associated with its aviation services margins, Di Palma wrote. However, he raised 2024 estimates to further reflect commentary from VSE’s analysts’ day in November.
Chart courtesy of www.stockcharts.com.
Five Aerospace Investments to Buy as Wars Worsen: HEICO Corporation
HEICO Corporation (NYSEL: HEI), is a Hollywood, Florida-based technology-driven aerospace, industrial, defense and electronics company that also is ranked as an “outperform” investment by William Blair’s DiPalma. The aerospace aftermarket parts provider recently reported fourth-quarter financials above consensus analysts’ estimates, driven by 20% organic growth in HEICO’s flight support group.
HEICO’s management indicated that the performance of recently acquired Wencor is exceeding expectations. However, HEICO leaders offered color on 2024 organic growth and margin expectations that forecast reduced gains. Even though consensus estimates already assumed slowing growth, it is still not a positive for HEICO, DiPalma wrote.
William Blair forecasts 15% annual upside to HEICO’s shares, based on EBITDA growth. HEICO’s management cited a host of reasons for its quarterly outperformance, highlighted by the continued commercial air travel recovery. The company also referenced new product introductions and efficiency initiatives.
HEICO’s defense product sales increased by 26% sequentially, marking the third consecutive sequential increase in defense product revenue. The company’s leaders conveyed that defense in general is moving in the right direction to enhance financial performance.
Chart courtesy of www.stockcharts.com.
Five Dividend-paying Defense and Aerospace Investments to Purchase: XAR
A fourth way to obtain exposure to defense and aerospace investments is through SPDR S&P Aerospace and Defense ETF (XAR). That exchange-traded fund tracks the S&P Aerospace & Defense Select Industry Index. The fund is overweight in industrials and underweight in technology and consumer cyclicals, said Bob Carlson, a pension fund chairman who heads the Retirement Watch investment newsletter.
Bob Carlson, who heads Retirement Watch, answers questions from Paul Dykewicz.
XAR has 34 securities, and 44.2% of the fund is in the 10 largest positions. The fund is up 25.82% in the last 12 months, 22.03% in the past three months and 7.92% for the last month. Its dividend yield recently measured 0.38%.
The largest positions in the fund recently were Axon Enterprise (NASDAQ: AXON), Boeing (NYSE: BA), L3Harris Technologies (NYSE: LHX), Spirit Aerosystems (NYSE: SPR) and Virgin Galactic (NYSE: SPCE).
Chart courtesy of www.stockcharts.com
Five Dividend-paying Defense and Aerospace Investments to Purchase: PPA
The second fund recommended by Carlson is Invesco Aerospace & Defense ETF (PPA), which tracks the SPADE Defense Index. It has the same underweighting and overweighting as XAR, he said.
PPA recently held 52 securities and 53.2% of the fund was in its 10 largest positions. With so many holdings, the fund offers much reduced risk compared to buying individual stocks. The largest positions in the fund recently were Boeing (NYSE: BA), RTX Corp. (NYSE: RTX), Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT), Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC) and General Electric (NYSE:GE).
The fund is up 19.07% for the past year, 50.34% in the last three months and 5.30% during the past month. The dividend yield recently touched 0.69%.
Chart courtesy of www.stockcharts.com
Other Fans of Aerospace
Two fans of aerospace stocks are Mark Skousen, PhD, and seasoned stock picker Jim Woods. The pair team up to head the Fast Money Alert advisory service They already are profitable in their recent recommendation of Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) in Fast Money Alert.
Mark Skousen, a scion of Ben Franklin, meets with Paul Dykewicz.
Jim Woods, a former U.S. Army paratrooper, co-heads Fast Money Alert.
Bryan Perry, who heads the Cash Machine investment newsletter and the Micro-Cap Stock Trader advisory service, recommends satellite services provider Globalstar (NYSE American: GSAT), of Covington, Louisiana, that has jumped 50.00% since he advised buying it two months ago. Perry is averaging a dividend yield of 11.14% in his Cash Machine newsletter but is breaking out with the red-hot recommendation of Globalstar in his Micro-Cap Stock Trader advisory service.
Bryan Perry heads Cash Machine, averaging an 11.14% dividend yield.
Military Equipment Demand Soars amid Multiple Wars
The U.S. military faces an acute need to adopt innovation, to expedite implementation of technological gains, to tap into the talents of people in various industries and to step-up collaboration with private industry and international partners to enhance effectiveness, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. told attendees on Nov 16 at a national security conference. Prime examples of the need are showed by multiple raging wars, including the Middle East and Ukraine. A cold war involves China and its increasingly strained relationships with Taiwan and other Asian nations.
The shocking Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel touched off an ongoing war in the Middle East, coupled with Russia’s February 2022 invasion and continuing assault of neighboring Ukraine. Those brutal military conflicts show the fragility of peace when determined aggressors are willing to use any means necessary to achieve their goals. To fend off such attacks, rapid and effective response is required.
“The Department of Defense is doing more than ever before to deter, defend, and, if necessary, defeat aggression,” Gen. Brown said at the National Security Innovation Forum at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C.
One of Russia’s war ships, the 360-foot-long Novocherkassk, was damaged on Dec. 26 by a Ukrainian attack on the Black Sea port of Feodosia in Crimea. This video of an explosion at the port that reportedly shows a section of the ship hit by aircraft-guided missiles.
Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr.
Photo By: Benjamin Applebaum
National security threats can compel immediate action, Gen. Brown said he quickly learned since taking his post on Oct. 1.
“We may not have much warning when the next fight begins,” Gen. Brown said. “We need to be ready.”
In a pre-recorded speech at the national security conference, Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP, told the John Hopkins national security conference attendees about the critical need for collaboration between government and industry.
“Building enduring technological advances for the U.S. military will help our service members and allies defend freedom across the globe,” Bloomberg said.
The “horrific terrorist attacks” against Israel and civilians living there on Oct. 7 underscore the importance of that mission, Bloomberg added.
Paul Dykewicz, www.pauldykewicz.com, is an accomplished, award-winning journalist who has written for Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, USA Today, the Journal of Commerce, Seeking Alpha, Guru Focus and other publications and websites. Attention Holiday Gift Buyers! Consider purchasing Paul’s inspirational book, “Holy Smokes! Golden Guidance from Notre Dame’s Championship Chaplain,” with a foreword by former national championship-winning football coach Lou Holtz. The uplifting book is great gift and is endorsed by Joe Montana, Joe Theismann, Ara Parseghian, “Rocket” Ismail, Reggie Brooks, Dick Vitale and many others. Call 202-677-4457 for special pricing on multiple-book purchases or autographed copies! Follow Paul on Twitter @PaulDykewicz. He is the editor of StockInvestor.com and DividendInvestor.com, a writer for both websites and a columnist. He further is editorial director of Eagle Financial Publications in Washington, D.C., where he edits monthly investment newsletters, time-sensitive trading alerts, free e-letters and other investment reports. Paul previously served as business editor of Baltimore’s Daily Record newspaper, after writing for the Baltimore Business Journal and Crain Communications.
The post Five Aerospace Investments to Buy as Wars Worsen Copy appeared first on Stock Investor.
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Health Officials: Man Dies From Bubonic Plague In New Mexico
Health Officials: Man Dies From Bubonic Plague In New Mexico
Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Officials in…
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Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Officials in New Mexico confirmed that a resident died from the plague in the United States’ first fatal case in several years.
The New Mexico Department of Health, in a statement, said that a man in Lincoln County “succumbed to the plague.” The man, who was not identified, was hospitalized before his death, officials said.
They further noted that it is the first human case of plague in New Mexico since 2021 and also the first death since 2020, according to the statement. No other details were provided, including how the disease spread to the man.
The agency is now doing outreach in Lincoln County, while “an environmental assessment will also be conducted in the community to look for ongoing risk,” the statement continued.
“This tragic incident serves as a clear reminder of the threat posed by this ancient disease and emphasizes the need for heightened community awareness and proactive measures to prevent its spread,” the agency said.
A bacterial disease that spreads via rodents, it is generally spread to people through the bites of infected fleas. The plague, known as the black death or the bubonic plague, can spread by contact with infected animals such as rodents, pets, or wildlife.
The New Mexico Health Department statement said that pets such as dogs and cats that roam and hunt can bring infected fleas back into homes and put residents at risk.
Officials warned people in the area to “avoid sick or dead rodents and rabbits, and their nests and burrows” and to “prevent pets from roaming and hunting.”
“Talk to your veterinarian about using an appropriate flea control product on your pets as not all products are safe for cats, dogs or your children” and “have sick pets examined promptly by a veterinarian,” it added.
“See your doctor about any unexplained illness involving a sudden and severe fever, the statement continued, adding that locals should clean areas around their home that could house rodents like wood piles, junk piles, old vehicles, and brush piles.
The plague, which is spread by the bacteria Yersinia pestis, famously caused the deaths of an estimated hundreds of millions of Europeans in the 14th and 15th centuries following the Mongol invasions. In that pandemic, the bacteria spread via fleas on black rats, which historians say was not known by the people at the time.
Other outbreaks of the plague, such as the Plague of Justinian in the 6th century, are also believed to have killed about one-fifth of the population of the Byzantine Empire, according to historical records and accounts. In 2013, researchers said the Justinian plague was also caused by the Yersinia pestis bacteria.
But in the United States, it is considered a rare disease and usually occurs only in several countries worldwide. Generally, according to the Mayo Clinic, the bacteria affects only a few people in U.S. rural areas in Western states.
Recent cases have occurred mainly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Countries with frequent plague cases include Madagascar, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Peru, the clinic says. There were multiple cases of plague reported in Inner Mongolia, China, in recent years, too.
Symptoms
Symptoms of a bubonic plague infection include headache, chills, fever, and weakness. Health officials say it can usually cause a painful swelling of lymph nodes in the groin, armpit, or neck areas. The swelling usually occurs within about two to eight days.
The disease can generally be treated with antibiotics, but it is usually deadly when not treated, the Mayo Clinic website says.
“Plague is considered a potential bioweapon. The U.S. government has plans and treatments in place if the disease is used as a weapon,” the website also says.
According to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the last time that plague deaths were reported in the United States was in 2020 when two people died.
Health Officials: Man Dies From Bubonic Plague In New Mexico
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