It’s been a minute. But we have a good excuse, we promise! Myself and Rohan, for those of you that don't know us, are co-founders of Finance Focused. With the help of so many of you, we have run it for the past 4 years (!!!)

But for the past 6 months, we've been busy building a WHOLE STARTUP called Zeed. We'd love for you to check it out, and we've included a short section below to tell you more.

Anyways onto the newsletter! As always, the community has still been ticking away since we last sent out the newsletter, so we’ll give you a round up of what’s been going on.

For this week's community highlights, we’re looking why ByteDance made its latest healthcare acquisition, what’s going on with BP after the energy price increase, and the biggest rise in inflation the UK has seen since 1995.

It’s not all bad though, promise. We’ve also got exciting news and some new stuff to share. Like your new favourite finance app, a new token we’ve found and somethibng somehting somethign maybe something about the deal

Rising energy costs: is it actually because of a gas shortage, or do fuel companies just want more money?

To put it simply, we’ve been building an investing platform. Zeed is a platform with short-form video content about finance and investing - imagine like TikTok but for investing. You can get info on stocks, watch videos and soon, you’ll be able to invest directly via the app. It’s basically everything you want and need for investing in one place.

So it’s taken us a while to get here, but it’s finally ready to use. We’re looking for feedback so let us know what you think. Download Zeed & chat to us!

🧐 Is Shein Spying on You?

Since the pandemic, somehow, fast fashion giant Shein has exploded.  Five years ago hardly anyone knew the brand, but today it sells the cheapest and trendiest clothes on the market. How do they keep up?

😳 Starbucks' $1.5b loan... from customers

Lots of places offer customers loyalty cards. The ones which you can load up with money and earn points every time you buy something. As these add up, you can spend them in store. Sounds all good, right? Well…

🏥 TikTok Hospital

ByteDance, the multinational technology start-up and parent company of TikTok, has bought Amcare Healthcare, a Chinese hospital chain, for $1.5 billion.

COVID-19 & Health Apps - The Chinese healthcare sector has been boosted by policies to curb COVID-19, and with online healthcare services booming since the pandemic, ByteDance created their app Xiaohe to compete in the space.

Ok, but why really? - It’s also a political thing. Right now, the Chinese government is concerned about plummeting birth rates, and Amcare specialises in fertility treatments and paediatrics, amongst other related fields.

Is it gonna pay off? - It raises similar concerns to Amazon acquiring One Medical. We know the healthcare sector is tightly regulated making earnings unpredictable. We’ll be watching this space.

🛢 BP’s Best Quarter

Thanks to skyrocketing energy costs, the second quarter earnings for BP increased to $8.45 billion. This is BP’s highest number in 14 years, thanks to robust trading and refining margins that allowed it to increase dividend payments and invest in new oil and gas production.

Dividends 🚀 - Within just hours after the announcement, BP shares had increased by 3.5% to their highest level since June, outpacing the larger European energy index which had increased by 0.5%.

Where are the renewables? - Bernard Looney, who became CEO in 2020 with the promise of getting PB into the renewables space, stated that the corporation will raise its spending on new oil and gas by $500 million in response to the global energy shortage.

📈 Raising Interest

The Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England has increased interest rates by 0.5%, to 1.75%. Although at 1.75%, rates are still significantly lower than the 5% average seen in the early 2000s, this is the greatest increase since 1995.

Buckle up - The Bank issued a warning before the judgement, predicting that the UK will experience an economic downturn in the fourth quarter of 2022 and that inflation might rocket as high as 13%.

Why? - It links back to the story above. Experts think the impact of an energy price cap hike in October is going to be greater than expected. The typical household's energy costs are anticipated to increase by 70%, reaching £3600. Raising interest rates is intended to deter borrowing and spending, which will reduce demand and lower inflation…

For more bite-size market updates, visit our community!

Adobe to acquire Figma in $20b deal

Adobe (Nasdaq:ADBE)

Adobe is one of the largest and most diversified software companies in the world and the global leader in creative, digital document and digital experience solutions.

Figma - Privately Held

Figma is a design platform for teams who build products together, helping teams brainstorm, design, and build products—from start to finish.

Details

• Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen spoke of the “tremendous opportunities” in combining Figma’s business with Adobe’s products and Figma’s venture capital backers deemed this deal a major win due to the expected synergies.
• However, Adobe investors have argued that Adobe overpaid for a company valued at about $10 billion just a year ago, and that it is unreasonable for Adobe to pay 11% of its market value for just 2.8% more annual recurring revenue from Figma.
• Figma’s customers were also concerned; Figma has always been customer-centric and worry that the deal with Adobe may put this at risk.

Stats

• Adobe Inc agreed to buy Figma for $20 billion in half cash and half stock
• Upon completion, Adobe investors were concerned about the large deal value leading to a drop of 17% in Adobe’s stocks on Thursday
• This cash and stock deal serves as the largest buyout of a private software startup.
  

Onto the VCs! Paul Louise Lepin joins us from Molten Ventures. They have backed some amazing businesses that including CrowdCube, Revolut and N26!

We've missed out some shoutouts for episodes, so we have a few to get through (hence the date).

We'll catch you again next week, until then, make sure you're signed up to our community, and follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter! If you have any feedback or want to join our team, send us a message!

- Salman @ Finance Focused