Raphael Stevens

Home Depot’s major acquisition is boosting the business as home improvement demand remains slow.
The retailer announced in March that it was acquiring SRS Distribution, a company that sells supplies to roofing, pool and landscaping professionals, for $18.25 billion and closed the deal in June.
The companies are testing how they can work together, such as selling SRS’ wider assortment of shingles, landscaping items and more at the pro desk in Home Depot’s stores.

A warehouse for Texas Pool Supply, a company that’s part of SRS Distribution, carries pool parts such as filters and heaters, along with large buckets of pool chemicals. It’s an example of the specialized business that Home Depot includes after acquiring SRS.
Melissa Repko | CNBC

PLANO, Texas — In a suburban warehouse, giant buckets of pool sanitizer and boxed-up heaters and pumps line the shelves.
This isn’t a Home Depot store, but these aisles — and the company behind them — will shape the home improvement retailer’s success over the next decade.

Home Depot made its biggest bet yet on expanding its business earlier this year when it bought SRS Distribution, a Texas-based company that sells supplies to professionals in the roofing, pool and landscaping businesses. The company has more than 11,000 employees and more than 780 branches across 47 states, including in the Dallas area.
With the $18.25 billion deal, which closed in June, Home Depot signaled to investors that its growth will come not just from its big-box stores. It will also rely on large online orders placed by home professionals who need a long list of specific supplies for installing swimming pools, repairing roofs and tackling complex remodels.
In its first few months, the deal has buoyed Home Depot’s business at a time when consumers are taking on fewer of their own home improvement projects. Earlier this week, the retailer said the acquisition fueled a more than 6% increase in fiscal third-quarter sales, even as shoppers went to stores less and spent less per transaction than in the year-ago period.
In both of the past two quarters, Home Depot’s revenue would have fallen year over year if SRS’ sales were excluded.
In an interview with CNBC, CEO Ted Decker said Home Depot bought the company not to offset the softer do-it-yourself market, but because it fits into its strategy to sell more to pros.

Home Depot has long acted as a convenience store for pros, who might drop in to buy a tool or last-minute item. Over the past four years, it has built a nationwide distribution network with hubs in metro areas such as Dallas, Atlanta and Los Angeles, so it can deliver larger, truckload-size orders directly to the job site of a contractor or other pro.
Yet SRS caught the retailer’s attention because it offered a different area of expertise: Catering to home improvement pros with specialties, Decker said.
SRS CEO Dan Tinker said the specialty distributor brings a deeper catalog of merchandise, a dedicated sales force and a large network that delivers to about 15,000 job sites per day. It also offers trade credit, a financing arrangement that allows a customer to receive a big order and pay later. Home Depot, for its part, has just started offering that option to a small portion of its own pro customers.
“What we bring to them is an accelerant to their pro strategy,” he said.
At the time of the deal, Home Depot estimated the acquisition expands the company’s total addressable market to approximately $1 trillion, an increase of approximately $50 billion. 
SRS came with a steep price tag but could add rocket fuel to Home Depot’s pro growth, said Joe Feldman, a senior research analyst for Telsey Advisory Group. He compared the deal to Walmart’s $3.3 billion acquisition of Jet.com, an e-commerce player. Some industry watchers and Walmart’s own CEO have credited the move for accelerating Walmart’s online business, even though it eventually shut down Jet.com as a standalone.
“They see it as an opportunity to enter a completely new market with a very established player,” he said. “It will take a few years to see if it pays off.”

Home Depot acquired SRS Distribution in March for $18.25 billion. The Texas-based company sells supplies to professionals for pools, landscaping and roofing.
Melissa Repko | CNBC

A jolt to the business

For Home Depot, the expansion into the pro business comes at a challenging time. With housing turnover near its lowest in decades, the pro business has also felt pressure.
On Tuesday, the company hiked its full-year forecast, but only because of a shorter-term boost in business. Hurricane-related preparation and repairs, and homeowners taking advantage of warmer, drier weather with outdoor-related purchases and smaller projects, drove additional sales in the third quarter.
Customers have delayed home sales and purchases, or springing for pricier projects, as they wait for lower mortgage and borrowing rates.
Home Depot’s “biggest challenge — and really, their only challenge — is when do we see a great retail vertical over the past few years get back to being that way?” said Chuck Grom, a senior analyst who covers retail for Gordon Haskett.
Home Depot’s stock has underperformed the S&P 500. As of Thursday’s close, shares of the company are up 17% this year, but trail the S&P 500’s nearly 25% gains.
Yet investors have expressed some optimism. Telsey Advisory Group’s Feldman recently upgraded Home Depot’s stock. While he said he expects negative comparable sales next quarter and perhaps even in the first quarter of next year, he said he anticipates a return to growth next spring.
In other interest rate easing cycles, he said it’s typically taken about six to nine months to see housing demand pick up. The Federal Reserve kicked off interest rate cuts in September and has made one other reduction since then, with more expected.
Grom said Home Depot’s growing pro business is what helps to attract investors and set it apart from its main competitor, Lowe’s. About half of its business comes from home pros compared with about 20% to 25% at Lowe’s.
Pros are typically steadier and bigger spenders, and some of the businesses they serve better weather ups and downs in the economy.
For example, about 80% of the roofing business comes from repairs or re-roofing projects rather than for new homes, Decker said. He cited that as one of the factors that made SRS attractive.
Tinker said SRS is more insulated than Home Depot is from economic changes. As families hold off on moving, SRS has gotten business from investment companies that have been buying properties to fix up and rent, he said.
“There’s such a huge need for people to rent until they can afford to buy,” he said.
SRS is expected to contribute about $6.4 billion in incremental sales this year, according to Home Depot. Those sales include only the period after the deal closed in mid-June.
The SRS deal and the focus on pro does not mean Home Depot is abandoning efforts to jolt the rest of its business. Decker said the retailer is still trying to attract more do-it-yourself sales. It has opened 10 new stores in the U.S. since late January and it plans to open two more by early February.

Combining forces

Home Depot has already started to see the synergies the deal brings.
SRS brings a larger and more mature logistics network that can speed up deliveries and lower costs. The company has an approximately 4,000-truck delivery force. Home Depot, on the other hand, relies mostly on third-party delivery and had just started to use its own drivers, Decker said.
SRS also sells a larger catalog of products that professionals use to satisfy customers’ varied demands, such as surf blue-colored roofing or a deeper selection of outdoor fire pits, Tinker said.
The newly acquired business also has other advantages, including a dedicated sales force with expertise in specific verticals and deep relationships with pros who are frequent buyers, Tinker said. Its approximately 2,500-person specialized sales force is larger than Home Depot’s, which is in the hundreds, Tinker said. Home Depot does not disclose the size of its sales force.
In Los Angeles, Home Depot and SRS are in the early innings of testing how they can bring their existing operations together. As part of a pilot project, SRS will use space in a Home Depot distribution center to expand its sales in the part of the country where it has a smaller footprint, Tinker said.
“That’s a huge opportunity, but that’s even not touching or integrating with them,” he said. “That’s just using some of their assets.”
SRS gains other business advantages from joining the home improvement behemoth. Home Depot’s big-box stores include pro desks where contractors can go for specialized support or to place orders. Those pro desks are now promoting and selling SRS’ deeper catalog of products, Decker said.
In the meantime, SRS, which has made more than 100 acquisitions, has continued to buy small, often family-owned companies in the pool, landscaping and roofing business. It’s averaged 15 acquisitions annually in the past four or five years, Tinker said.
Home Depot has taken a more hands-off approach, allowing SRS to run more independently after the deal, Decker said.
“We’re letting them focus on their growth formula, but also beginning to look at where are their obvious synergies, without disrupting what they’re doing,” he said.
Inside the SRS-owned Texas Pool Supply in Plano, which caters only to home pros, the aisles of items include many that couldn’t be found at a local Home Depot. Contractors can buy a wider range of tiles for the bottom of a swimming pool, or bulk items, such as 100-pound buckets of pool sanitizer.
When Home Depot acquired SRS, Jeff Cabell, branch manager of Texas Pool Supply, said he got a lot of questions from customers. Some asked if Home Depot would soon carry the same products and worried it would change the business. Some employees asked if their uniform would change to Home Depot’s signature orange aprons.
In both cases, Cabell said, the answer is no. More

Disney’s theme park division posted record revenue and profit in fiscal 2024, and that growth is expected to continue next year.
The company is breaking ground on new additions and updates to its domestic and international theme parks, but it will be several years before they become available to the public.
In the meantime, Disney is using in-park entertainment and limited-time offerings to keep guests coming back.

People walk in front of Cinderella’s Castle at the Magic Kingdom Park at Walt Disney World on May 31, 2024, in Orlando, Florida.
Gary Hershorn | Corbis News | Getty Images

All is well in the Magic Kingdom.
Disney’s theme park division posted record revenue and profit for fiscal 2024, with revenue rising 5% for the full year to $34.15 billion and operating income up 4% to $9.27 billion.

Experiences, which includes parks, resorts, cruises and consumer products, was the second-highest revenue driver behind Disney’s entertainment division, which tallied $41.18 billion in fiscal 2024. However, the entertainment segment’s operating profits were smaller, collecting just $3.92 billion.
Revenue growth in experiences was the strongest of any Disney division, and company executives expect the good times to continue.
Disney expects to see 6% to 8% profit growth for experiences in fiscal 2025 — and that’s before it breaks ground on a slew of planned land expansions, new rides and rethemed attractions.
As part of Disney’s 10-year, $60 billion investment in the segment guests will finally get to see what lies beyond Big Thunder Mountain at the Magic Kingdom, visit the Land of the Dead with the cast of “Coco” at Disneyland and battle King Thanos within the Avengers Campus at California Adventure.
Many of those plans were revealed during the company’s D23 Expo back in August, however, it’ll be a few years before Disney’s park guests will have the opportunity to explore the new additions.

In the meantime, the company is driving revenue with higher ticket prices as well as in-park entertainment and limited-time offerings to keep guests coming back.

Frequent visitors

Disney has a wide variety of park guests, ranging from locals who visit often throughout the year to the once-in-a-lifetime visitors who may be traveling from afar.
“You have these different buckets of guests, all of whom are interested in having a great day at the Disney parks, but are motivated by different elements or different factors,” said Gavin Doyle, founder of MickeyVisit.com.
For those who venture to the parks less frequently, new marquee attractions and lands can serve as motivation to book tickets and hotel stays.
In the last five years, Disney has added two Star Wars-themed lands and a Marvel land as well as opened new rides like Cosmic Rewind at Epcot, which features characters from “Guardians of the Galaxy,” and a “Tron” roller coaster at Magic Kingdom. Disney also recently rethemed the iconic Splash Mountain attraction with characters from “The Princess and the Frog.”

Exterior of the Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run ride at Disney’s Galaxy’s Edge.

On the other end of the spectrum, those who visit annually or several times during the year, only need “the smallest nudge,” Doyle said. And that can come in the form of new live shows, character meet-and-greets, holiday food specials, seasonal festivals as well as parades and nighttime spectaculars.
“There’s stuff that happens all throughout the year to be able to make every day of the year different,” Doyle said. “There’s festivals all throughout the year … limited-time parades and firework celebrations. This leans into that Disney vault strategy, where you have something that’s super exciting and it has a timer on and a ticking clock that drives people to come and have a time that they have to have their trip by. I think that’s really critical here, and it causes people to come to the parks even more.”

The Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse float passes by during the daily Festival of Fantasy Parade at the Magic Kingdom Park at Walt Disney World on May 31, 2024, in Orlando, Florida. 
Gary Hershorn | Corbis News | Getty Images

It’s those more frequent guests who are crucial for Disney to reach that projected 6% to 8% profit growth in fiscal 2025, even as it expects to take a $130 million hit due to the impact of hurricanes Helene and Milton, as well as a $90 million impact from cruise prelaunch costs during the fiscal first quarter.
As Disney works on larger, longer-term projects like the revamp of its Florida-based Frontier Land to be “Cars” themed and a new Avatar-based land in California, among other projects, having these daily live entertainment options as well as unique, seasonal menu items can help drive revenue.
“It’s small things adding up to big things,” said David Lightbody, senior vice president of Disney Live Entertainment.
The company is also looking to capitalize on the upcoming opening of rival Universal’s new Epic Universe theme park in Florida, which is expected to drive travel and tourism to the area and give a bump to Disney’s local parks as well.

For a limited-time only

Guests who visit more frequently have some of the strongest emotional attachment to the parks and have more purchasing opportunities when it comes to merchandise and concessions.
Disney doesn’t break out food and merchandise sales within its parks, but shared that during the most recent quarter guests were spending more money at its domestic parks.
Doyle said that many guests will use seasonal offerings, like limited-time holiday food and drinks, as an excuse to go to the parks and have scavenger hunts to try out all the new treats.

Festive food options arrive just in time for the holidays at Disney’s theme parks. 

This also extends to Disney’s festivals, which often feature unique menu items that can’t be obtained at any other time of the year.
And these same parkgoers are more likely to purchase the limited-time merchandise, like exclusive popcorn buckets, spirit jerseys, mugs and pins, which have become popular collectibles for the company’s biggest fans.

Limited time holiday merchandise available at Disney parks.

Similarly, there are guests in this cohort who come just for Disney’s holiday experiences — like California Adventure’s Oogie Boogie Bash or Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party at Walt Disney World — which cost an additional fee on top of a daily ticket.

Tried-and-true spectacles

Throughout the year, Disney has a variety of live entertainment offerings for guests including musical shows, character meet-and-greets, parades and nighttime fireworks shows.
These events can change seasonally, with character outfits, music or color themes catered to the time of year. This meets the brief for new surprises at the parks, while maintaining its trademark nostalgia.
“Parades and nighttime spectaculars play an incredibly important role in the Disney day,” said Lightbody. “Because they’re those two times when everyone comes together, a kind of collective experience in the day, and they kind of punctuate the day.”
To celebrate Disneyland’s 70th anniversary next year, the company is bringing back the beloved nighttime parade “Paint the Night.” The parade, which debuted in Hong Kong in 2014 made its way stateside for Disneyland’s 60th anniversary in 2015 and ran on and off through 2018. It featured more than 1.5 million LED lights and paid homage to the long-running Main Street Electrical Parade, another fan-favorite spectacle.

The Paint the Night Parade travels through Hollywood Land at Disney California Adventure on the first day of Pixar Fest in Anaheim on Thursday, Apr 12, 2018.
Medianews Group / Orange County Register Via Getty Images | Medianews Group | Getty Images

“This parade is one of the best Disneyland has ever done and it is beloved by many,” wrote Lindsay Brookshier, content director of MickeyVisit.com, when Disney first teased the parade’s return back in October.
Disney hasn’t confirmed the start date for the parade, but social media has been flooded with parkgoers who are eagerly awaiting its return.
Another key benefit to the nighttime live events is that they keep guests at the park longer, which means extending sales of drinks, snacks and other merchandise into the evening hours.

A stunning firework show is held at the Magic Kingdom Park in Walt Disney World Resort on July 1, 2021 in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. .
Liao Pan | China News Service | Getty Images

Lightbody referred to Disney’s nighttime shows as a “kiss goodnight,” a way to wrap up the day and give guests a bombastic display.
For most domestic parkgoers, celebratory fireworks are often limited to holidays like the Fourth of July and New Year’s. So, having these moments at Disney punctuates the special nature of the trip, he said.
“When a parade or special offering does well, it leans into your nostalgia for a previous visit or for a childhood you may have had, or not even had but just imagined,” said Doyle. “It will also lean into that specific moment, creating a moment in time for your family. … So it’s playing on nostalgia while also creating a new experience in that moment. It’s both a setting and a reflection of a special time.”
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal is opening the Epic Universe theme park next year.

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SpaceX’s president and COO urged on rivals of its rocket and satellites businesses, saying competition is healthy for Elon Musk’s dominant space company.
“It’s going to be hard to catch us, but I certainly hope people try,” Gwynne Shotwell said, speaking at the Baron Investment Conference in NYC.
SpaceX’s Falcon rockets have launched more than 100 times this year and counting, while its Starlink satellite internet network is now serving almost 5 million customers.

SpaceX President and Chief Operation Officer Gwynne Shotwell speaks during the NASA Commercial Crew Program (CCP) astronaut visit at the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, U.S., on Monday, Aug. 13, 2018.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

SpaceX’s second-in-command urged on rivals in comments Friday, describing competition as healthy for Elon Musk’s space company.
“I hope others can catch up, right? Competition is good for industries. … It keeps us tight; it keeps us very focused,” SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell said, speaking at the 2024 Baron Investment Conference in New York.

“It’s going to be hard to catch us, but I certainly hope people try,” Shotwell added.
SpaceX has reached a dominant position in the global launch industry as its semi-reusable Falcon rockets have launched more than 100 times this year and counting. The next closest U.S. rocket company, Rocket Lab, has launched to orbit 12 times this year, with others in the single digits.
Additionally, the 15,000-person company has won billions of dollars in government contracts from the Department of Defense and NASA, serving the latter as the sole U.S. option for delivering crew to and from the International Space Station with its Dragon capsule.
And SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet network is now serving almost 5 million customers, Shotwell said.
Starlink has become disruptive to incumbent satellite telecommunications companies. With nearly 7,000 Starlink satellites in orbit, SpaceX has expanded Starlink’s product offerings from consumers into enterprise markets such as aviation and maritime.

Read more CNBC space news

But the satellite broadband market is “gigantic,” Shotwell said. Several companies are working on competitors to Starlink, such as Eutelsat’s OneWeb, Amazon’s Project Kuiper, Telesat’s Lightspeed and AST SpaceMobile.
Billionaire investor Ron Baron, who said his eponymous firm’s ownership of privately held SpaceX stock stands at over $2 billion, noted that about 30% of the world’s 8 billion people don’t have access to broadband.
“I would love to say … SpaceX is going to serve all of them,” Shotwell told Baron, but “there will be competition — I think there’s plenty of room in this industry, plenty of room for competition.”

Shotwell noted that SpaceX is also steadily advancing the development of its behemoth Starship rocket, recently catching the vehicle’s booster on the first attempt during its fifth test flight last month.
“Starship is really a replacement. It obsoletes Falcon 9 and the Dragon capsule. Now, we’re not shutting down Falcon, we are not shutting down Dragon — we’ll be flying that for six to eight more years,” she said.
“But ultimately, people are going to want to fly on Starship: It’s bigger, it’s more comfortable, it will be less expensive,” Shotwell added.
SpaceX is targeting as soon as Tuesday for Starship’s sixth flight test, Shotwell said, as the company aims to further the rocket’s capabilities with additional demonstrations during the mission. The Starship system is designed to be fully reusable and aims to become a new method of flying cargo and people beyond Earth, unlike its Falcon rockets, which only have reusable boosters and nosecones.
“We just passed 400 [total] launches on Falcon and I would not be surprised if we fly 400 Starship launches in the next four years,” Shotwell said. More

President-elect Donald Trump’s trade and foreign policy team is taking a hawkish stance toward China.
U.S. companies are increasingly concerned a hard-line approach could stunt their prospects in the world’s second-largest economy – and turn them into targets of Chinese retaliation.
China’s retaliation tactics could range from economic changes to matters of diplomacy and security.

With President-elect Donald Trump’s trade and foreign policy team taking a hawkish stance toward China, U.S. companies are increasingly concerned a hard-line approach could stunt their prospects in the world’s second-largest economy – and turn them into targets of Chinese retaliation.
Trump has threatened to hit China with at least 60% tariffs and vowed to end reliance on the country. That alone would be disruptive. It would force companies to scramble to find other sources of supply, American consumers to pay higher prices at the store, and, according to many experts, lead to job losses.

On top of that, the Chinese government could respond with an expanded tool kit to target American businesses.
“The Trump administration’s actions may be seen or may be interpreted as economic war,” Scott Kennedy, senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told reporters in Beijing on Thursday. “If they are interpreted in that way, China might have a much more vigorous response, not limited to tariffs.”
Those actions could range from economic changes to matters of diplomacy and security, Kennedy said, adding China may “push back as hard as they can.”
More combative relations between the U.S. and China also brings the risk of public backlash amid rising Chinese nationalism. The Chinese government has strong controls over information flow which has led to consumer boycotts of international brands.
“The worst part is the consumer brands that are not of a strategic nature and themselves are not controversial and would not be subject to export restrictions might be punished by the local consumer because of their nationality,” said, Michael Hart, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in China. “Since Covid, companies have been looking to diversify and bolster their supply chains, but there are still no easy and reliable replacements for the supply chains and manufacturing that has developed in China over the past decades.”

China’s retaliation tool kit

During Trump’s first term, the Chinese government retaliated against U.S. tariffs by imposing its own tariffs on U.S. imports.
The U.S.-China Business Council, in conjunction with Oxford Economics, estimates a new tit-for-tat tariff battle could result in a “permanent loss of revenue and pressure businesses to slash jobs and investment plans” with as many as 801,000 net job losses by 2025.
The report projected that Nevada, Florida and Arizona would be among the states hardest hit by such tariffs due to their economic reliance on consumer demand. Manufacturing states such as Indiana, Kansas, Michigan and Ohio would also be vulnerable, the Oxford report found. Swing states Nevada, Arizona and Michigan all flipped to Trump in the 2024 election, helping to deliver him back to the White House.
During the last trade battle, China also stopped buying agricultural products from the U.S. The move targeted key U.S. exports like soybeans, disproportionately hurting rural parts of the U.S. where Trump has strong support.

U.S. President Donald Trump attends a bilateral meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping during the G-20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan, June 29, 2019.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

James McGregor, a business consultant on China for three decades, said he sees Beijing using its leverage on U.S. agricultural purchases if it feels pressed this time, too.
“China is already focused on ridding itself of dependence on U.S. farm products. If alternative supplies are available, China may well shift away from American farmers where they can,” McGregor said.
Two years ago, China started importing corn from Brazil. The country is now China’s biggest supplier of corn, surpassing the U.S.
Beijing could also broaden its retribution methods to include targeting U.S. companies operating on Chinese soil.
The business climate in China has tightened meaningfully since Trump’s first term. Despite the Chinese leadership’s stated efforts to welcome international companies, AmCham China’s 2024 Business Climate Survey Report found 39% of companies polled felt less welcome in China.

Tougher laws, tightening regulations

There’s also the risk of legal and regulatory changes in China that could threaten U.S. companies.
In recent years, China made significant revisions to its export control regulations. Those tighter controls have restricted critical metals for the American clean energy and semiconductor sectors.
Analysts foresee China doing the same during a Trump second term, aiming to deprive U.S. industry of key minerals and components.
Beijing has also enhanced laws like an anti-foreign sanctions law that triggers probes, fines and restrictions on operations in the country.
Even before the U.S. election, Beijing had shown signs of targeting certain American companies. For example, PVH, the owner of Calvin Klein, is under investigation thanks to this law.
China has an upgraded anti-espionage law, which international business groups like AmCham China have criticized for what they say is “ambiguity” in the policy.
The law has led to executive and staff detentions and raids on international firms and has made it easier for officials to impose exit bans, barring the accused from leaving the country. 
Many worry that the day-to-day regulatory grind to operate in China could become a bigger slog under a heightened retaliatory environment.
Since Trump’s first term, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has consolidated power even further.
If Xi signals that U.S. companies are out of favor, they can expect regulations for permits, safety checks, licensing and other approvals to be interpreted more harshly by lower-level officials, experts say.
“We will likely see retaliation against American companies in China where they could be step-by-step squeezed out of the China market and replaced,” McGregor said.

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CNBC partnered with Fintrx to analyze single family offices that made the largest number of investments in private startups in 2024.

Guillaume Houze attends the 33rd ANDAM Prize Winner cocktail at les Jardins du Palais Royal on June 30, 2022 in Paris, France.
Pascal Le Segretain | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.
The top 10 family offices for startup investments made over 150 investments combined this year, in everything from biotech and energy to crypto and artificial intelligence, according to a new analysis.

CNBC partnered with Fintrx, the private wealth intelligence platform, to analyze single family offices that made the largest number of investments in private startups in 2024. The list, a first of its kind, sheds light on the investments by some of the biggest names in family offices, from Bernard Arnault’s Aglaé Ventures to Laurene Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective and Peter Thiel’s Thiel Capital. It also reveals names that are little known outside the secretive world of family offices — the private investment arms of wealthy families — but that have become major players in the world of venture capital and private markets.

The most active family office so far this year is Maelstrom, the Hong Kong-based family office of American investor Arthur Hayes, who co-founded the crypto exchange BitMEX. Maelstrom has invested in 22 private startups this year, according to the Fintrx data, topping all other family offices in the database. The vast majority of Maelstrom’s investments are in blockchain technology, including Cytonic, Magma, Infinit, Solayer, BSX, Khalani and Term Labs.
Ranking second on the Top 10 list is Motier Ventures, the family office and venture arm of Guillaume Houzé. Houzé, scion of the fabled French dynasty that owns Galeries Lafayette and other retailing giants, co-founded Motier in 2021 to invest in tech startups.
Motier has invested in 21 startups so far this year. Its investments are largely in artificial intelligence and blockchain, but also include publishing and advertising. The investments include Vibe.co, known as “the Google Ads of streaming”; Adaptive, a tech platform for the construction industry; and PayFlows, a fintech company. It was part of a $220 million seed funding round for Holistic AI, a French generative AI startup, and a $30 million seed round for Flex AI, a Paris-based AI compute company.
Motier was also an investor in two funding rounds for Mistral, the fast-growing French AI firm, which raised more than $500 million last year and whose investors include Nvidia, Lightspeed, and Andreesen Horowitz.

Tied for third are Atinum Investment, the Seoul, Korea-based family office for an unknown family that has mainly invested in software and AI; Hillspire, the family office of former Google CEO Eric Schmidt; and Emerson Collective.
Thiel Capital, tied for sixth, has invested in Fantasy Chess, founded by 17-time World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen, as well as Rhea Fertility, a Singapore-based fertility-clinic roll-up company.
The list doesn’t include the investment amounts and may not include all deals or all family offices, since they aren’t required to disclose their investments. Fintrx compiles its data based on public and private sources from its team of researchers. For the sake of the list, family offices are defined as investment vehicles or holding companies of a single family or individual that don’t manage money for outside investors. The investments don’t include real estate.
As a whole, the ranking offers a rare window into the growing power of family offices in the world of startup capital as they’ve grown in size, wealth and deal sophistication. Nearly a third of startup capital in 2022 came from family offices, according to a PWC report.

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AI has become their favorite investment theme for 2024, and likely will be again in 2025. According to the UBS Global Family Office Report, AI is now the favorite investment category for family offices. More than three-quarters, or 78%, of family offices surveyed plan to invest in AI in the next two to three years — the most for any category. As CNBC has previously reported, Aglaé Ventures, the tech venture arm of LVMH chief Arnault’s family office, has made a string of AI investments this year. Jeff Bezos’ Bezos Expeditions has also made several AI bets in 2024.
Family office advisors say serial investors like those on the Top 10 list often treat startups as idea labs — where they can learn about cutting-edge technology and markets. They can apply those learnings to larger investments or to their own companies.
Schmidt’s family office, Hillspire, for instance, has made over a half-dozen investments this year in AI, which have also helped inform his big bets on energy companies, given the power needs of AI computing. Hillspire was an investor in the $900 million investment round for Pacific Fusion, a nuclear fusion startup, as well as Sion Power.
While a large number of family offices invest in tech startups through venture capital funds, the deals on the CNBC list are for investments made directly by the family offices in startups.
The biggest family offices, such as Hillspire, Thiel or Aglaé, have growing teams of deal and tech experts who can analyze investments and valuations. Smaller family offices and those that don’t specialize in tech startups more typically invest through a VC fund. One of the biggest trends in family offices is “co-investing,” meaning a VC fund takes the lead on an investment and the family office invests as partners, often with lower fees.
Nico Mizrahi, co-founder and general partner of Pattern Ventures, which acts as a fund of funds for emerging managers and works with family offices, said there are growing risks for family offices trying to invest in tech startups on their own. After the stock market declines of 2022 and early 2023, which also brought down the valuations of many private tech companies, paper losses are piling up in the private tech market. The lack of IPOs, mergers and private-equity acquisitions has also made for fewer exits, locking up cash.
“Some of the family offices were not as disciplined and were drinking the Kool-Aid,” Mizrahi said. “I think they over-extended themselves and got a little over eager chasing the venture wave. There are going to be some recaps; there are going to be companies that disappear.”
Mizrahi said the best strategy, especially for smaller family offices, is to team up with experienced managers who have expertise in tech startups.
“It’s really hard to get the best deals and generate the best returns when you’re not doing something full time with 100% of your attention,” he said. “You really have to do it with a partner, firms that are out there doing it all day long, networking and doing due diligence, background and reference checks.” More

Hyundai Motor Co. on Thursday named Jose Munoz as the next president and CEO of the South Korean automaker, effective Jan. 1.
Munoz will succeed current President and CEO Jaehoon Chang, who is being promoted to the vice chair of Hyundai – Automotive Division.
Munoz, a native of Spain and a U.S. citizen, will be the first non-Korean CEO of Hyundai.

Hyundai CEO Jaehoon Chang (left) and José Muñoz, Hyundai president and global chief operating officer, attend the 2024 New York International Auto Show
Michael Wayland | CNBC

DETROIT – Hyundai Motor Co. on Thursday named Jose Munoz as the next president and CEO of the South Korean automaker, effective Jan. 1.
Munoz, an auto industry veteran who rose through the company’s North American ranks, will succeed current President and CEO Jaehoon Chang, who is being promoted to the vice chair of Hyundai Motor – Automotive Division.

“Jose is a proven leader with vast global experience and is ideally suited to lead Hyundai as competitiveness and business uncertainty increases,” Chang said in a statement. “As recently outlined at our CEO Investor Day, we have a clear Hyundai Way vision to create a future centered on mobility and energy. Together with Jose and the rest of our leadership team, the future is very bright for Hyundai.”
Munoz, a native of Spain and a U.S. citizen, will be the first non-Korean CEO of Hyundai.
Munoz currently serves as global chief operating officer of Hyundai as well as president and CEO of the North American operations of Hyundai and its luxury Genesis brand. He joined Hyundai in 2019 from Nissan Motor after 15 years with the Japanese automaker. He has been a member of the company’s board of directors since 2022.

Under Munoz, Hyundai’s North American operations have flourished. Hyundai’s sales have grown 16% since 2019 to roughly 801,200 vehicles last year. Hyundai’s products also have won several prominent awards and industry accolades.
It’s also grown its U.S. operations, including Hyundai and partners committing $12.6 billion to build a new “Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America” production facility and two battery joint ventures in Georgia.

“Succeeding in this challenging industry requires excellence throughout the value chain, from design and engineering, to manufacturing, sales and service, along with a talented team that’s able to deliver every step of the way,” Munoz said. “I’m excited and motivated by the challenge ahead and want to continue Hyundai’s growth trajectory and laser-focus on exceeding customer expectations. It truly is a great time to be with Hyundai.”
The company did not name a successor for Munoz. More

Shares of vaccine makers fell as President-elect Donald Trump nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent vaccine skeptic, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. 
Health policy experts have said a second Trump term could allow Kennedy to elevate anti-vaccine rhetoric.
Shares of Moderna, Novavax, Pfizer, BioNTech and GSK closed lower on Thursday.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in Phoenix on Aug. 23, 2024.
Thomas Machowicz | Reuters

Shares of vaccine makers fell Thursday as President-elect Donald Trump nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent vaccine skeptic, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. 
The stocks fell in the final hour of trading as reports emerged about Trump’s expected pick. Moderna’s stock closed more than 5% lower on Thursday, shares of Novavax fell more than 7% and Pfizer’s stock ended more than 2% lower.

Shares of BioNTech, the German drugmaker that helped develop a Covid vaccine with Pfizer, closed more than 6% lower. British drugmaker GSK, which makes flu shots and several other vaccines, closed roughly 2% lower.
Shares of those companies dipped further in extended trading as Trump confirmed his pick in a post on his platform Truth Social.
Health policy experts have said a second Trump term could allow Kennedy to elevate anti-vaccine rhetoric, which could deter more Americans from receiving Covid shots and routine immunizations that have for decades saved millions of lives and prevented debilitating illnesses.
Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax are still recovering from falling Covid vaccination rates in the U.S., which have dented their profits over the past two years. 
Kennedy’s track record as a vaccine skeptic is extensive. He has long made misleading and false statements about the safety of shots, such as claiming they are linked to autism despite numerous studies going back decades that debunk the association.
Kennedy is the founder of the nonprofit Children’s Health Defense, the most well-funded anti-vaccine organization in the country.

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For Disney’s fiscal 2025, streaming will generate enough operating income to offset the parallel decline in operating income from linear TV, CFO Hugh Johnston said in an interview.
Disney projects entertainment direct-to-consumer operating income will increase by about $875 million next year over fiscal year 2024.
Disney’s results suggest streaming may be a more robust business than some investors previously believed.

The Disney+ website on a laptop computer in the Brooklyn borough of New York, US, on Monday, July 18, 2022.
Gabby Jones | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Disney might be proving the world’s most famous investor wrong.
Last year, Warren Buffett, “The Oracle of Omaha,” told CNBC’s Becky Quick he had no faith in the business of streaming video.

“Streaming … it’s not really a very good business,” Buffett said on April 12, 2023. “The shareholders really haven’t done that great over time.”
Buffett wasn’t lying. Legacy media companies such as Comcast’s NBCUniversal, Disney, Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery have all underperformed the S&P 500 since Jan. 1, 2022, largely due to billions of dollars lost while launching subscription streaming services.

But Disney’s quarterly earnings results, released Thursday, indicate streaming is about to become a much better business.
A combination of pulling back on content spending and steadily increasing Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ subscribers hasn’t just turned streaming into a profitable business, it’s actually turned streaming into an even better business than traditional TV, according to Disney Chief Financial Officer Hugh Johnston.
For Disney’s fiscal 2025, streaming will generate enough operating income to offset the parallel decline in operating income from linear TV, Johnston said in an interview.

Disney projects entertainment direct-to-consumer operating income will increase by about $875 million next year over fiscal year 2024. That would put the division at over $1 billion in operating income for the coming fiscal year.
“I think we’re well-positioned if [consumers] decide to stay in linear for longer, and I think we’re well-positioned if they decide to move over to the streaming side,” Johnston said during Disney’s earnings conference call.
Those results are borne out in Disney’s earnings. Disney’s combined streaming businesses improved their profitability in the company’s fiscal fourth quarter, posting operating income of $321 million. For the year, Disney’s entertainment streaming platforms (Disney+ and Hulu) made $143 million in operating income. Last year, the entertainment platforms lost $2.5 billion.

Streaming strikes back

The bearishness toward traditional media hasn’t been isolated to streaming’s near-term losses.
Investors have also largely bought into the premise that subscription streaming video won’t be able to replace the billions in profit from linear TV, cable and broadcast, that the companies have lived off for decades.
The traditional pay-TV business has been phenomenal for many reasons, but two stand out: Media companies get paid monthly regardless of whether people actually watch, and churn rates for traditional pay TV were traditionally extremely low — at least, until the invention of streaming. In the last decade, tens of millions of Americans have canceled their cable TV subscriptions.
In the new streaming era, it’s far easier to cancel a particular service at any given time. Instead of having to cancel TV entertainment in its entirety, a consumer can easily pick and choose from a handful of streaming services in any given month.
Consequently, media companies no longer religiously get paid each month. Now, only consumers that want specific programming are paying, and only for as long as they want it.Still, Disney’s forecast suggests those headwinds don’t necessarily mean streaming will be unsuccessful as a long-term replacement product for cable. Future bundles or consolidation may help mitigate churn. As companies shift their best content to streaming, canceling services becomes less appealing.
Disney’s results follows strong streaming results last week from Warner Bros. Discovery. The company’s direct-to-consumer division delivered profit of $289 million, driven by an increase in global subscribers, higher advertising revenue and global average revenue per user. Warner Bros. Discovery’s flagship streaming service Max added 7.2 million global customers during the third quarter, bringing its total subscriber base to 110.5 million.
The end result may be a media industry that emerges from a rough few years stronger than investors feared. Disney shares rose 6.2% Thursday.
Disclosure: Comcast’s NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC. More