Raphael Stevens

Gordon Pointe is a roughly 9-acre compound in Naples, Florida, in an affluent enclave called Port Royal.
The mega-listing includes a main house that spans about 11,500 square feet on a private peninsula.
The listing is already drawing significant interest, according to a co-listing agent, despite what may be a high asking price.

The main house at Gordon Pointe spans 11,500 sq ft.

The most expensive home for sale in the U.S. hit the market this week for $295 million.
Gordon Pointe, as it’s called, is a roughly 9-acre compound in Naples, Florida, on the Gulf Coast, in an affluent enclave called Port Royal.

The mega-listing includes a main house that spans about 11,500 square feet, with six bedrooms. Two guest houses, each over 5,000 square feet, bring the estate’s total interior living space to 22,800 square feet. All three homes are on a peninsula that delivers 1,650 feet of waterfront, a private yacht basin and T-shaped dock.
Before you start counting up bedrooms and calculating the price per square foot (which is about $12,900), co-listing agent Leighton Candler of Corcoran told CNBC the value here isn’t so much about the size of the three grand homes on the property, it’s about privacy, beach frontage and a rare opportunity for significant development.
According to a press release that launched the listing, “The property can accommodate more than 200,000 square feet of residential development,” meaning the land has a ton of untapped potential.
“There can be eight waterfront homes on this property,” Candler told CNBC. While the property could be broken apart after purchase, the New York-based broker speculates a potential buyer will more likely maintain it as a private family compound.

Gordon Pointe’s sandy white beach stretches over 700 feet on the Gulf of Mexico.

The nine acres are made up of contiguous lots, the first of them purchased in 1985 by John and Rhodora Donahue. John Donahue co-founded a Pittsburgh-based investment management firm, now known as Federated Hermes, with over $758 billion in assets under management, according to the firm’s website.

The waterfront view of the main house and a stretch of beach on Gordon Pointe.

After that first purchase in 1985, the Donahues continued to buy up more of the peninsula and didn’t stop until they owned it all. Their buying spree created an exclusive, gated compound almost entirely surrounded by water. A single private drive means no pesky through traffic.
“It gives you all the benefits of being on an island, but on Gordon Pointe your family can be secluded without feeling isolated,” Candler said.
Along with a T-shaped dock that can accommodate six boats, the Donahues also constructed a private yacht basin that’s 231 feet by 50 feet and has a depth of almost 8 feet. Candler told CNBC it’s a rare amenity that had to be approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

A view of Gordon Pointe with the private yacht basin in the lower right corner.
Dawn McKenna Group / Coldwell Banker Realty

Can Gordon Pointe fetch $295 million?

According to Realtor.com the median listing price in Port Royal is $24.1 million.
The highest-priced home, before Gordon Pointe, in the ultra luxe beachfront community hit the market in December at $45 million, or just under $4,300 per square foot. Meanwhile an empty lot of almost 1.5 acres adjacent to Gordon Pointe has been on the market for a year, at an asking price of $63 million.
“We did our best to price [Gordon Pointe] and we can defend that price all day long,” co-listing agent Dawn McKenna of Coldwell Banker Realty told CNBC.
McKenna said the listing is already drawing significant interest since it went live Wednesday and that she’s already booked eight in-person visits with prequalified buyers.
It’s no surprise to hear listing brokers argue an eye-popping price tag is justified, but true comparisons at this level and buyers with enough cash to pay that kind of money are few and far between. And, as is the case with any real estate listing, there can be a big gap between an initial asking price and what a property ultimately sells for.
For some nine-figure context, here’s a closer look at the second- and third-most-expensive listings currently for sale in America.

A view of the Central Park Tower at 217 West 57th St. in New York City.
Source: Cody Boone, SERHANT Studios

The first of the two listings is a penthouse that debuted in New York City in September 2022.
The residence sits high atop 217 West 57th Street, overlooking Central Park, spanning three floors and over 17,500 square feet.
Broker Ryan Serhant made headlines when he listed the mega-apartment at $250 million, which he told CNBC at the time was the appropriate price.
“I know it sounds crazy, but relatively speaking, it’s priced at a great value on a per-square-foot basis,” Serhant said in 2022. “It’s just a very, very big apartment with lots of amenities.”
But naysayers questioned the nosebleed asking price, which amounted to over $14,000 a square foot.
“I consider this a fantasy price,” Manhattan luxury broker Donna Olshan told CNBC in 2022.
The triplex residence sat on the market for 12 months with no takers. After a yearlong run at $250 million, the asking price was slashed by $55 million, or 22%. The pricey pad is still on the market for $195 million.

Inside the $250 million penthouse on ‘Billionaires’ Row’

It was a similar journey in Los Angeles, with the seven-bedroom 20-bath mansion known as Casa Encantada.
The mansion, located at 10644 Bellagio Road in Bel Air, is owned by children’s book author Karen Winnick, the widow of late billionaire and financier Gary Winnick.
The residence hit the market in June for $250 million.
After the sky-high ask failed to lure a buyer, the home was taken off the market only to reappear in November with a $55 million price cut.
Listing agent Kurt Rappaport is still looking for a buyer willing to pay the $195 million.

Nine-figure whisper sales

The reality is nine-figure listings can take months, even years, to sell, and that’s not necessarily a reflection of a broker’s ability.
Real estate consultant Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel, looked at 10 U.S. home sales that traded for $150 million or more and found many of them were so-called whisper listings — sales that leveraged hushed word-of-mouth marketing and no public real estate listings or marketing campaigns.
That makes tracking price changes over the life of the listings nearly impossible.

Jeff Bezos gives a thumbs-up as he speaks during an event about Blue Origin’s space exploration plans in Washington, D.C., May 9, 2019.
Clodagh Kilcoyne | Reuters

But perhaps unsurprisingly there are a lot of famous billionaires involved in these sales, including hedge funder Ken Griffin, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and mega-investor Marc Andreessen, who each picked up nine-figure compounds in quiet off-market deals.

The Chartwell Estate in Los Angeles
Photograph by Jim Bartsch, courtesy of the Estate of Jerry Perenchio

One notable mega-mansion of the 10 transactions compiled by Miller did officially come to market and has an interesting price history.
In 2017 the mansion at 750 Bel Air Road in Los Angeles, known as the Chartwell Estate, had a $350 million price tag. It sat on the market with no bites, and the oversized asking price took several deep cuts, to $195 million.
In 2019 the estate finally sold for $150 million, purchased by Lachlan Murdoch, executive chair and CEO of Fox Corp. and son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

Take a look inside of Lachlan Murdoch’s new $150 million LA mansion

And another interesting mega-transaction made the list: A Malibu mansion located at 27712 Pacific Coast Highway. While it never actually had a public listing, The Wall Street Journal reported its whispered price tag was $295 million.
When it sold in 2023 in an off-market deal to music power couple Jay-Z and Beyoncé, it went for $190 million. More

The insatiable demand for weight loss drugs is outpacing supply, leaving many patients struggling to get their hands on the injectable treatments. 
Dominant weight loss drugmakers Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are showing encouraging progress in their efforts to increase supply. 
Both drugmakers have recently given positive supply updates, aiming to reassure investors that they can capitalize on the success of their drugs and reassure patients that they can access them.

Injection pens of Novo Nordisk’s weight-loss drug Wegovy are shown in this photo illustration in Oslo, Norway, Nov. 21, 2023.
Victoria Klesty | Reuters

The insatiable demand for weight loss drugs is trouncing supply, leaving many patients struggling to find the injectable treatments. 
The dominant weight loss drugmakers, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, have said supply woes likely won’t go away anytime soon, as the popularity of those medicines continues to soar. But both companies are showing encouraging progress in their efforts to increase supply. 

“I think it’s going to take a few years for it to resolve itself,” Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Louise Chen told CNBC of the supply issues. “But I think both companies will slowly start to meet the demand in the market.” 
Patients have flocked to weight loss drugs such as Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound as the treatments help them shed significant pounds over time, despite the drugs’ hefty price tags, mixed insurance coverage and handful of unpleasant side effects.
Goldman Sachs analysts expect 15 million U.S. adults to be on obesity medications by 2030. Some Wall Street analysts project that the weight loss drug market could be worth $100 billion by the end of the decade.
As demand spikes, most of the drugs have slipped into intermittent shortages. But there is limited data available on how significant shortages are or how much supply companies have.
“I hear all the time about patients going to pharmacies that just don’t have it in stock for them, especially since the summer,” said Dr. Jeff Friedman, the director of bariatric surgery at the University of Florida, who also prescribes obesity medications.

But both Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly gave updates on positive supply developments to investors over the last week. They rounded out 2023 with a handful of new investments in expanding production capacity for their weight loss and diabetes drugs.
Those efforts aim to reassure anxious investors that they can capitalize on the success of the treatments and to reassure patients that they can access the treatments. Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly look to maintain their edge in the market as other companies such as Amgen, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Roche and smaller obesity drugmakers race to join the space. 

Drugmakers kick off 2024 with supply progress 

Novo Nordisk last week said it had more than doubled its supply of lower-dose versions of its weight loss injection Wegovy in January compared with previous months, which will allow more people to start taking the drug. Shortages have forced Novo Nordisk to restrict the availability of those lower “starter” doses in the U.S. since May. 
There is still “limited availability” of 0.25, 0.5, 1 and 1.7-milligram doses of Wegovy, according to a Monday update on the Food and Drug Administration’s drug shortage database. Patients typically start on the 0.25-milligram dose and increase the size over time to mitigate side effects such as nausea. 
Novo Nordisk plans to gradually increase Wegovy supply the rest of the year, executives said on the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call last week.

An Eli Lilly and Company pharmaceutical manufacturing plant is pictured in Branchburg, New Jersey, March 5, 2021.
Mike Segar | Reuters

Certain doses of Eli Lilly’s diabetes drug Mounjaro, which uses the same active ingredient as Zepbound, also have limited availability, according to the FDA. Both treatments are incretin drugs, which mimic gut hormones to suppress appetite and regulate blood sugar.
Still, Eli Lilly achieved its goal of doubling production capacity for such incretin drugs by the end of 2023, executives said during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call Tuesday. They said the company will expand production with “equal urgency” this year, with the most significant production increases occurring in the second half of the year. 
By that point in the year, the company expects its production of sellable doses of incretin drugs to be at least 1.5 times higher than it was in the second half of 2023, executives said.

Catalent deal could boost Wegovy supply

Novo Nordisk and its parent company, Novo Holdings, unveiled multibillion-dollar deals that could increase Wegovy supply — just not yet.
Novo Holdings on Monday said it will acquire drug manufacturer Catalent in a $16.5 billion deal. Catalent is the main supplier of fill-finish work, which involves filling and packaging syringes and injection pens, for Wegovy. 
Novo Nordisk will then buy three of Catalent’s manufacturing sites from Novo Holdings for $11 billion. Novo Nordisk said that purchase will gradually increase the company’s manufacturing capacity starting in 2026. 

A general view of the drug product manufacturing laboratory in biologics and sterile injectables, Catalent, in Brussels, Belgium June 27, 2023. REUTERS/Yves Herman
Yves Herman | Reuters

In a note Tuesday, TD Cowen analyst Michael Nedelcovych wrote the Catalent deals will likely “boost production faster” than building entirely new plants or adding more production lines to existing sites, moves Novo Nordisk is still pursuing. Those efforts are more “expensive and time consuming” than the acquisition, he noted.
Eli Lilly CFO Anat Ashkenazi told investors during an earnings call Tuesday that the company has concerns about Novo Holdings’ acquisition, especially since Eli Lilly contracts Catalent to manufacture some of its medications. 
But Eli Lilly has said it doesn’t have meaningful production coming from Catalent, so the acquisition may have little effect on its business, Cantor Fitzgerald’s Chen said.

New plants could increase long-term supply 

Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have both poured billions into building new production sites that could boost supply of their weight loss and diabetes drugs in the coming years. 
On Tuesday, Eli Lilly said a new plant in Concord, North Carolina, will start production of incretin drugs as early as the end of the year, with products available to ship in 2025. 
In a note Sunday, Morgan Stanley analysts said they expect that facility and one in North Carolina’s Triangle Park, which started production last year, to help the company significantly increase its capacity for supplying autoinjector forms of Mounjaro, Zepbound and Eli Lilly’s other diabetes drug Trulicity. Autoinjectors are the traditional delivery devices of those medicines.
The company also will build a handful of other facilities over the next few years. Eli Lilly in November said it would spend $2.5 billion to open a manufacturing site for injectable products in Germany, with construction beginning this year.
The drugmaker has also invested more than $3 billion to build two new production facilities in its home state of Indiana. 
Meanwhile, Novo Nordisk in November said it would invest $6 billion to expand its manufacturing sites in Denmark, noting it will finish construction from the end of 2025 through 2029. The company also said it would spend around $2.3 billion to build out another production facility in France. 

Other forms of weight loss drugs could help 

Alternative forms of weight loss drugs could also help alleviate supply constraints in the future.
Eli Lilly has limited capacity to make autoinjectors for Mounjaro and Zepbound. So, the company plans to launch Mounjaro in a delivery device called KwikPen in certain countries outside of the U.S. The method requires additional regulatory approvals. The UK recently approved Mounjaro in KwikPen form. 
The drugmaker has said launching KwikPen forms of its incretin drugs will expand supply. That’s because Eli Lilly for years has used that device for insulin, so the company can tap into existing manufacturing resources to make more of other incretin drugs. 

George Frey | Reuters

KwikPen is a single four-dose pen that covers a month’s treatment. Patients using autoinjectors go through four different pens per month.
Wells Fargo analyst Mohit Bansal wrote in a note last month that if Eli Lilly launches its diabetes and weight loss drugs in KwikPen form in the U.S., it could be a “source of supply upside” in the market for 2025.
But both Eli Lilly and analysts have said that oral forms of weight loss and diabetes drugs, which are typically easier and cheaper to manufacture, will be key to meeting demand.
Eli Lilly is developing an oral drug called orforglipron, which may have an edge over experimental weight loss pills from Novo Nordisk and Pfizer. 
Eli Lilly’s pill helped overweight or obese patients lose up to 14.7% of their body weight after 36 weeks in a midstage trial. The result appeared to be consistent with the weight reduction caused by Novo Nordisk’s oral drug, but over a shorter trial period. 
Still, Eli Lilly may release late-stage trial data on the pill in 2025, so it won’t be entering the market any time soon.  More

Temu, the controversial Chinese e-commerce giant owned by Pinduoduo, is planning to air a Super Bowl ad that lawmakers are calling on Paramount and CBS not to run.
The company skyrocketed to prominence last year after it ran a Super Bowl ad that invited customers to shop “like a billionaire.”
Temu is under congressional investigation for the use of forced labor in its supply chain and has been accused of spying on its customers.

Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Temu, the controversial Chinese e-commerce giant looking to take on Amazon, is returning to the big game on Sunday with a Super Bowl ad that lawmakers are calling on Paramount Global and CBS not to run.
The company, owned by PDD Holdings, skyrocketed to prominence last year after it ran an ad during the big game just a few months after it was founded. 

Last year’s advertisement touted Temu’s low prices and invited consumers to shop “like a billionaire.” The multi-million dollar investment put Temu on the map and by the end of 2023, it was the No. 1 most-downloaded app in the U.S. with monthly active users topping 51 million this January, up nearly 300% year over year, according to data from Sensor Tower. 
The specifics of this year’s ad haven’t been revealed, but already it’s marred in controversy.
The company is looking to win over U.S. shoppers by being the next best “everything store” with lower prices than competitors, but lawmakers say it uses slave labor in its supply chain and spies on its customers. 
On Wednesday, 11 Republican lawmakers sent a letter to the CEOs of CBS, which is airing the Super Bowl, and parent company Paramount urging them not to run the advertisement.
“Since last year’s Super Bowl, Congress, through the House Select Committee on the Chinese Community Party, has uncovered alarming findings that indicate Temu has a pattern of noncompliance towards illicit products entering the United States market,” the missive read.

“Specifically, Temu ‘does not have any system to ensure compliance with the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA). This all but guarantees that shipments from Temu containing products made with forced labor are entering the United States on a regular basis, in violation of the UFLPA,'” it says, citing the House committee report.
Allowing Temu’s commercial to air “would be a touchdown for the Chinese Communist Party against the home team,” the letter stated.
The letter was sent by Rep. Carol Miller, R-W.V., and signed by Reps. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., Jim Banks, R-Ind., Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., Christopher Smith, R-N.J., Pete Stauber, R-Minn., Ronny Jackson, R-Tex., Michelle Steel, R-Calif., Beth Van Duyne, R-Tex., James Baird, R-Ind. and Mike Carey, R-Ohio.
Paramount and CBS declined to comment.

Labor allegations

Temu, along with Shein and other apparel retailers with a manufacturing presence in China, has been under congressional investigation from the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party since May.
While cotton and other raw materials that can be traced to forced labor is a problem across the entire fashion industry, Shein regularly provides data on how often banned cotton is found in its clothes and publishes the results of the audits it conducts on its manufacturers. Other retailers also publish audit results.
Temu has yet to provide such data publicly.
“Company officials lazily point to boilerplate terms and conditions asking suppliers not to use forced labor, but Temu does not conduct audits and has no compliance system to prevent supporting atrocities,” committee member, Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., said in a Friday bulletin. “The company even admitted it ‘does not expressly prohibit third-party sellers from selling products based on their origin in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region’ and completely disregards the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.”
In a statement to CNBC, Luetkemeyer called Temu’s ad “sickening.”
“Some people watch the Super Bowl for the commercials as much as the game. It’s sickening to think a company built on slave labor with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party is going to make a direct appeal to millions of Americans all at once,” said Luetkemeyer. “I hope it only draws attention to the sinister background of both Temu and Pinduoduo if and when people see it. A flashy advertisement for the site’s cheap products is lipstick on the ugliest pig around.”
In response, a Temu spokesperson told CNBC its standards and practices surrounding the use of forced labor are “no different” from major e-commerce players like “Amazon, eBay and Etsy” and the allegations “are completely ungrounded.” 
“Before setting up their stores and listing products on Temu, every seller has to sign an agreement. This document stands as a pledge to maintain lawful and compliant business operations, and adhere strictly to the legal standards and regulations of their specific markets,” the spokesperson said. 
“The use of forced, penal, or child labor is strictly prohibited. Employment by all our merchants and suppliers must be strictly voluntary. They shall respect the freedom of association and workers’ rights to collectively bargain. Temu’s merchants, suppliers, and other third parties must pay their employees and contractors on time and must comply with all applicable local wage and hours laws.” More

After YouTube committed $2 billion per year to secure the rights to NFL Sunday Ticket, YouTube TV grew from 5 million subscribers in 2022 to more than 8 million this year.
Enlisting some of YouTube’s top creators to promote NFL Sunday Ticket helped drive engagement among tens of millions of users, the league said.
The parties are calling the approach a “helmets off strategy,” aiming to elevate the breadth of content surrounding the football season.

YouTuber Deestroying and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell presenting at YouTube’s Brandcast in May 2023.
Credit: YouTube

YouTube bet big on the NFL to boost its subscriber base, and content creators have been key to that push.
After YouTube committed $2 billion per year to secure the rights to NFL Sunday Ticket, YouTube TV grew from 5 million subscribers in 2022 to more than 8 million this year. Enlisting some of YouTube’s top creators to promote NFL Sunday Ticket helped drive engagement among tens of millions of users, the league said.

“We can bring together people’s favorite creators with a lot of what you might traditionally associate with TV around professional sports and the NFL,” said Christian Oestlien, YouTube TV’s vice president of product management. “Bringing those two worlds together is letting us really open up the NFL to a whole new generation of fans.”
A subscription to YouTube TV costs $73 per month, with an additional annual fee of $349 for access to NFL Sunday Ticket.
YouTube TV enlisted familiar YouTube stars including lifestyle creators, vloggers and sports creators to attract new audiences to the NFL. The creators attended NFL games during the inaugural season of the partnership, and shared content and collaborated with advertisers to boost engagement.
The NFL, in turn, launched various shows on YouTube, such as “Creator of the Week,” to help promote creators on the sidelines. Those YouTube Shorts featured creators such as Sean Evans — host of the chicken-wing-centric interview show Hot Ones — and Ninja, a professional Battle Royale player and streamer.
The parties are calling the approach a “helmets off strategy,” aiming to elevate the breadth of content surrounding the football season.

“It’s another way for us to extend our messaging and, more, the lifestyle around football,” said Ian Trombetta, NFL senior vice president of social, influencer and content marketing. “So many new fans are coming in, not just in the U.S., but globally.”
YouTube accounted for 8.5% of total TV watch time in December, outpacing other major streaming services such as Netflix and Disney+, according to Nielsen.
While overall viewership on YouTube declined last year, according to Nielsen, Tom Rogers, a media expert and executive chairman of gaming content sharing platform Oorbit, noted that a substantial amount of live TV streaming growth last quarter was attributed to YouTube TV. Rogers emphasized that its advantage during that period was its offering of Sunday Ticket.
“NFL Sunday Ticket gives us a great way to work with a very good partner with very valuable content and see how it works,” Sundar Pichai, CEO of YouTube parent Alphabet, said during an interview Thursday with CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “So far it has been great, but we will have a disciplined ROI [return on investment] framework.”

Drawing new, younger fans

One of the NFL’s biggest creator partnerships has been with Donald De La Haye, known online as Deestroying, a sports creator with more than 12 million followers across platforms. De La Haye was recently signed to the United Football League to play for the San Antonio Brahmas.
“It’s bringing new audiences to the game that’s so amazing that I love so much,” said De La Haye. “It’s just helping build that audience and making everybody a fan of the game.”
Lifestyle creator Pierson Wodzynski — who has 24 million followers across platforms but hadn’t previously delved into sports-related content — found her place in YouTube’s NFL strategy by documenting her journey taking every form of transportation to arrive at a San Francisco 49ers game. The video attracted 1.4 million views.
De La Haye, Wodzynski and Evans will appear in a YouTube TV ad that will air during the Super Bowl.

Screenshot from YouTube TV’s Super Bowl ad featuring Donald De La Haye, Pierson Wodzynski and Sean Evans
Credit: YouTube

The creator partnerships have been helpful in capturing a younger demographic.
“I don’t think the NFL could have created the ratings surge they created this season without younger audiences showing up,” said Rogers. “We know it is very hard to reach younger audiences through TV marketing because they watch comparatively less, so I suspect the league’s use of influencers was very important to ratings.”
They’ve also increased NFL content from off the field.
Influencers such as Alix Earle and Kristin Juszczyk, both in romantic relationships with NFL players, went viral this season by sharing glimpses of their game-day experiences. Juszczyk also gained recognition for her creation of custom game-day outfits, which garnered attention when worn by pop icon Taylor Swift and Brittany Mahomes, the wife of Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
Swift had her own impact on social media this season, after posts about her relationship with Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce went viral online.
Travis Kelce and his brother Jason, a center for the Philadelphia Eagles, have their own podcast, called New Heights. It’s hosted on YouTube and has amassed more than 670 million views.
YouTube’s global head of brand marketing, Angela Courtin, said the strategy this season with content creators was to invite a broad range of audiences into every aspect of the NFL experience.
“I have to say these creators are equal if not better than any other channel that I would use in my immediate plan,” Courtin said. “They exceeded our ROI benchmarks so much that we’ll be supercharging them next season.” More

PepsiCo reported quarterly earnings that topped Wall Street’s expectations, but its revenue missed estimates.
The company’s net sales fell 0.5% in the fourth quarter.
PepsiCo executives said high borrowing costs and lower personal savings have squeezed consumers’ budgets.

Pepsi bottles are seen at the grocery store in Las Vegas, United States on November 17, 2023.
Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images

PepsiCo on Friday reported mixed quarterly results as North American demand for its food and drinks weakened.
Shares of the company fell more than 2% in premarket trading.

Here’s what the company reported compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by Refinitiv:

Earnings per share: $1.78 adjusted vs. $1.72 expected
Revenue: $27.85 billion vs. $28.4 billion expected

Pepsi reported fourth-quarter net income of $1.3 billion, or 94 cents per share, up from $518 million, or 37 cents per share, a year earlier.
Excluding items, the food and beverage giant earned $1.78 per share.
Net sales dropped 0.5% to $27.85 billion. It’s the first quarter since 2020 that the company’s quarterly revenue has declined compared with the year-ago period. Currency exchange rates dragged net sales down by 1.5%.
Pepsi’s organic revenue, which excludes acquisitions and divestitures, rose 4.5% in the quarter, helped by higher prices. But those same raised prices have hurt demand for the company’s food and drinks. Pepsi’s volume, which strips out pricing and currency changes, slid again this quarter.

PepsiCo executives said high borrowing costs and lower personal savings have squeezed consumers’ budgets, particularly in North America, in prepared remarks released ahead of the company’s conference call. They also said consumers are increasingly choosing smaller pack sizes for convenience and their low price points.
Pepsi’s North American Quaker Foods division reported an 8% decline in volume. A voluntary recall of its granola bars and cereals hurt its sales during the quarter, along with weaker growth for the overall category.
Frito-Lay North America, which includes brands like Cheetos and Doritos, posted a 2% drop in volume.
Pepsi’s North American beverage unit saw its volume fall 6% in the quarter.
For 2024, Pepsi now anticipates organic revenue growth of at least 4% and core constant currency earnings per share growth of at least 8%. The company previously forecast organic revenue growth on the high end of 4% to 6% and core constant currency earnings per share growth in the high single digits.
“Consumers are likely to remain watchful with their budgets and choiceful with their purchases,” Pepsi executives said in the prepared remarks.
Pepsi is predicting a weaker first half of the year as product recalls dent its North American Quaker Oats business and international conflicts hurt sales in some regions. Executives are expecting international organic revenue growth to top that of North America for the full year. More

Local broadcast station groups plummeted in value this week after Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox announced they will be launching a new joint venture focused on sports fans.
The CEO of EW Scripps told CNBC that Wall Street is overestimating the new product’s popularity.
Local stations will be a part of the new product, Adam Symson told CNBC.

EW Scripps CEO Adam Symson
Source: EW Scripps

Local TV station owners including Sinclair, TEGNA and EW Scripps all saw their valuations plummet this week after Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox announced a new sports joint venture set to launch this fall.
Sinclair dropped 12% Wednesday, TEGNA fell 7.2% and Scripps plummeted 24% as investors weighed the meaning of a new, skinnier cable bundle of sports networks that will include ESPN, TNT and Fox but will leave out CBS and NBC. Sinclair bounced back by rising 7% Thursday, but TEGNA and Scripps were little changed.

But Wall Street’s reaction is overblown, according to EW Scripps CEO Adam Symson.
For one, investors appear to be pricing in that local ABC and Fox affiliates wouldn’t be part of the new skinnier bundle, Symson told CNBC in an interview. They will be included, he said, citing assurances he’s been given in conversations with Disney executives. Scripps owns 18 ABC stations, in markets such as Phoenix, Detroit, Cleveland and Tampa, and 4 Fox stations.
“Affiliates are going to be compensated for being carried along,” Symson said.
The joint venture will work collaboratively with all local broadcast affiliate partners in a similar manner to other digital multichannel bundlers, such as YouTube TV and Hulu with Live TV, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private.
This means consumers of the new bundle will be able to get their local news and sports from ABC and Fox.

A spokesperson for the joint venture declined to comment.

A partial buffet

Still, Paramount Global’s CBS and Comcast’s NBC are not part of the new bundle, putting affiliates of those broadcast stations potentially at risk.
But only if the bundle takes off. Which, according to Symson, is unlikely without those channels. Scripps has 9 CBS and 11 NBC stations.
“Wall Street acted like this was a sea change product,” Symson said. “I don’t take issue with the opportunity or the idea that there’s value here. But take March Madness. You’re only going to have access to TBS and TNT, but not CBS. It’s not the efficient bundle Wall Street is making it out to be.”
While one executive associated with the joint venture privately told CNBC it will be “a monster,” Symson disagreed with that premise, because, in his view, sports fans won’t be satisfied with a partial offering.
“People don’t want to go to a buffet where half the steam trays are missing,” Symson said.
FuboTV, another sports-focused bundle of networks, has yet to reach 2 million subscribers — and it offers more sports than the new bundle is likely.
A smaller bundle at a price of $40 or $50 per month probably won’t have a large audience either, said Symson.
“If you’re a sports nut today and you need access to all the live telecasts of your favorite sports, you’re best off maintaining the pay TV bundle as it is,” he said. “It calls into question the value of the consumer proposition.”
Even if Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery are able to juice subscriber additions by bundling the new service with existing streaming services Disney+, Hulu and Max, he noted the service should be viewed by investors as supportive of broadcast stations.
“If network affiliates like Scripps will be compensated for carriage on this platform like we are on other platforms, it’s potentially additive,” Symson said. “It’s just another product among products that are kind of already the same thing.”
WATCH: Disney CEO Bob Iger on new streaming sports partnership More