Raphael Stevens

Paramount Global’s stock jumped for the second day in a row.
The media company reported strong third quarter results.
Its streaming business posted narrower losses.

Tom Ryan, CEO and President of Paramount Streaming, speaks during the LG press conference ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada, on January 4, 2023.
Patrick T. Fallon | AFP | Getty Images

Paramount stock closed more than 15% higher Friday, its best day since March 2020, a day after posting another double-digit gain.
The stock was up 28.6% week-to-date, in line for its best week since April . 2020However, the stock is still down about 18% year-to-date, heading for its seventh negative year in a row, its longest yearly losing streak.

The media giant released its third quarter earnings report after the closing bell Thursday, posting higher profit and revenue from a year earlier.
Its streaming business, which includes Paramount+ and Pluto TV, also reported 38% growth in revenue and narrower losses. Paramount+ posted a total of 63 million subscribers.
Wall Street analysts liked what they saw from Paramount’s report.
Bernstein Research analysts noted that the trends in the third quarter were strong, and if the company keeps them up, Paramount can expect more earnings growth.
Moffett Nathanson Research analysts echoed that sentiment while remaining cautiously optimistic.

“Regardless of how any future bundling deal does or does not play out, Paramount+ is moving intothis age as a leaner and more efficient platform than we had anticipated,” they wrote.

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Paramount’s positive momentum

The company’s positive momentum comes on the heels of a successful sale of book publisher Simon & Schuster earlier this week for $1.62 billion. CNBC previously reported that Paramount’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, is open to a merger or selling the company at the right price – but market conditions have complicated possibilities for a transformative transaction.
Paramount did, however, report losses in the TV arena, with advertising revenue dipping 14%. Its TV assets include brands like MTV, Nickelodeon, CBS and Showtime. Licensing and other revenue also decreased 7%.
While the company took a hit with $60 million in idle costs from Hollywood labor strikes, company executives said on the earnings call that they are optimistic the company will bounce back with its upcoming slate. The company also doesn’t plan to institute a streaming password-sharing crackdown similar to Netflix’s.
Paramount’s stock closed up 10% Thursday during a rally across the media sector, spurred by Roku’s strong third quarter earnings report. An increase in Roku users allows consumers more access points to streaming services like Paramount+. Roku’s stock soared 30% Thursday.
Other media stocks also jumped Friday, including Roku and Disney. Warner Bros Discovery – which reports earnings next week – also was higher Friday.
–CNBC’s Christopher Hayes contributed to this report. More

Starz CEO Jeffrey Hirsch announced Starz will lay off employees and exit the U.K. in a letter to staff Friday.
The job cuts will be more than 10% of total staff, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Starz will separate itself from Lionsgate’s studio in the first quarter.

Starz CEO Jeffrey Hirsch
Source: Starz

Starz, the premium network and streaming service that will soon be its own publicly traded company, is laying off more than 10% of employees and is exiting Australia and the U.K.
Starz Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Hirsch announced the news in an email to staff obtained by CNBC on Friday. Starz has about 670 employees. He also addressed staff in a companywide town hall.

The cuts will be in the high double digits but less than 100, according to a person familiar with the matter. A Starz spokesperson declined to comment on the number of cuts but confirmed the authenticity of the letter to staff.
Lionsgate and Starz have been part of the same company since December 2016, when Lionsgate acquired Starz for $4.4 billion. That marriage will end in the first quarter, when the company plans to spin off Lionsgate as a separately traded company.
“We are making these changes to align our organization with the growth areas of the business and to prepare us for our next chapter as a standalone company,” Hirsch wrote in the note.
Lionsgate shares closed more than 7% higher Friday.
Starz announced last quarter it planned to exit Latin America to focus on the U.S., U.K. and Canada. Departing the U.K. will scale down the company’s operations and potentially prepare it to merge with or acquire another U.S.-based media asset, such as A&E Networks or Paramount Global’s BET.

Starz is also folding its Canadian business into its U.S. operations.
Starz ended last quarter with about 12 million domestic streaming subscribers and about 20 million total customers when including those who sign up through traditional pay TV. The entertainment company has focused on female and Black audiences with series including “Outlander” and “Power.”
Lionsgate is scheduled to report its third-quarter earnings Thursday.
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Walmart shares hit an all-time high, as investors bet on the company having a strong holiday season.
The big-box retailer has leaned on its grocery business and its low-price reputation to attract shoppers, including more high-income households, during an inflationary period.
It’s also invested in store upgrades, expanded its third-party marketplace and redesigned its website.

Customers shop at a Walmart store on May 18, 2023 in Chicago, Illinois. 
Scott Olson | Getty Images

Shares of Walmart touched an all-time high Friday, as investors bet that the discounter will outmatch retail rivals and draw shoppers throughout the holiday season because of its reputation for value.
The big-box retailer’s stock hit a peak of $166.30 earlier in the day. That marks the highest since Walmart first began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in August 1972.

Walmart, known for its giant stores and low prices, has put up strong results over the past year even as U.S. consumers have pulled back on discretionary purchases like new outfits, flat-screen TVs and more. It is the largest grocer in the country and makes more than half of its annual revenue from groceries — a category that shoppers need, even when inflation or a recession stretch their budgets.

That business has helped Walmart draw foot traffic, even as other retailers like Macy’s and Target give cautious outlooks and see weaker results.

For Walmart, sticky inflation — particularly in categories like food and household essentials — has also become an opportunity to get new or less frequent shoppers to come to its website and stores. In calls with CNBC over the past few quarters, Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said the company has attracted more grocery shoppers from households that make more than $100,000.
As those shoppers come to its stores and website, they’re seeing ways that Walmart has tried to step up the customer experience to keep up with more polished, tech-savvy rivals like Target and Amazon. The company has launched and expanded fashion-forward clothing brands. It has given its website and app a makeover. It’s investing more than $9 billion over the next two years to upgrade its stores across the country and give them a modern look. And it’s added more items and higher-end brands to its website through its third-party marketplace.
Walmart has also defied another dynamic in the retail industry. As Covid pandemic gains fade away and most companies post online sales declines, it has put up double-digit e-commerce gains for its U.S. business in the past two quarters.
In an interview with CNBC in August, Rainey said Walmart may attract customers with its prices, but wants to beat competitors and retain those shoppers by making it quick and easy to get purchases. Curbside pickup and delivery have driven the company’s e-commerce growth, he said.
“It really shows that the value proposition for Walmart is much more than just low prices or value. It’s convenience today,” Rainey said. “And so we’re leaning heavily into that and really both aspects of this part of our business.”
As the company outperforms many of its peers, some investors have taken notice. So far this year, Walmart’s shares have climbed nearly more than 16%. That outpaces the more than 13% gains of the S&P 500 and the approximately 3% gains of the retail-focused ETF, the XRT, during the same time period.
Walmart is scheduled to report its fiscal third-quarter results on Nov. 16.
— CNBC’s Christopher Hayes contributed to this story.

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UAW President Shawn Fain wants to expand the union’s battle from the Detroit automakers to Tesla, Toyota and other non-unionized automakers in the U.S.
Fain plans to use record contracts recently won with General Motors, Ford Motor and Chrysler-parent Stellantis to assist in the union’s embattled organizing efforts elsewhere.
The UAW has previously failed in organizing foreign-based automakers in the U.S., most recently at Volkswagen and Nissan Motor.

United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain gestures in solidarity with striking workers during a rally at UAW Local 551 on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023, in Chicago. 
John J. Kim | Tribune News Service | Getty Images

DETROIT – United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain wants to expand the union’s battle from the Detroit automakers to Tesla, Toyota Motor and other non-unionized automakers operating in the U.S.
The outspoken leader plans to use record contracts recently won after contentious negotiations and U.S. labor strikes with General Motors, Ford Motor and Chrysler-parent Stellantis to assist in the union’s embattled organizing efforts elsewhere.

“We’ve created the threat of a good example, and now we’re going to build on it,” Fain said Thursday night when discussing Stellantis’ tentative agreement. “We just went on strike like we’ve never been on strike before and won a historic contract as a result. Now we’re going to organize like we’ve never organized before.”
Doing so would greatly assist the union’s bargaining efforts and membership, which has been nearly halved from roughly 700,000 members in 2001 to 383,000 at the beginning of this year. UAW membership peaked at 1.5 million in 1979.
The UAW has previously failed to organize foreign-based automakers in the U.S. Most recently, plants with Volkswagen and Nissan Motor fell short of the support needed to unionize. The UAW has previously discussed organizing Tesla’s Fremont plant in California with little to no traction in those efforts.
It remains to be seen whether the recent efforts are gaining traction at any other automakers, but Fain has vowed to move beyond the “Big Three” — Ford, GM and Stellantis — and expand to the “Big Five or Big Six” by the time its 4½-year contracts with the Detroit automakers expire in April 2028.

The deals include 25% wage increases that would boost top pay to more than $40 an hour, reinstatement of cost-of-living adjustments, enhanced profit-sharing payments and other significant pay, healthcare and workplace benefits. The contracts must still be ratified.

The union has already received significant interest from non-union automakers in light of the tentative agreements, Fain said. And last month, he rejected comments from Ford Chair Bill Ford arguing the company and union should be working together to battle non-American automakers.
“Workers at Tesla, Toyota, Honda, and others are not the enemy — they’re the UAW members of the future,” Fain said.

Toyota

Fain has taken particular aim at Toyota in recent days.
The automaker earlier this week confirmed plans to hike wages at its U.S. factories. The new rates would see hourly manufacturing employees at top rates in Kentucky receive roughly 9% pay increases to $34.80 an hour.
Fain on Thursday called that pay raise “the UAW bump,” joking that UAW stands for “U Are Welcome” to join the union’s movement.

UAW President Shawn Fain marches with UAW members through downtown Detroit after a rally in support of United Auto Workers members as they strike the Big Three auto makers on September 15, 2023 in Detroit, Michigan.
Bill Pugliano | Getty Images

“Toyota isn’t giving out raises out of the goodness of their heart,” Fain said. “They could have just as easily raised wages a month ago or a year ago. They did it now because the company knows we’re coming for ’em.”
Toyota, which has 49,000 hourly and salaried U.S. workers, said the “decision to unionize is ultimately made by our team members.”
“By engaging in honest, two-way communication about what’s happening in the company, we aim to foster positive morale which ultimately leads to increased productivity,” the company said Friday in an emailed statement. “Working together has provided a history of stable employment and income for our team members.”

Tesla

The UAW has so far not been able to establish enough support to force an organizing vote at Tesla’s facilities, including its Fremont, California, plant where the union previously represented workers when it was a GM-Toyota joint venture.
Fain on Thursday told Bloomberg News he believes organizing Tesla and taking on CEO Elon Musk is “doable.”
“We can beat anybody,” Fain told Bloomberg. “It’s gonna come down to the people that work for him deciding if they want their fair share… or if they want him to fly himself to outer space at their expense.”
Still, Musk has historically clashed with union proponents.
As some workers sought to form a union at the company’s Fremont factory in in 2017 and 2018, Tesla was paying a consultancy named MWW PR to monitor employees in a Facebook group and on social media more broadly, as CNBC previously reported.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and owner of X, arrives for the Inaugural AI Insight Forum in Russell Building on Capitol Hill, on Wednesday, September 13, 2023.
Tom Williams | Cq-roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images

Tesla also terminated the employment of a union activist named Richard Ortiz in 2017. And in 2018, Musk said in a tweet, “Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union. Could do so tmrw if they wanted. But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing?”
The tweet violated federal labor laws, the National Labor Relations Board later found.
An administrative court ordered Tesla to reinstate Ortiz and to have Musk delete his tweet, which it concluded had threatened workers’ compensation. Tesla appealed the ruling, and Musk’s offending post remains on the social media platform which Musk now owns, has rebranded as X and runs as CTO and executive chairman.
In February, a different group of organizers filed a complaint with the NLRB claiming that Tesla had fired more than 30 employees at its Buffalo facility in retaliation for a union push there by Tesla Workers United. Tesla called the workers’ allegations false, saying 4% of its Autopilot data labeling team in Buffalo had been terminated due to performance issues.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency responsible for enforcing civil rights laws against workplace discrimination, sued Tesla in September, alleging widespread racist harassment of Black workers, and retaliation against those who spoke out.
And in late October, just over 100 of Tesla’s service employees in Sweden, members of the industrial labor group IF Metall, walked off the job for a short strike. Hundreds of mechanics and technicians at non-Tesla shops also agreed not to repair any of the EV makers’ cars in solidarity. However, Tesla has so far refused to negotiate with IF Metall.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment. More

Restaurant Brands International reported third-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street’s estimates, but its revenue fell short.
Burger King’s same-store sales growth missed StreetAccount estimates.

Unlike McDonalds — which owns some 84% of its outlets in Russia — companies such as Burger King, Subway and Papa John’s often operate via franchise agreements there. Burger King said it demanded the main operator of its franchises suspend restaurant operations in Russia, but that “they have refused.”
Alexander Sayganov | SOPA | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Restaurant Brands International on Friday reported weaker-than-expected quarterly revenue, hurt by Burger King’s disappointing same-store sales growth.
Shares of the company were down more than 2% in premarket trading.

Here’s what Restaurant Brands reported compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv:

Earnings per share: 90 cents adjusted vs. 86 cents expected
Revenue: $1.84 billion vs. $1.87 billion expected

Restaurant Brands reported third-quarter net income attributable to shareholders of $252 million, or 79 cents per share, down from $360 million, or $1.17 per share, a year earlier.
Excluding items, the restaurant company earned 90 cents per share.
Net sales rose 6.4% to $1.84 billion. Restaurant Brands said that unfavorable currency exchange rates hurt Tim Hortons, which accounts for roughly 60% of the company’s revenue.
The company reported same-store sales growth of 7% for the quarter.

Burger King’s same-store sales grew 7.2%, falling short of StreetAccount estimates of 8.6%. The burger chain’s international same-store sales increased 7.6%, while the metric rose 6.6% in the U.S.
Burger King’s U.S. business reported flat traffic for the quarter, Restaurant Brands CEO Josh Kobza told CNBC.
“Back in the last few quarters, we had been behind the industry in terms of our same-store traffic, and that’s been progressively getting better every quarter since last year,” he said. “So it was a big milestone for us now to get to flat traffic.”
Burger King has been trying to rejuvenate its U.S. business for more than a year through its $400 million “Reclaim the Flame” plan. That strategy came after the chain lagged its rivals domestically for several years. As part of the turnaround plan, Burger King has leaned into the Whopper, renovated its restaurants and chipped its own money into the advertising fund typically fueled by franchisees.
Tim Hortons’ same-store sales growth of 6.8% met Wall Street’s expectations. In Canada, the coffee chain’s same-store sales climbed 8.1% in the quarter. But in China, an important growth market for the chain, Tim Hortons saw a “little bit of a deceleration” from the second quarter, according to Kobza.
Popeyes was Restaurant Brands’ only chain to outperform expectations for same-store sales growth. The fried chicken chain reported the metric grew 7%, including a 5.6% increase in the U.S. That beat StreetAccount estimates of 5% growth.
Popeyes recently overtook KFC as the No. 2 chicken chain in the U.S. More