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The FTC sued to block the $8.5 billion acquisition of Capri Holdings by Coach and Kate Spade’s parent company, Tapestry.
The fashion tie-up would put six major brands under a single company: Tapestry’s Coach, Kate Spade and Stuart Weitzman and Capri’s Versace, Jimmy Choo and Michael Kors.
The deal was expected to close this year.

Pedestrians walk past a Coach store and a Michael Kors store.
Scott Olson | Getty Images

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Monday sued to block the $8.5 billion acquisition of Capri Holdings by Coach and Kate Spade’s parent company, Tapestry.
The move by regulators brings at least a temporary halt to a deal that would marry two major names in American luxury retail and put six fashion brands under a single company: Tapestry’s Coach, Kate Spade and Stuart Weitzman and Capri’s Versace, Jimmy Choo and Michael Kors. With the transaction, the luxury brands could be poised to better compete with European luxury names, such as Burberry and LVMH’s Louis Vuitton.

In a news release, the FTC said the combined company would harm shoppers and employees. It said Tapestry and Capri “currently compete on everything from clothing to eyewear to shoes.”
“With the goal to become a serial acquirer, Tapestry seeks to acquire Capri to further entrench its stronghold in the fashion industry,” Henry Liu, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, said in the release. “This deal threatens to deprive consumers of the competition for affordable handbags, while hourly workers stand to lose the benefits of higher wages and more favorable workplace conditions.”
Tapestry argued the federal agency “fundamentally misunderstands both the marketplace and the way in which consumers shop.”
In a statement, the company said it must win the business of consumers who increasingly shop across brands, channels and price points.

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“The bottom line is that Tapestry and Capri face competitive pressures from both lower- and higher-priced products,” it said. “In bringing this case, the FTC has chosen to ignore the reality of today’s dynamic and expanding $200 billion global luxury industry.”

Capri echoed that argument in its own statement, saying consumers “have hundreds of handbag choices at every price point across all channels, and barriers to entry are low.”
Tapestry and Capri both said they will fight for the transaction in court, with Tapestry saying it will work “expeditiously to close the transaction in calendar year 2024.”
Tapestry announced the proposed acquisition in August. The deal had been expected to close in 2024. It had already secured approval from regulators in Europe and Japan, according to a financial filing by the company earlier this month, but was still waiting for the approval of U.S. officials — the only regulator still outstanding.
When Tapestry unveiled the deal, CEO Joanne Crevoiserat told CNBC that the combined companies would be able to reach more customers across the globe. Together, the two companies would have over $12 billion in annual revenue and a presence in more than 75 countries.
Both Tapestry and Capri have been under pressure, as consumers continue to be choosier with discretionary spending. Yet Capri, in particular, has been more vulnerable because of its heavier reliance than Tapestry on department stores and other wholesale retailers.
Led by Crevoiserat, Tapestry has raised the profile of Coach’s brand, attracted younger shoppers, and tried to lean on fashion and loyalty, rather than deep discounts, to drive higher sales and profits. The vast majority of Tapestry’s sales are through its own website and stores, with wholesale accounting for only about 10% of sales globally in the most recently reported fiscal quarter.
As of Monday’s close, shares of Tapestry are up nearly 10% so far this year compared with the stock of Capri, which has fallen about 24% over the same period.

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Express filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as an investor group led by brand management firm WHP Global looks to acquire most of its assets.
The longtime mall retailer has failed to stay on trend and keep up with shifting consumer demand, which has led sales to plummet in recent years.
Express, whose portfolio includes its namesake banner, UpWest and Bonobos, said operations will continue as normal but 95 Express stores and all UpWest stores will close.

Pedestrians walk past an Express Inc. store in New York, U.S., on Wednesday, May 31, 2017.
Mark Kauziarich | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Longtime mall retailer Express filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Delaware federal court on Monday, but a group of investors led by brand management firm WHP Global is looking to save the company by acquiring it. 
Express, whose portfolio includes its namesake banner, Bonobos and UpWest, said it will close 95 of its eponymous shops and all of its UpWest doors. As of last January, the company had 553 total stores, according to company securities filings. It’s not clear how many of those were UpWest stores, but the brand’s website shows that it has 10 locations.

Closing sales are expected to begin Tuesday. The company said hours for remaining stores won’t change and it will continue to accept orders and returns as usual.
In a news release, Express said it filed for bankruptcy to “facilitate” a sale process of most of its retail stores and operations to the investor group, which includes WHP, Simon Property Group and Brookfield Properties. It received a nonbinding letter of intent from the investors to buy the assets, and has also secured $35 million in new financing from some of its existing lenders, subject to court approval. 
“The proposed transaction will provide Express with additional financial resources, better position the business for profitable growth and maximize value for the Company’s stakeholders,” Express said. 
Express also secured $49 million in cash from the IRS related to the CARES Act – a critical influx of liquidity that the company had been waiting on to shore up its balance sheet. 
“We continue to make meaningful progress refining our product assortments, driving demand, connecting with customers and strengthening our operations,” CEO Stewart Glendinning said in a statement. 

“We are taking an important step that will strengthen our financial position and enable Express to continue advancing our business initiatives,” he added.
The business casual apparel brand, founded in 1980 by Les Wexner’s Limited Brands, has seen sales plummet over the last few years as debt and costly mall leases dragged down its business. 
In a court filing, Express said that it had $1.3 billion in total assets and $1.2 billion in total debts as of March 2.
Earlier this month, CNBC reported that Express was struggling to pay its vendors on time, indicating it was in financial distress and struggling to manage cash flows. When retailers can’t pay their vendors, suppliers sometimes tighten payment terms or refuse to fulfill orders, which can further pressure a company’s liquidity.
Last spring, Express acquired Bonobos’ operating assets and related liabilities for $25 million from Walmart in a joint deal with WHP. The deal came as Express’ “core business was weak, and cash was tight,” GlobalData managing director Neil Saunders said in a Monday note.
Still, its biggest problem was declining revenue, which has fallen by about 10% since 2019, Saunders said. 
“This stands in marked contrast to an apparel sector that has grown strongly over the same period. This has put the company under a lot of financial strain and has resulted in some significant losses. None of this is sustainable which is one of the reasons for bankruptcy,” said Saunders.  
“The woes at Express are not all of its own making,” he said. “The formal and smart casual market for both men and women has softened over recent years because of a rise from working from home and the casualization of fashion. This puts Express firmly on the wrong side of trends and, in our view, the chain made too little effort to adapt.”
Bankruptcy will provide some key relief to Express and help it get back on stronger footing as it works to implement its turnaround strategy. It’ll allow the retailer to get out of costly and burdensome leases, many of which are in struggling malls, and has made the company more attractive to buyers. 
Powerhouse law firm Kirkland & Ellis, which led Bed Bath & Beyond and many other failed retailers through their bankruptcies, is serving as Express’ legal counsel. Moelis & Co. has been tapped as its investment banker and M3 Partners has signed on as its financial advisor.

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Boeing executives have previously said parts and supply chain issues have persisted.
Boeing has been trying to ramp up 787 production in recent months after quality problems suspended deliveries for nearly two years, ending in mid-2022.
The company is grappling with a production slowdown in its 737 Max program stemming from a door plug blowout on one of its planes earlier this year.

Boeing 787 Dreamliners are built at the aviation company’s North Charleston, South Carolina, assembly plant on May 30, 2023. 
Juliette Michel | AFP | Getty Images

Boeing told employees on Monday that it expects a slower increase in production and deliveries of new 787 Dreamliner planes because of supplier shortages of “a few key parts.”
Boeing has already slowed down deliveries and output of its 737 Max planes in the aftermath of a near catastrophe in January when a door plug blew out from one of the jetliners mid-flight.

The company had separately been trying to boost output of 787 Dreamliners after quality problems suspended deliveries for nearly two years, ending in mid-2022.
“We continue to take steps to improve the overall health of our production system, putting into action your ideas for improving safety, first-pass quality, training, performing more work in sequence and ensuring our teams have the necessary resources to excel,” said Scott Stocker, 787 vice president and general manager, in a memo to staff at Boeing’s South Carolina 787 plant.
Stocker said Boeing is still facing supplier shortages.
“To that end, we have shared with our customers that we expect a slower increase in our rate of production and deliveries,” he wrote in the memo, reported earlier by Reuters, adding that the company still plans to increase the rate steadily because of high demand.
Boeing was producing about five 787 Dreamliners per month as of late last year and said in January it aimed to get up to 10 a month as early as next year.
Boeing is set to report quarterly results and will likely detail its production plans before the market opens on Wednesday.

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Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee, overwhelmingly voted in favor of joining the United Auto Workers – marking the Detroit union’s first victory at a foreign-owned automaker plant in the South.
The historic vote could have wide-ranging impacts on other automakers, organized labor and the overall U.S. automotive industry.
VW and the union, barring any challenges to voting, are expected to move forward with bargaining over a contract for roughly 4,300 workers covered under the vote.

Volkswagens are seen in the employee parking lot at the Volkswagen automobile assembly plant on March 20, 2024 in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Elijah Nouvelage | Getty Images

DETROIT – The United Auto Workers notched a big win this weekend.
Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee, overwhelmingly voted in favor of joining the UAW late Friday – marking the Detroit union’s first victory at a foreign-owned automaker plant in the South. The vote could have wide-ranging impacts on other automakers, organized labor and the overall U.S. automotive industry.

“This is a really profound victory for the UAW and the labor movement in general,” said Alex Hertel-Fernandez, a former Department of Labor official and an international and public affairs professor at Columbia University. “It’s also a really decisive victory.”
Union organizing passed with 73% of the vote, or 2,628 workers, in support of the UAW, according to the National Labor Relations Board, which oversaw voting from Wednesday to Friday.
The German automaker and union, barring any challenges to voting, are expected to move forward with bargaining over a contract for roughly 4,300 workers covered under the vote. The NLRB still needs to certify the results.
Here’s what investors should know about the vote and next steps for the UAW:

UAW momentum

The UAW saw the Friday vote as the union’s best shot at organizing the VW plant following strikes and record contracts with General Motors, Ford Motor and Chrysler parent Stellantis in 2023.

The union, led by President Shawn Fain, is using the deals with the Detroit automakers, which included record wage increases and benefits, as springboards for an unprecedented organizing drive of 13 non-union automakers in the U.S.
Other than Volkswagen, the union is targeting: BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Lucid, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Rivian, Subaru, Tesla, Toyota and Volvo. The drive covers nearly 150,000 U.S. autoworkers, according to the UAW.
“This is likely to be contagious,” said Hertel-Fernandez. “Where workers see successes in organizing or strikes, it tends to inspire further action in that industry and beyond it.”

Kelcey Smith displays UAW buttons in Chattanooga, Tennessee on April 10, 2024. 
Kevin Wurm | The Washington Post | Getty Images

Next up for the union are 5,200 Mercedes-Benz workers at an SUV plant in Vance, Alabama. Workers at the facility earlier this month filed NLRB paperwork for a formal election that is scheduled for May 13 through May 17.
“We’re going to carry this fight on to Mercedes and everywhere else,” Fain told VW workers Friday night following the historic vote. “So, thank you all, thank you all for your fight, for your work. And let’s get to it. Let’s go to work. And let’s win more for the working class all over this nation.”

Impact on labor costs

Top of the list of likely impacts from organizing efforts at VW is labor costs.
UAW organizers used the record contracts with the Detroit automakers to gain support for the union in Chattanooga. UBS said in an investor note that VW has a relatively low operating margin in the U.S., and “substantial pay increases could undermine the profitability outlook of the local US operations.”
But for the Big Three Detroit automakers — and their shareholders — the VW organizing drive could be a positive.
GM, Ford and Stellantis have higher all-in labor costs than non-organized automakers such as VW. Depending on contract details, labor pushes like VW and others could somewhat even that playing field.

United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain cheers the U.S. President Joe Biden during the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., March 7, 2024. 
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters

“Overall, given the substantial pay gap between UAW-unionized workers (Detroit-3) and non-unionized workers in the southern states, it can be assumed that the vote will lead to more upwards pressure on wages for VW over time,” UBS said in an investor note.
Before last year’s contracts with the Detroit automakers, all-in labor costs for Ford, GM and Stellantis were between $63 and $67 an hour, according to industry experts. That compared with workers at non-domestic, or transplant, automakers such as VW at $55 an hour. Those costs included all benefits and health care costs.
Still, there’s no guarantee that VW – a much smaller automaker in the U.S. – will agree to the same terms as the traditional domestic automakers.
Fain on Friday said “the real fight begins now,” referring to the expected negotiations between the union and VW.

Union jobs

The VW vote was widely expected to be the easiest in the UAW’s organizing plans, as the union had already established a presence there following votes that narrowly failed in 2019 and 2014.
The margin of success in Chattanooga could bode well for UAW efforts at other automakers, according to Sharon Block, a professor at Harvard Law School and former DOL and NLRB official.
“I think it’s really hard to overestimate the importance of this moment and to overestimate just how strategic the UAW has been in this campaign, which I think suggests that this is not the last time that we’re going to be talking about a UAW victory in an auto plant in the South,” Block said.
Though opposition during the VW vote was sparse, the most notable instance came a day before the election began, in the form of a letter from six Republican governors condemning the UAW’s push to organize automotive factories in the South and warning of potential layoffs.
“We have worked tirelessly on behalf of our constituents to bring good-paying jobs to our states. These jobs have become part of the fabric of the automotive manufacturing industry. Unionization would certainly put our states’ jobs in jeopardy — in fact, in this year already, all of the UAW automakers have announced layoffs,” read the statement, which was signed by governors in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
Block called the letter an “empty threat” and “cynical ploy” but noted that increased labor costs can result in fewer jobs.
Fewer jobs in the U.S. automotive industry also means fewer eligible workers for union membership.
Membership with the UAW at the Detroit automakers has significantly fallen in recent decades, as free trade agreements allowed automakers to produce vehicles for cheaper elsewhere.
UAW membership, largely made up of autoworkers but also including workers in agriculture and aerospace, peaked at 1.5 million in 1979. As of last year, the union’s membership was 370,239 workers – down 3.3% from 2022 and 75% from its peak. Workers from the Detroit automakers only made up roughly 150,000 of that 2023 total.
– CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report.

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Luxury real estate sales increased more than 2%, posting their best year-over-year gains in three years, according to Redfin.
The median price of luxury homes hit an all-time record of $1,225,000 during the period.
Real estate experts and brokers chalk up the divergence to interest rates and supply.

Real estate is increasingly a tale of two markets — a luxury sector that is booming, and the rest of the market that continues to struggle with higher rates and low inventory.
Overall real estate sales fell 4% nationwide in the first quarter, according to Redfin. Yet, luxury real estate sales increased more than 2%, posting their best year-over-year gains in three years, according to Redfin.

Real estate experts and brokers chalk up the divergence to interest rates and supply. With mortgage rates now above 7% for a 30-year fixed loan, most homebuyers are finding prices out of reach. Affluent and wealthy buyers, however, are snapping up homes with cash, making them less vulnerable to high rates.
Nearly half of all luxury homes, defined by Redfin as homes in the top 5% of their metro area by value, were bought with all cash in the quarter, according to Redfin. That is the highest share in at least a decade. In Manhattan, all-cash deals hit a record 68% of all sales, according to Miller Samuel.
The flood of cash is also driving up prices at the top. Median luxury-home prices soared nearly 9% in the quarter, roughly twice the increase seen in the broader market, according to Redfin. The median price of luxury homes hit an all-time record of $1,225,000 during the period.
“People with the means to buy high-end homes are jumping in now because they feel confident prices will continue to rise,” said David Palmer, a Redfin agent in Seattle, where the median-priced luxury home sells for $2.7 million. “They’re ready to buy with more optimism and less apprehension.”

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The Trump International Hotel and Tower New York building is seen from the balcony of an apartment unit in the AvalonBay Communities Inc. Park Loggia condominium at 15 West 61 Street in New York on May 15, 2019.
Mark Abramson | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The luxury market is also benefiting from more supply of homes for sale. Since wealthy sellers are more likely to buy with cash, they are not as worried about trading out of a low-rate mortgage like most homeowners. That has freed up the upper end of listings, creating more inventory and driving more sales.

The number of luxury homes for sale jumped 13% in the first quarter, compared to a 3% decline for the rest of the housing market, according to Redfin. While overall luxury inventory remains “well below” pre-pandemic levels, the number of luxury listings that came online during the first quarter jumped 19%, the report said.
“Prices continue to increase for high-end homes, so homeowners feel it’s a good time to cash in on their equity,” Palmer said.
Still, not all luxury markets are booming, and the strongest price growth is in areas not typically known for luxury homes. According to Redfin, the market with the fastest luxury price growth was Providence, Rhode Island, with prices up 16%, followed by New Brunswick, New Jersey, where prices were up 15%. New York City saw the biggest price decline, down 10%.
When it comes to overall sales of luxury homes, Seattle posted the strongest growth of any metro area, with sales up 37%. Austin, Texas ranked second with sales up 26%, followed by San Francisco with a 24% increase.
Luxury homes sold the fastest in Seattle, with a median days on the market of nine days, followed by Oakland, California, and San Jose, California.
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No firm is an island. All strike contracts and compete with others. Conversely, when bosses decide a relationship would be better governed by fiat, one firm may acquire another—as BHP, a $150bn mining giant, proposed to do with a $35bn rival, Anglo American, on April 24th. Yet between the poles of contract and total commitment are plenty of ways for firms to combine capital, knowledge or other resources, without fully tying the knot.Such in-between arrangements are winning favour across the economy, from tech and artificial intelligence (AI) to carmaking and energy. While corporate takeovers stalled in 2023, a few mega-mergers notwithstanding, the number of joint ventures (JVs) and partnerships jumped by 40%, according to Ankura, a consultancy. They are especially popular in areas of rapid technological change and in places given to protectionism, which these days afflicts rich and poor countries alike. With barriers to commerce rising, high interest rates contining to bite and regulators bridling at takeovers, such liaisons are becoming the go-to way to enlarge a business empire, as the recent actions of companies including Disney, Ford and Microsoft illustrate. Call it the age of the quasi-merger. More

Private Medical is at the forefront of a new type of health care for the ultra-wealthy that has taken concierge medicine to a whole new level.
The company, founded by Dr. Jordan Shlain, pioneered a highly personalized, all-in-one service that’s more akin to the most sophisticated family offices for investments.
The rise of family office-style medical practices reflects the surge in wealth among families worth $100 million or more and growing demand for hyper-personalized, data-driven health care from an aging class of billionaires and millionaires.

Dr. Jordan Shlain, founder of Private Medical.
Credit: Jordan Shlain

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.
When people ask Dr. Jordan Shlain to describe his medical practice, he says simply: “It’s a family office for your health.”

“Family offices typically have a goal of preserving wealth,” he said. “Our goal is preserving your health. After the age of 24 you’re a depreciating asset health-wise. So we aim to decrease the slope of the curve for as long as possible.”
As depressing as that sounds for patients, Shlain’s strategy is paying off as a business model. His company, Private Medical, is at the forefront of a new type of health care for the ultra-wealthy that has taken concierge medicine to a whole new level. Rather than simply offering on-call doctors and faster visits, Private Medical has pioneered a highly personalized, all-in-one service that’s more akin to the most sophisticated family offices for investments.
Like family offices, Private Medical has an in-house team to manage a family’s entire health portfolio – from fitness and dietary tracking to longevity research, surgeries and medical emergencies. It now serves more than 1,000 wealthy families, with offices in California — San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Santa Monica and Beverly Hills — New York and Miami, and more offices on the way.
Private Medical’s team of 135 physicians, nurses, clinical staff, pharmacists and medical support professionals provides 24/7 on-call service, including home and office visits when needed. Private Medical doesn’t advertise and gets most of its business through referrals. It prefers to call patients “members.”
Shlain declined to give specifics on price, but clients of Private Medical say it charges $40,000 a year for each adult patient and $25,000 per patient under the age of 18. The annual fees cover the cost of visits, tests and procedures in the office, but not hospitalization.

The rise of family office-style medical practices – some of which are charging up to $60,000 a year for membership – reflects the surge in wealth among families worth $100 million or more and growing demand for hyper-personalized, data-driven health care from an aging class of billionaires and millionaires.
The market for concierge and personalized medical services for the wealthy is expected to grow by more than 50% by 2032, to nearly $11 billion a year, according to Precedence Research.

Shlain says insurance companies, overloaded doctors and inflated prices have turned the health-care system into what he calls a “sick care system.” Private Medical, for those who can afford it, aims to be proactive, running frequents tests and diagnostics on patients, constantly updating them with new research and science, and getting detailed information about a patient’s lifestyle, habits, family lives and work lives, Shlain said.
Shlain, whose father was a laparoscopic surgeon and whose mother had a Ph.D. in psychology, started out doing house calls for the Mandarin Oriental hotel in San Francisco. He took a “crash course” in high-end hospitality from top hotel concierges and realized health care should be more like five-star hotel service than an impersonal system of long wait times and error-filled diagnoses.  
“I will know everything about you to help you make the best decisions in your life,” he said. “I’m 70% doctor, 15% psychologist, 10% rabbi and 1% friend.”
Private Medical’s job is often to protect its patients from the broader medical system, Shlain said. One of his patients, a 38-year-old entrepreneur and big donor to a major hospital, was admitted for a bowel obstruction. The hospital CEO and chief of surgery rushed to start performing surgery. Shlain pushed back and recommended waiting a day or two. The patient recovered on his own while in the hospital “and walked out without surgery,” Shlain said.
Shlain also creates personalized medical kits for patients to take with them when traveling or working. When one patient scratched his cornea playing beach volleyball in the Bahamas, the patient was able to treat his eye with a prescription in his medical kit rather than searching for a hospital on one of the nearby islands.
Like most services for the ultra-wealthy, the main benefit of Private Medical is access. Shlain has spent over 20 years developing relationships with more than 4,000 specialists in various medical and scientific fields to connect patients with the right person for their specific needs.
With roots in Silicon Valley and many tech clients, Private Medical is also connected to biotech startups doing cutting-edge research and exploring new treatments. Shlain said Private Medical conducts due diligence on four or five new companies a month to keep pace with fast-changing science and research.
When one patient was diagnosed with severe depression, Shlain worked with a new “precision psychiatric” group at Stanford that does an MRI of the brain and uses connectomes (a map of the neural connections in the brain) to determine which medication was best for treatment.
“He got the right medication, and now he’s better,” Shlain said.
Private Medical also prides itself on its technology, developed with some of the top CEOs and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. Its platform helps both doctors and patients easily access data, manage appointments and workflows.
Two big areas for his wealthy patients are longevity and sleep. With longevity, Shlain said there’s no magic bullet or diet or medication to roll back time, even for billionaires. The real goal, he said is to “enable you to live with your physical and mental faculties intact for as long as possible with the fewest high-quality interactions with the health-care system as possible.”
“Your good outcome is our income,” he said.
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Disney Entertainment CTO Aaron LaBerge is leaving the company.
LaBerge will stay on until June and a search for his replacement is already underway.
His departure is for personal reasons, according to a company memo, but continues a brain drain of veteran Disney executives in recent years.

The Walt Disney company logo is displayed on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during morning trading on Dec. 1, 2023.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images

Aaron LaBerge, the chief technology officer for Disney Entertainment and ESPN, is leaving the company, according to an internal memo.
LaBerge is taking a job as CTO of PENN Entertainment, which operates ESPN Bet, the sports media company’s licensed online sportsbook. He’ll be responsible for driving technology strategy as a top executive in the company’s interactive division. LaBerge is leaving for personal reasons related to his family and will stay on at Disney until June, the memo said.

LaBerge has been a key figure in developing Disney’s streaming services and, more recently, integrating advertising into Disney+. He’s also led efforts to unify Hulu and Disney+ within one streaming application, which debuted last month.
At ESPN, LaBerge has been a central figure behind the company’s streaming services, including ESPN+, the upcoming sports streaming application co-owned by Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox, and ESPN’s flagship streaming service that will launch in 2025.
His departure adds to a growing list of veteran Disney executives who have left the company in recent years. They include former CEO Bob Chapek, former head of streaming Kevin Mayer, ex-finance chief Christine McCarthy, former Walt Disney Studios Chairman Alan Horn, former Disney general counsel Alan Braverman, ex-head of communications Zenia Mucha, and former president of Walt Disney Pictures, Sean Bailey.
“We want to thank Aaron for the contributions he has made and the leadership he has provided at Disney over his 20 years,” said ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro and Disney Entertainment co-Chairmen Dana Walden and Alan Bergman in an internal note to employees. “It is a silver lining that he will continue to help Disney and ESPN win, as he transitions to a role at PENN Entertainment — where he will be a key partner in the continued growth and success of ESPN BET (and the rest of their Interactive business).”
According to his biography, LaBerge has been responsible for “helping set the vision and strategic leadership for how the Company uses technology to enable storytelling and innovation, drive its business, and create amazing consumer experiences with entertainment and sports content.”

A search for LaBerge’s successor is already underway, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked to remain anonymous because the transition plan is private. Chris Lawson, currently Disney’s executive vice president of content operations and one of LaBerge’s direct reports, will take over LaBerge’s job on an interim basis when he departs.
LaBerge first joined Disney in the late 1990s as part of the company’s takeover of Starwave, a Paul Allen-founded company that partnered with ESPN before Disney fully acquired it it in 1998.

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