Business

Starbucks Workers United launched a strike in more than 40 cities and 65 stores on the day of chain’s Red Cup Day sales event.
The open-ended strike, which will start with about 1,000 baristas and could expand in the coming days, could disrupt Starbucks’ key holiday season.
The union and the coffee giant have blamed the other side for failure to reach a collective bargaining agreement.

Starbucks Workers United launched an open-ended strike in more than 40 cities Thursday on Red Cup Day, one of the chain’s biggest sales days of the year.
The protest, which the union says involves more than 1,000 baristas in over 65 stores, comes after Workers United voted to authorize an open-ended strike after baristas and the coffee giant failed to reach a collective bargaining agreement.

The strike could hurt business during Starbucks’ busy holiday season, which typically provides a sales boost and will be key to the chain’s plan to turn around performance in the U.S. under new CEO Brian Niccol. Starbucks broke a nearly two-year streak of same-store sales declines in its most recently reported quarter. Past strikes have impacted less than 1% of its stores, the company said.
Starbucks said the work stoppage had limited effects on its key sales day as of late Thursday morning.
“The day is off to an incredible start – based on what we’ve seen this morning, we’re on track to exceed our sales expectations for the day across company-operated coffeehouses in North America,” Starbucks spokesperson Jaci Anderson told CNBC on Thursday.
The union is pushing for improved hours, higher wages and the resolution of hundreds of unfair labor practice charges levied against Starbucks. The two parties have not been in active negotiations to reach a contract after talks between them fell apart late last year.
Starbucks and the union entered into mediation in February, and hundreds of barista delegates voted down the economic package Starbucks proposed in April. Both sides have pointed blame at the other for failure to reach a bargaining agreement, and say they’re ready to negotiate.

Workers United, which began organizing at Starbucks in 2021, says it now represents more than 12,000 workers across more than 550 stores. The company last week told CNBC that the union only represents 9,500 workers at 550 cafes.
The baristas say they are prepared to escalate the work stoppage, threatening to make this “the largest, longest strike in company history if Starbucks fails to deliver a fair union contract and resolve unfair labor practice charges.” It is seeking new proposals that address its top issues to finalize a contract.
“If Starbucks keeps stonewalling a fair contract and refusing to end union-busting, they’ll see their business grind to a halt,” Starbucks Workers United spokesperson Michelle Eisen, a former barista who spent 15 years at the company, said in a statement. “No contract, no coffee is more than a tagline — it’s a pledge to interrupt Starbucks operations and profits until a fair union contract and an end to unfair labor practices are won. Starbucks knows where we stand.”
In response to the strike vote results last week, Starbucks previously said it will be ready to serve customers across its nearly 18,000 company-operated and licensed stores this holiday season.
“Starbucks offers the best job in retail, including more than $30 an hour on average in pay and benefits for hourly partners. Workers United, which represents only 4% of our partners, chose to walk away from the bargaining table. We’ve asked them to return—many times. If they’re ready to come back, we’re ready to talk. We believe we can move quickly to a reasonable deal,” Anderson said in a statement Monday.
In a letter to workers addressing the strike authorization vote last week, Sara Kelly, chief partner officer at Starbucks, echoed the belief that the sides could reach an agreement swiftly.
“For months, we were at the bargaining table, working in good faith with Workers United and delegates from across the country to reach agreements that make sense for partners and for the long-term success of Starbucks,” Kelly said. “We reached more than 30 tentative agreements on full contract articles.”
“Our commitment to bargaining hasn’t changed,” she added. “Workers United walked away from the table but if they are ready to come back, we’re ready to talk. We believe we can move quickly to a reasonable deal.” More

Verizon chairman and Oscar Health CEO Mark Bertolini told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that the telecom company’s board “needed to act” with its leadership transition.
Former CEO Hans Vestberg was replaced by Dan Schulman in October.
Bertolini said Schulman has a plan to revive Verizon from its period of share losses.

Verizon chairman Mark Bertolini said Thursday that the company’s new CEO, former PayPal boss Dan Schulman, is working to revive Verizon from its period of share losses under former CEO Hans Vestberg.
Bertolini, who is also the Oscar Health CEO and who was named Verizon chairman last month, told CNBC’s Becky Quick on “Squawk Box” that the company needs to “do something different” as it undergoes its leadership change.

“Verizon has gone from number one in market cap, bond ratings and market share to number three. And the network isn’t as differentiated as it used to be, in large part because everybody’s been spending money to put these 5G networks in place,” Bertolini said. “So losing 30% share over the last eight years is an issue, and we have to do something different.”
In October, the company announced Schulman would be replacing Vestberg, who had led the company since 2018. In a statement at the time, Schulman said Verizon was at a “critical juncture” and that he believed the company had a “clear opportunity to redefine our trajectory.”
Schulman previously led PayPal through significant revenue growth and has served on Verizon’s board of directors since 2018.
Vestberg is remaining on the the board of directors until the 2026 annual meeting and serving as a special advisor through Oct. 4, 2026.
Bertolini said Thursday that Schulman is evaluating underlying cost structures and other aspects of the company to ensure its success.

“We believe that once we have that plan in place, we’ll have a good story,” Bertolini said. “The Street reacted early on that there’s going to be a price war; I think it’s less about price war than the value of what we’re offering to people through the product.”
Bertolini added that Schulman will be revealing his plan for turning around the company “sooner rather than later.”
“The board needed to act, and we acted,” Bertolini said. More

For all the advances in artificial intelligence over the past few years, even the cleverest chatbots still spout nonsense from time to time. In most cases this is but a mild irritation. Sometimes, however, it can get their makers into trouble. When recently asked if Marsha Blackburn, a Republican senator, had been accused of rape, Gemma, an AI developed by Google, replied that in 1987 a state trooper had said she “pressured him to obtain prescription drugs for her and that the relationship involved non-consensual acts”. Ms Blackburn had never faced such an allegation. More

The craze for artificial intelligence has brought seemingly limitless demand for the chips that power it. Last month Jensen Huang, the boss of Nvidia, said that his company, the leading designer of AI chips, had $500bn-worth of orders to deliver this year and next. OpenAI, one of its customers, has also struck supply deals for the next few years with Advanced Micro Devices, for six gigawatts’ worth of AI chips (around 3m-6m), and Broadcom, for another ten gigawatts. More

Target is an American retailer that has been in the doldrums recently. In an attempt to improve the experience that customers have in its stores, it is instituting a new programme known as “10-4”. If a shopper comes within ten feet of a Target employee, staff are meant to “smile, make eye contact, wave, and use friendly, approachable and welcoming body language”. If customers come within four feet, employees should “personally greet the guest, smile and initiate a warm, helpful interaction”. More

EVERY EMPLOYER knows that, in the knowledge economy, a superstar employee is worth every penny. When that employer is Tesla and the employee is Elon Musk, he is worth up to 100trn pennies. On November 6th the electric-car maker said that more than 75% of its shareholders had backed its chief executive’s new compensation package, which would grant him up to $1trn-worth of Tesla shares over ten years. To pocket it all, the star chief executive must do a reliably stellar job, including lifting Tesla’s market capitalisation to $8.5trn, from $1.4trn today. Ahead of the shareholder vote Mr Musk threatened that if he did not get his inducement, he simply might not bother. More

Disney beat analyst estimates on earnings but missed on revenue expectations.
The company’s entertainment unit was buoyed by streaming as the linear TV business experienced further declines in ad revenue. 
Its flagship streaming service Disney+ added 3.8 million subscribers during the period, bringing its total to 131.6 million. 
Disney will hold a call with analysts at 8:30 a.m. ET.

A statue of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse stands in a garden 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

Disney reported fiscal fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday that topped analyst expectations for earnings but missed on revenue as the company’s entertainment business was weighed down by its TV networks and a lackluster theatrical film slate.
Disney stock fell more than 4% in premarket trading.

Here is what Disney reported for the period ended Sept. 27, compared with what Wall Street expected, according to LSEG: 

Earnings per share: $1.11 adjusted vs. $1.05 expected
Revenue: $22.46 billion vs. $22.75 billion expected

Net income for the quarter was $1.44 billion, or 73 cents a share, more than double the $564 million, or 25 cents per share, that Disney reported in the same period last year. Adjusting for one-time items Disney reported earnings per share of $1.11. 
The company’s overall revenue for the quarter was nearly $22.5 billion, slightly less than the same quarter last year. 
“Overall we’re leaving the year with a lot of momentum,” Disney CFO Hugh Johnston told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Thursday regarding the company’s streaming and experiences businesses.

Streaming strides, linear struggles

Revenue for Disney’s entertainment unit fell 6% from last year to $10.21 billion, dragged down by the linear TV networks and theatrical releases. 

Disney’s TV networks, including ESPN, have been unavailable for customers of Google’s YouTube TV, a streaming provider of the pay TV bundle since Oct. 31 due to an ongoing carriage dispute between the two companies.
Johnston told “Squawk Box” on Thursday that Disney is still in the midst of negotiations with YouTube TV, but the company was prepared for what it expected to be “challenging battle,” and Disney is “ready to go as long as they want to.”
Advertising revenue for the networks, which includes broadcast network ABC and pay TV channels like FX, also suffered. Part of this was attributable to lower political advertising, or a $40 million impact compared with the same quarter last year, Disney said. The company also noted that its 2024 joint venture deal for India Hotstar impacted its linear network results.
Streaming remained the bright spot in the business as consumers continued to turn away from the pay TV bundle. Operating income for the linear networks dropped 21% to $391 million while it rose 39%, to $352 million, for streaming. The higher operating income for streaming occurred as prices increased for Disney’s streaming services. 
Disney’s streaming growth was also the result of more options for its services. Earlier this year its carriage deal with Charter Communications broadened, giving the cable TV provider’s customers access to ad-supported Hulu. Initially, Charter’s pay TV customers had been receiving only Disney+.
While about half of the streaming subscriber increase could be attributed to the Charter carriage deal, Johnston said “the other half was retail,” with a big portion of that coming from international markets. Disney, like its media peers Warner Bros. Discovery and Netflix, has seen most of its recent streaming growth come from global customers.
The company in August also launched its ESPN direct-to-consumer app, which mirrors all the content of the TV networks, ESPN+ and other additions. The app is also available for Charter’s pay TV subscribers.
Disney stopped reporting subscriber metrics for ESPN+, and did not give guidance on the newly launched app that goes by the same name as the TV network. Johnston on Thursday said the availability of ESPN via streaming has helped to stem customer losses and has also boosted engagement with ESPN.
However, Johnston called out Disney’s bundles as a driver of the ESPN app and streaming in general.
“One of the things I think we’re most excited about is fully 80% of those new retail subs on ESPN are actually bundled subs, which again, should contribute to engagement, should contribute to retention, and frankly make the service more valuable over time,” Johnston told “Squawk Box.”
The flagship streaming service Disney+ added 3.8 million paid subscribers, bringing its total to 131.6 million, while Hulu had 64.1 million customers. Disney has been in the process of integrating Hulu — which it took full control of earlier this year — into the Disney+ app. 
This marks the last time the company will report subscriber numbers and the average revenue per unit, or ARPU, for its streaming services, which includes Disney+ and Hulu.
Instead, Disney will follow in the footsteps of streaming behemoth Netflix, which earlier this year stopped updating investors on its subscriber count.
Revenue for Disney’s sports division, namely ESPN, was up 3% to roughly $4 billion, while operating income was flat at $898 million when compared with the same period last year. ESPN’s domestic operating income in particular decreased due to costs associated with the launch of the app in August, as well as higher programming costs. 

Positive experiences

Disney Cruise Line’s Disney Dream is seen docked in Port Canaveral, Florida, on July 30, 2021. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
Mark Gauert | Sun Sentinel | Getty Images

Revenue for the experiences segment, which consists of theme parks, resorts and cruises, as well as consumer products, rose 6% to $8.77 billion. Operating income for the segment was up 13% to $1.88 billion. 
The current economy hasn’t affected the Disney consumer when it comes to its experiences business, Johnston said Thursday on “Squawk Box.” He noted that bookings are up 3% and spending per person at parks was also up 5% in Disney’s fiscal first quarter.
“We’ve got continued momentum there,” Johnston said.
Disney attributed the growth in its cruise business to its gains, despite being offset by higher fleet expansion costs. Disney’s fleet will expand once again later this month.
Johnston noted cruises are selling out at the same rate that they had before, even though the fleet is bigger. “So that added capacity is filling up quickly,” he added. More

Arrived is creating a so-called stock market for real estate, where investors can buy and sell shares of rental homes.
Investors can buy in for as little as $100 and build their own portfolio of properties.
Arrived is announcing a new $27 million fundraise to help launch a secondary market platform.

Row of single-family detached houses in Alexandria, Virginia.
Grace Cary | Moment | Getty Images

A version of this article first appeared in the CNBC Property Play newsletter with Diana Olick. Property Play covers new and evolving opportunities for the real estate investor, from individuals to venture capitalists, private equity funds, family offices, institutional investors and large public companies. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.
Fractional ownership isn’t exactly a new concept in real estate, but one company is taking it to a new level, with the help of new funding from big-name investors. It’s creating a so-called stock market for real estate.

Arrived, which launched in 2021, is a platform for real estate investors to buy and sell shares of rental homes for as little as $100. Rather than investing in a public REIT, they can build their own portfolio of properties, which are managed by Arrived. Not only do the properties generate income from rents, but they can appreciate over time. Because the properties can each be owned by hundreds of investors, they are taxed as REITs.
“We spent about a year working with the SEC to create this framework within the regulation so that both accredited and non-accredited investors can participate,” explained Ryan Frazier, co-founder and CEO of Arrived. “So we have a recurring offering structure through the SEC to register each property, and then each property to qualify as a REIT.”
Frazier describes it as “unbundling” the REIT into individual properties, so investors can pick and choose what they like. Some properties have more than a thousand investors. So far Arrived has roughly 500 properties across 65 cities. It’s been doubling its property count each year. 
Investment platform Roofstock, which mostly sells entire investment properties on its site, also has fractional ownership opportunities but with a much higher minimum investment.
Arrived is now announcing a new $27 million fundraise to help launch a secondary market platform, where investors can trade their shares of individual homes across the U.S. in minutes. This allows them to quickly exit or expand positions as well as capture appreciation and rebalance portfolios. 

“Now investors can buy and sell shares from each other on Arrived,” said Frazier, noting in the first three weeks that the option has been live, investors have submitted 57,000 buy and sell orders on the marketplace.
“I think it’s exciting, because we’re really bringing this liquidity to the real estate market that I think facilitates real estate investing just moving online,” he added.
The new funding was led by Neo, a VC fund and mentorship community.

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“The Arrived team is cracked, and I love the audacity of their vision: a stock market for real estate,” said Ali Partovi, CEO of Neo in a release. “I’m betting on them to democratize and digitize access to America’s $50 trillion in residential real estate.” 
Participation also included Forerunner Ventures, Bezos Expeditions and Core. Other existing investors include Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Match Group CEO Spencer Rascoff and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, bringing total funding to $61.7 million to date.
Since its inception, more than 850,000 investors have collectively invested over $330 million in Arrived homes, according to the company.
This new platform comes at a time when traditional homebuying has stalled and investors are finding it increasingly expensive to purchase single-family rentals on their own. Home prices are still historically high, and interest rates are significantly higher than they were just three years ago during the last housing boom. 
Investors are making up the highest share of homebuyers on record this year, according to Cotality, but only because the pool of owner-occupant buyers has shrunk so much. 
In order to protect itself against weakness in the overall housing market, Frazier said Arrived has become very choosy about its markets and has stopped using long-term leverage in the portfolio. The majority of properties on the Arrived platform, he said, are owned by investors with 100% equity, adding that for those that do have mortgages, the average interest rate is below 4%. More