Finance

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The move marks a major blow for the U.S. tech giant, as it seeks to convince authorities that the deal will benefit competition.
Shares of Activision Blizzard slumped 10% in U.S. premarket trading.

LONDON — Britain’s top competition regulator on Wednesday moved to block Microsoft’s acquisition of video game publisher Activision Blizzard.
The measure marks a major blow for the U.S. tech giant, as it seeks to convince authorities that the deal will benefit competition. Microsoft said it plans to appeal the decision.

Shares of Activision Blizzard slumped nearly 10% in U.S. premarket trading.
The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority said it opposed the deal as it raises competition concerns in the nascent cloud gaming market. The CMA previously held concerns about competition in games consoles being undermined but ruled out this concern in a preliminary decision in March.
Microsoft could make Activision’s games exclusive to its cloud gaming platform, Xbox Game Pass, cutting off distribution to other key industry players, the CMA said.

Cloud gaming is a technology that enables gamers to access games via companies’ remote servers — effectively streaming a game like you would a movie on Netflix. The technology is still in its infancy, but Microsoft is betting big on it becoming a mainstream way of playing games.
“Allowing Microsoft to take such a strong position in the cloud gaming market just as it begins to grow rapidly would risk undermining the innovation that is crucial to the development of these opportunities,” the CMA said in a press release Wednesday.

Microsoft offered the CMA remedies in an attempt to resolve its concerns — including “requirements governing what games must be offered by Microsoft to what platforms and on what conditions over a ten-year period.” However, the regulator rejected the proposals.
“Given the remedy applies only to a defined set of Activision games, which can be streamed only in a defined set of cloud gaming services, provided they are purchased in a defined set of online stores, there are significant risks of disagreement and conflict between Microsoft and cloud gaming service providers, particularly over a ten-year period in a rapidly changing market,” the CMA said.

‘Flawed understanding of this market’

Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith said in a statement that the company remains “fully committed to this acquisition and will appeal.”
“The CMA’s decision rejects a pragmatic path to address competition concerns and discourages technology innovation and investment in the United Kingdom,” Smith said Wednesday.
“We have already signed contracts to make Activision Blizzard’s popular games available on 150 million more devices, and we remain committed to reinforcing these agreements through regulatory remedies. We’re especially disappointed that after lengthy deliberations, this decision appears to reflect a flawed understanding of this market and the way the relevant cloud technology actually works.”
Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, told employees in a letter on Wednesday that the company and Microsoft have “already begun the work to appeal to the UK Competition Appeals Tribunal.”
“We’re confident in our case because the facts are on our side: this deal is good for competition,” he said. 
“At a time when the fields of machine learning and artificial intelligence are thriving, we know the U.K. market would benefit from Microsoft’s bench strength in both domains, as well as our ability to put those technologies to use immediately,” Kotick added. “By contrast, if the CMA’s decision holds, it would stifle investment, competition, and job creation throughout the UK gaming industry.” 
An Activision Blizzard spokesperson said the CMA’s decision represented “a disservice to UK citizens, who face increasingly dire economic prospects.”
“We will reassess our growth plans for the UK. Global innovators large and small will take note that – despite all its rhetoric — the UK is clearly closed for business,” the spokesperson said.
Microsoft announced its intention to acquire Activision Blizzard in January 2022 for $69 billion, in one of the biggest deals the video game industry has seen to date.
Executives at the Redmond, Washington-based technology giant believe the acquisition will boost its efforts in gaming by adding lucrative franchises like Call of Duty and Candy Crush Saga to its content offerings.
However, some of Microsoft’s competitors contested the deal, concerned it may give Microsoft a tight grip on the $200 billion games market. Of particular concern was the prospect that Microsoft may shut off distribution access to Activision’s popular Call of Duty franchise for certain platforms.
Sony, in particular, has voiced concern with Microsoft’s Activision purchase. The Japanese gaming giant fears that Microsoft could make Call of Duty exclusive to its Xbox consoles in the long run.

Microsoft sought to allay those concerns by offering Sony, Nintendo, Nvidia and other firms 10-year agreements to continue bringing Call of Duty to their respective gaming platforms.
Microsoft argues it wouldn’t be financially beneficial to withhold Call of Duty from PlayStation, Nintendo and other rivals given the licensing income it generates from keeping the game available on their platforms.
Microsoft President Brad Smith told CNBC last month that the company is offering Sony the same agreement as it did Nintendo — to make Call of Duty available on PlayStation at the same time as on Xbox, with the same features. Sony still opposes the deal.
The CMA had raised concerns with the potential for Microsoft to hinder competition in the nascent cloud gaming market via its Xbox Game Pass subscription service, which offers cloud gaming among its perks. Microsoft has committed to bring new Call of Duty titles to Xbox Game Pass on day one of its release.
Cloud gaming, or the ability to access games via PC or mobile devices over the internet, is still in its infancy and requires a strong broadband connection to work well. Cloud gaming made up only a fraction of global internet traffic in 2022.
Microsoft still needs to convince other regulators not to block the deal. The EU continues to probe the merger to assess whether it hurts competition, while the U.S. Federal Trade Commission sued to block the deal on antitrust grounds. More

A trader works at the post where First Republic Bank stock is traded on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, March 16, 2023.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters

Check out the companies making headlines before the bell on Wednesday.
Enphase Energy — The solar inverter company slid 16% after reporting disappointing revenue guidance for the second quarter. The company said Tuesday its upcoming quarterly revenue will range from $700 million to $750 million, compared to the expected $765.2 million from analysts surveyed by StreetAccount. Enphase reported adjusted earnings of $1.37 per share on $726 million in revenue, beating StreetAccount forecasts of earnings of $1.21 per share on $724.4 in revenue. Shares of rival Solaredge Technologies dropped 5.8%.

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Boeing — Boeing shares rose 3.7% in premarket trading after the company posted its latest quarterly results and said it would increase production of 737 Max planes later this year despite a production issue. The company reported an adjusted loss of $1.27 per share and $17.92 billion in revenue. Analysts polled by Refinitiv anticipated a loss per share of $1.07 on $17.57 billion in revenue. 
Activision Blizzard — Activision Blizzard shares dropped about 10.4% in the premarket after a UK regulator blocked Microsoft’s purchase of the video game publisher. “The final decision to prevent the deal comes after Microsoft’s proposed solution failed to effectively address the concerns in the cloud gaming sector,” wrote the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority.
First Republic Bank — The battered regional bank stock dropped 10% before the bell, with the potential to again weigh on the broader banking sector. First Republic on Monday reported that its deposits dropped 40% to $104.5 billion in the first quarter, and the stock lost nearly half its value Tuesday. 
PacWest Bancorp — Shares jumped 14% in early morning trading after PacWest said it has seen deposit inflows over the past month. The regional bank said deposits fell more than 16% during the first quarter to roughly $28.2 billion, but that it has added about $1.8 billion in deposits since March 20, when it last updated investors. It saw $700 million in deposits in April. On Tuesday, PacWest also reported a net loss of $1.21 billion for the quarter, due largely to a goodwill impairment charge. Regional bank Western Alliance Bancorp also rose Wednesday before the bell.
Microsoft — Shares advanced 8% after Microsoft reported fiscal third-quarter results and issued quarterly guidance that topped expectations. The tech firm reported earnings of $2.45 per share on revenue of $52.86 billion. Analysts polled by Refinitiv forecasted per-share earnings of $2.23 on revenue of $51.02 billion. Additionally, Microsoft finance chief Amy Hood issued fourth-quarter guidance of $54.85 billion to $55.85 billion in revenue. The middle of the range is greater than the $54.84 billion consensus estimate. Separately, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority on Wednesday blocked Microsoft’s acquisition of video game firm Activision Blizzard, weighing on the tech stock.

Alphabet — Alphabet shares were flat before the bell even after the Google parent beat both earnings and revenue expectations for the recent quarter and announced a $70 billion share buyback plan. Ad revenue beat estimates but fell from a year ago. 
Chipotle Mexican Grill — Shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill gained more than 7% in premarket trading after the burrito chain posted a top and bottom line beat for the most recent quarter. The company benefited during the period from strong same-store sales growth and said traffic grew despite a hike in menu prices.
ServiceNow — The digital workflow company’s shares gained 3.1% after falling more than 6% during Tuesday’s session, when Infosys announced its collaboration with ServiceNow. ServiceNow will be announcing its quarterly earnings Wednesday after the bell.
Amazon — The e-commerce giant saw its stock climb 2.8% in premarket trading. The gain came after fellow tech-related giant Microsoft reported quarterly earnings that exceeded expectations, boosting sentiment for Amazon. The company reports numbers Thursday after the bell.
Thermo Fisher Scientific — Shares fell 3.9% after Thermo Fisher Scientific reported first-quarter earnings that came in line with expectations. The Massachusetts-based supplier of scientific instruments reported adjusted per-share earnings of $5.03, in line with a StreetAccount estimate. Thermo Fisher Scientific did beat revenue expectations, reporting revenue of $10.71 billion, greater than the $10.65 billion estimate.
Coinbase — The cryptocurrency exchange added 5% in the premarket alongside a jump in cryptocurrency prices, including Bitcoins 5% rise. H.C. Wainwright also initiated coverage of Coinbase with a buy rating and $75 price target, which implies 34% upside from Tuesday’s close.
— CNBC’s Sarah Min, Samantha Subin, Alex Harring, Hakyung Kim, Yun Li and Michelle Fox Theobald contributed reporting. More

Advisors to First Republic will attempt to cajole the big U.S. banks who’ve already propped it up into doing one more favor, CNBC has learned.
The pitch is something like this: Purchase bonds from First Republic at above-market rates for a loss of a few billion dollars. If not, these same banks will face roughly $30 billion in FDIC fees when First Republic fails.
The advisors have already lined up potential purchasers of new First Republic stock if they can fix the bank’s balance sheet, according to sources.

The best hope for avoiding a collapse of ailing lender First Republic hinges on how persuasive one group of bankers can be with another group of bankers.
Advisors to First Republic will attempt to cajole the big U.S. banks who’ve already propped it up into doing one more favor, CNBC has learned.

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The pitch will go something like this, according to bankers with knowledge of the situation: Purchase bonds from First Republic at above-market rates for a total loss of a few billion dollars – or face roughly $30 billion in Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. fees when First Republic fails.
It’s the latest twist in a weekslong saga sparked by the sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank last month. Days after the government seized SVB and Signature, midsized banks hit by severe deposit runs, the country’s biggest lenders banded together to inject $30 billion in deposits into First Republic. That solution proved fleeting after the depth of the company’s problems became known.
If the First Republic advisors manage to convince big banks to purchase bonds for more than they are worth —  to take the hit of investment losses for the good of the banking system, as well as their own welfare — then they are confident that other parties will step up to help the bank recapitalize itself.
The advisors have already lined up potential purchasers of new First Republic stock in that scenario, according to the sources.

Crucial days

These investment bankers are now seeking to create a sense of urgency. CNBC’s David Faber, who first reported on the rescue plan Tuesday, said that the coming days are crucial for First Republic.

The bank’s stock has been in free fall since disclosing Monday that its deposits dropped a staggering 41% recently, leaving it with $104.5 billion in deposits, including the infusion from big banks. Analysts covering the company published pessimistic reports after CEO Michael Roffler opted not to take any questions after a brief 12-minute conference call.
“Now that the earnings are out, once you’ve got a window to act, it’s time to do it,” said one of the bankers, who asked for anonymity to speak candidly. “You never know what will happen if you wait, and you don’t want to be dealing with an emergency situation.”
To help a deal happen, advisors may offer warrants or preferred stock so that banks involved in the rescue can reap some of the upside of saving First Republic, the sources said.

False starts

For years, First Republic was the envy of peers as its focus on rich Americans helped turbocharge growth and allowed it to poach talent. But that model broke down in the aftermath of the SVB failure as its wealthy customers quickly pulled uninsured deposits.
Lazard and JPMorgan Chase were hired last month to advise First Republic, according to media reports.
The key advantage of the advisors’ plan, they say, is that it allows First Republic to offload some, but not all of its underwater bonds. In a government receivership, the whole portfolio must get marked down at once, resulting in what Morgan Stanley analysts estimated to be a $27 billion hit.
One complication, however, is that the advisors are relying on the U.S. government to summon bank CEOs together to explore possible solutions.
There have been false starts already: One top four U.S. bank said that the government told it to be ready to act on the First Republic situation this past weekend, but nothing happened.

Big bank doubts

While the exact contour of any deal is a matter for negotiation and could include a special purpose vehicle or direct purchases, several possibilities address the bank’s ailing balance sheet. The bank is weighing the sale of $50 billion to $100 billion in debt, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.
First Republic loaded up on low-yielding assets including Treasurys, municipal bonds and mortgages, making what was essentially a bet that interest rates wouldn’t rise. When they did, the bank found itself with tens of billions of dollars in losses.
By drastically reducing the size of its balance sheet, the bank’s capital ratios will suddenly be far healthier, paving the way for it to raise more funds and continue as an independent company.
Other possible, but less likely moves include converting the big bank’s deposits into equity, or even finding a buyer. But a suitor hasn’t emerged in the past month, and isn’t likely given that any purchaser would also own the losses on First Republic’s balance sheet.
That has led sources close to the big banks to believe that the most likely scenario for First Republic is government receivership, which is how SVB and Signature were resolved.
Those close to the banks were hesitant to endorse a plan in which they would have to recognize losses for overpaying for bonds. They also expressed distrust of government-brokered deals after some of the pacts from the 2008 financial crisis ended up being costlier than expected.

Open vs closed 

But the failures of SVB and Signature – the two biggest since the 2008 financial crisis – cost the FDIC Deposit Insurance Fund many billions of dollars, which is paid for by member banks. They also benefited the buyers who were able to cherry-pick the best assets while the FDIC retains underwater bonds, the First Republic advisors noted.
Advisors referred to the private market solutions as the “open bank” option, while government receivership is the “closed-banked” scenario.
But there is a third possibility: the bank grinds on as is, slowly losing yet more value amid probable quarterly losses, talent flight and unceasing doubts.
“Time, by the way, is not the bank’s friend,” analyst Don Bilson wrote Tuesday. “If anything, last night’s discouraging update will make it even harder for First Republic to keep what it has.” More

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3,760 Enphase microinverters will power the drying and storage of more than 50,000 tons of California rice at Strain Ranch in Arbuckle, Calif., Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013.
Alison Yin | AP

Check out the companies making headlines in extended trading.
Enphase Energy — The solar inverter company saw shares slide about 16% after hours after reporting a mixed quarter that included disappointing revenue results. Enphase brought in revenues of $726 million. Analysts were looking $732.5 million, according to Refinitiv. Competitor SolarEdge slid more than 6%.

PacWest Bancorp — Shares of the regional bank jumped 15% after PacWest said it has seen deposit inflows over the past month. PacWest said deposits fell more than 16% during the first quarter to roughly $28.2 billion. However, the bank said it has added about $1.8 billion in deposits since March 20, which was its prior update to investors. That sum includes $700 million in deposits in April. PacWest also reported a net loss of $1.21 billion for the quarter, due largely to a goodwill impairment charge.
Chipotle Mexican Grill — The burrito chain jumped 7.7% after hours following the company’s latest financial results. Chipotle’s earnings and revenue for the first quarter beat estimates by analysts surveyed by Refinitv. Same-store sales rose 10.9%, topping StreetAccount estimates of 8.6%. 
Microsoft — The tech giant’s shares rose nearly 5% after the company reported quarterly earnings and revenue that exceeded analysts’ expectations, according to Refinitiv. Revenue in Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud business segment grew by 16% to $22.08 billion, coming in higher than analysts predicted.
Alphabet — The Google parent saw shares rise 4% after it posted first-quarter revenue that topped estimates, according to Refinitiv, and reported a profit in its cloud business for the first time on record. The company’s board also authorized a $70 billion share buyback. Big Tech peers Amazon and Meta gained about 2% each.
Texas Instruments — The chipmaker gained nearly 2% after reporting better-than-expected earnings for the first quarter and revenue that was in line with estimates, according to Refinitiv.

Visa — The payments giant rose almost 2% in extended trading after reporting adjusted earnings of $2.09 per share on revenues of $7.99 billion for its latest quarter, according to Refinitiv. Analysts were expecting earnings of $1.99 per share on revenues of $7.79 billion.
 — CNBC’s Jesse Pound contributed reporting More

During the past decade it sometimes seemed as if anyone could be a private-equity investor. Rising valuations for portfolio companies, and cheap financing with which to buy them, boosted returns and reeled in cash at an astonishing clip. Improving the efficiency of a portfolio firm, by contrast, contributed rather less to the industry’s returns. As acquisitions accelerated, more and more Americans came to be employed, indirectly, by the industry; today more than 10m toil for its portfolio firms. But last year private equity’s twin tailwinds went into reverse, as valuations fell and leverage became scarce. By the summer, dealmaking had collapsed. Transactions agreed at high prices in headier times began to look foolhardy. Private equity is now entering a new era. After months of inaction dealmakers are getting back to work. Economic uncertainty is still driving a wedge between the expectations of buyers and sellers, but more big deals were announced in March than any month since May last year. In one such deal, Silver Lake, a tech investor, announced it would buy Qualtrics, a software firm, for more than $12bn with $1bn in debt commitments—not much leverage, but a buy-out nonetheless. The industry that emerges from this period will be a different beast from the all-consuming giant of the 2010s. Private equity will be dogged by its folly at the top of the cycle. Growth in assets is likely to be less rapid. And the new phase will favour investors willing to roll up their sleeves and improve operations at the companies they have bought.Since funds invested during downturns have typically been among private equity’s most profitable, some managers, sensing that expectations of a recession have created bargains, are now itching to deploy capital. They are scooping up companies with valuations that have been hit by rising interest rates. On April 17th The Hut Group announced it had received a non-binding bid from Apollo, a private-equity giant. The beleaguered British e-commerce firm has seen its share price fall by 90% since 2021. In February Francisco Partners beat away a crowded field of other potential private-equity buyers to strike a $1.7bn deal to purchase Sumo Logic, for around four times the value of its annual sales. The American software firm had traded at a multiple of more than 15 in 2021. Bain Capital, another private-equity giant, has built a $2.4bn tech-focused fund to take advantage of turbulence in the sector.Corporate carve-outs also have gilet-wearing types excited. Such deals, where large companies shed unloved assets, have fallen as a share of private-equity transactions since the global financial crisis of 2007-09. But given tough economic conditions, companies are increasingly looking to sell “non-core” assets in order to focus operations and bolster balance-sheets. Spin-offs announced by American firms surged by around a third in 2022, according to Goldman Sachs, a bank. The problem is that today’s bargains are yesterday’s rip-offs—and dealmaking was happening at a much faster pace a few years ago. Buying at the top of the market is a disaster whether that market is public or private. One steely private-equity boss says he likes to remind his investors that a buyer of Microsoft shares in the months before the dotcom bubble burst in 2000 would have had to wait until 2015 to break even. Until an investment is sold, the score is kept by quarterly valuations. Investors in private-equity funds are not expecting to see large write-downs in their investments. But of the $1.1trn spent on buy-outs in 2021, it is the third ploughed into tech companies, often at peak valuations, that is attracting the most attention.Older deals pose a particular threat to funds that were more trigger-happy. The cost of floating-rate borrowing has rocketed. The yield on the Morningstar lsta index of leveraged loans, which was 4.6% a year ago, has jumped to 9.4%. Although recent buy-out deals involved less borrowing as a share of their value, lofty valuations nonetheless meant that borrowing increased relative to profits. This has left some firms walking a financial tightrope.When mixed with a portfolio firm’s underlying business problems, high interest costs can be toxic. Consider Morrisons, a British supermarket bought by Clayton, Dubilier and Rice, an American investor. The grocer has lost market share to cheaper retailers, as inflation has stretched customer wallets. According to CreditSights, a research firm, the company’s interest bill will more than quadruple this year. Things could be still more perilous in the tech industry, where many of the largest deals of the past few years were financed with floating-rate loans.As in any subdued market, lots of funds will struggle to raise capital. A more existential question is if the opportunities now available can sustain an industry that has grown enormous. Andrea Auerbach of Cambridge Associates, an investment firm, says she is “most concerned about returns being competed away in the upper regions of the market, where there are fewer managers with a lot more dry powder”. Since the industry has swollen in size, mega-funds that have raised more than $5bn are now much more common than used to be the case. In America such funds sit on some $340bn in dry powder, a pile which could swell to twice that amount with the use of leverage. Optimists point to the size of the public markets in comparison. There are around 1,100 profitable listed American companies worth $1bn-20bn; their market values add up to around $6trn. Although this looks like a big pool of potential targets, investment committees searching for “goldilocks” operating qualities—including stable cash flows to service debt and a good deal on price in the most competitive patches of the market—may find that it is not quite big enough.In this more restrained era, private-equity managers might have to ditch their habit of chasing the same targets. Over the past decade, around 40% of sales of portfolio firms were to another private-equity fund. But there are probably fewer operating improvements to be made to such firms, making them less alluring to buyers. Private-equity managers unable to buy cheaply will need to raise the profitability of their assets if they wish to make money. They can be efficient custodians; concentrated ownership, a penchant for bringing in outside managers with financial incentives to boost profits, rigorous cost control and add-on deals (where a fund merges another smaller operation into its portfolio company) all contribute to stronger profits. Yet for many firms, such operating improvements have been a sideshow during the past decade—rising valuations relative to profits accounted for more than half of private-equity returns, according to an analysis by Bain, a consultancy. Between 2017 and 2022, improving profit margins provided a measly 5% of returns.Do not expect a pivot from financial to operational engineering to benefit all private-equity funds equally, even if dusting off old textbooks increases the industry’s management prowess. Higher debt costs make add-ons more costly, and such deals are increasingly the focus of vigilant competition authorities. A downturn could also exacerbate political opposition to the industry’s cost-cutting, especially in sensitive industries such as health care.All this means pension funds and endowments, typical investors in private-equity funds, will spend the next few years debating which managers truly earn their high fees. Most corporate raiders—veterans of the explosion in leveraged finance during the 1980s—are long retired. In their place stand a professionalised cadre of money-makers too young to recall the high interest rates of their industry’s pre-history. Those able to strike bargains, and managers with deep industry expertise and lots of skilled operating professionals, could prosper. Pretenders previously lifted by rising valuations and cheap leverage during the past decade will certainly not. ■ More

The classic notion of retirement planning is a measure of savings and time.
“Longevity” planning is a more complete framework, said Joseph Coughlin, director of the MIT AgeLab.
Americans overlook many important aspects of old age. They include transportation, social life and small tasks that may be difficult or impossible. Many of them carry a financial cost.

Alistair Berg | Digitalvision | Getty Images

The following is an excerpt from “This week, your wallet,” a weekly audio show on Twitter produced by CNBC’s Personal Finance team. Listen to the latest episode here.
 Americans are living longer — and it’s changing the nature of retirement planning.

The classic retirement framework aims for seniors to have enough money to fund their lifestyle in old age. While not incorrect, the framework is “incomplete,” Joseph Coughlin, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology AgeLab, told CNBC.
“Longevity planning” is a better way for society to think about old age — especially since the future is “much grayer than it’s ever been before,” he said.
There’s a roughly 50% chance that Americans who are 65 years old today will make it to 85 — a period that lasts about 8,000 days, or a third of their adult life, Coughlin said.  
Instead of a short period earmarked purely for leisure and travel, retirement in the future will be increasingly dynamic one, in which people might have different part-time gigs and find other ways to stay happy and engaged.
“Leisure is a story we wrote for retirement when it was short,” said Coughlin, author of “The Longevity Economy: Unlocking the World’s Fastest-Growing, Most Misunderstood Market.” “Life is the new story we need to write when it becomes so much longer.”

“This is an entirely new longevity frontier,” he added.
Within that framework, there are some big questions people planning for their retirement years should be asking — but which are often overlooked.
Here are three of them, according to Coughlin.

1. How will I get an ice cream cone?

Dave G Kelly | The Image Bank | Getty Images

This question gets to what makes you smile — and how you’re going to get that thing.
Imagine it’s a hot summer night and you’re craving an ice cream cone. Ice cream, in this case, is what makes you happy. But do you have the transportation to get to the store, without asking a neighbor or adult child, for example?
In other words, can you get the ice cream when you want it?
More from Personal Finance:How to prioritize retirement and emergency savingsHere’s a scenario when Roth IRAs require withdrawalsMore retirement plans will soon have annuity options
Seventy percent Americans over age 50 live in suburban and rural areas, where public transit may be spotty or inexistent, Coughlin said.
The answer has financial implications, too: Transportation is the second-largest cost in retirement for Americans over age 65 , Coughlin said. (The first is housing, and health care is third.)
Seniors may need to pay for transit not just to do things they enjoy, but also to travel to the doctor and the grocery store, for example.

2. Who will you have lunch with?

Morsa Images | Digitalvision | Getty Images

Yes, your bank account and financial portfolio are important in retirement — but so is your “social portfolio,” Coughlin said.
Ensuring we have enough friends, who we can socialize and have lunch with, who we can learn from, have fun with and lean on when life “goes to heck,” is an important part of longevity planning, he said.
This is something in which retirees should plan to continually invest in old age, Coughlin said. As one woman in her 80s told Coughlin, there’s a certain “attrition” to your friendships as you age.

3. How will you change your lightbulbs?

Peter Dazeley | The Image Bank | Getty Images

The lightbulb represents all the things — big and small — we might take for granted in retirement.
Take maintaining a home, for example. There may be a time when climbing a ladder to change a lightbulb seems hazardous or impossible, Coughlin said.
Home maintenance is among the “hidden costs” of retirement, he added. (Transportation is another, he said.)
“There will be a whole cost in retirement to outsource all that help you may need to stay independent and well,” Coughlin said. More