Mic drop

MARKETS

• Fed minutes: On tap for December? Wetter-than-usual weather and (likely) a Fed rate hike. The central bank's most recent meeting minutes suggest another increase next month—in line with the market's expectations.
• U.S. markets: The Dow snapped a three-day winning streak. Wall Street's doing a lot of nail biting ahead of President Trump's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (we've got that covered below).

MEDIA

Hansel and Gretel for the Digital Media Age

Little Red Riding Hood, the story of King Midas, and the downfall of millennial-minded digital publisher Mic. All cautionary tales worth repeating.

Yesterday, Mic laid off most of its editorial staff just before it was acquired by Bustle Digital Group (which owns sites including Elite Daily and The Zoe Report).

But this isn't a story about an acquisition. It's a story about the fabled "pivot to video" and how it upended the digital media landscape.

It starts and ends with Facebook

Mic was one of countless digital media firms that drank the "pivot to video" Kool-Aid that became popular in 2016. The strategy? Shrink editorial teams in favor of chasing the ad dollars and traffic promised by bite-sized Facebook videos (and count on you spending hours in a FB video hole on Saturday afternoon).

• But that mostly backfired: Per ComScore, publishers that prioritized video in 2017 saw at least a 60% drop in August traffic YoY.
• One problem, as CJR notes, was that "Facebook based its video push on a quicksand of faulty metrics."

And then there was the algorithm change. In January, Facebook announced plans to prioritize content from friends and family over content from publishers. That move proved to be devastating for sites like Mic that relied on Facebook to drive traffic.

• Also devastating: Facebook recently axed a deal with Mic to publish its news video series, "Mic Dispatch."

So why cut a deal?

For Mic: Insiders call it a fire sale. Mic's been shopping for deals for several months.

For Bustle: Axios says it'll tap into Mic's content management system and engineering talent, which is difficult to find in NYC.

This doesn't go down easy: Mic's sale will reportedly carry a price tag of around $10 million. Remember, Mic has raised $60 million from VC and media firms (including Time Warner) and was most recently valued at more than $100 million.

TRADE

Trump and Xi Have Big Saturday Night Plans

Each week, the Brew is partnering with the infographic wizards at Statista to visualize the most interesting stories happening in business and the economy.

President Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and several advisers will meet for dinner Saturday night following the G20 summit in Buenos Aires. On the menu? Bife de chorizo with a side of trade talks.

Will there be a breakthrough? We'd be foolish to even guess. Stocks have swelled and dipped on rumors of a potential deal for over a year now (spoiler alert: there's been no deal).

• Reports suggest both sides are "exploring" an agreement in which China would consider implementing a more accommodating economic policy in exchange for the U.S. putting future tariffs on hold.
• But there are also plenty of reasons to be skeptical, including chatter that China trade hawk Peter Navarro will be joining the dinner.

Zoom out: To make sure we're on the same page, here's a brief timeline of the trade conflict so far...

BANKING

The Panama Papers Saga Resurfaces

Like "bottom-up investing" or "you gotta try CBD," you hear "Panama Papers" a lot...but you're not quite sure what it means.

Let's clear that up. The Panama Papers are a 2016 treasure trove of 11.5 million records that opened the kimono on global money laundering. They exposed the offshore holdings of a dozen current/former world leaders and detailed the undercover finances of 128 more public officials.

So why are we talking Panama Papers now?

• Yesterday, about 170 police officers/prosecutors orchestrated a raid on Deutsche Bank's (-4.70%) Frankfurt HQ as part of an ongoing money laundering probe that stems from—you guessed it—the Panama Papers.
• Prosecutors allege about 900 customers of a DB subsidiary in the British Virgin Islands used offshore bank accounts to weasel their way out of paying taxes. Authorities said they're now eyeing two DB employees who allegedly set up those offshore accounts.

Zoom out: This is just the latest hard-to-swallow headline for the German bank. It's trudged through years of losses—which came c/o costly legal settlements, rapid c-suite turnover, and a tough time recovering from the '08 crisis.

INTERNATIONAL

Let’s Keep This Euro Trip Going...

Don't tell Scotty, but we could have written an entire Brew on the corporate news out of Europe yesterday. Here's a quick round-up...

Bayer (-1.28%), the German chemicals giant, is cutting 12,000 jobs by the end of 2021 and shopping around some of its brands, including Coppertone sunscreen.

• Remember, Bayer closed on a $63 billion acquisition of Monsanto this summer, but now it's staring down more than 9,000 lawsuits over Roundup, Monsanto's weedkiller.

A global car alliance of Nissan, Renault, and Mitsubishi renewed its vows in Amsterdam. The future of the alliance was cast into doubt when its architect Carlos Ghosn (a senior exec at all three companies) was arrested for financial misconduct.

And Unilever (-0.64%) is getting a new CEO. The Anglo-Dutch consumer goods group is saying goodbye to its chief of nearly 10 years, Paul Polman, and tapping company vet Alan Jope for the job. Polman oversaw a recent HQ-move boondoggle that makes Amazon's search look like a breeze.

QUIZ

The Brew’s Weekly News Quiz

Steeper deals than Cyber Monday. Better odds than in-game NBA betting. More neutral than interest rate levels. It's the Brew's weekly news quiz.

1. Which automaker said it would cut around 14,000 jobs and idle several manufacturing plants in the U.S.?

2. Hundreds of Google employees attached their names to a petition calling on the company to stop working on a censored search engine project in China. Do you remember the codename for this project?

3. Fill in the blank: The FDA announced it's going to overhaul the procedure for approving most _________.

4. Lawmakers representing nine countries used this image on Twitter to troll a tech CEO for not answering their questions. We blacked out the name—who's the missing CEO?

5. The CEO of publisher Condé Nast, Bob Sauerberg, is stepping down. Which of these publications is not under Condé Nast's umbrella?

a) Vogue b) The New Yorker c) Sports Illustrated d) GQ

6. Netflix said it will be developing a slate of animated event series based on the books of which children's author? Hint: One of the shows will be really...sweet.

7. Speed round: Think back to question #1. Assuming you know the answer...see how many specific vehicle models from that automaker you can name. Remember, the speed round isn't a solo effort. Gather up your coworkers, set a timer to 90 seconds, and compete for bragging rights (or who's picking up the tab for the next snack run).

Answers: 1) General Motors 2) Project Dragonfly 3) Medical devices 4) Mark Zuckerberg 5) Sports Illustrated 6) Roald Dahl 7) Have fun

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• German antitrust regulators opened an investigation into Amazon's (-0.25%) dominance in the German marketplace.
• Dunkin' Donuts (+0.70%) said that some users of its DD Perks app may have been hacked earlier this fall.
• NASA chose nine companies—including Lockheed Martin and Orbit Beyond—to compete for $2.6 billion in lunar transportation contracts.
• Abercrombie & Fitch stock rocketed 21% after it beat earnings and sales expectations and said it won't have to close as many stores as it first thought.
• Cruise, the self-driving unit of GM, has tapped soon-to-be-ex GM President Dan Ammann to serve as its new CEO.
• The SEC charged boxer Floyd Mayweather and musician DJ Khaled for pumping up initial coin offerings without disclosing that they were getting paid to do so.

BREAKROOM

Language Riddle
Which word in the English language has the following three meanings?
1) to empty
2) to be even with
3) to be full of

(Answer located at bottom of newsletter)

Breakroom Answers