com Inc.’s layoffs will affect more than 17,000 employees, according to people familiar with the matter, the highest reduction tally revealed in the past year at a major technology company as the industry pares back amid economic uncertainty.
The Seattle-based company in November said that it was beginning layoffs among its corporate workforce, with cuts concentrated on its devices business, recruiting and retail operations. At the time, The Wall Street Journal reported the cuts would total about 10,000 people. Thousands of those cuts began last year.
Newsletter Sign-up
Alert
Technology
Major news in the technology sector.
The rest of the cuts will bring the total number of layoffs to more than 17,000 and will be made over the coming weeks, some of the people said. As of September,
Amazon
AMZN -0.79%
employed 1.5 million people, with a large percentage of them in its warehouses. The layoffs are concentrated in the company’s corporate ranks, some of the people said.
Amazon
was one of the biggest beneficiaries of the Covid-19 pandemic as customers flocked to online shopping. The rush to Amazon’s various businesses, from e-commerce to groceries and cloud computing, pushed forward years of growth for the company. To keep up with demand, Amazon doubled its logistics network and added hundreds of thousands of employees.
When demand started to wane with customers moving back to shopping in stores, Amazon initiated a broad cost-cutting review to pare back on units that were unprofitable, the Journal reported. In the spring and summer, the company made targeted cuts to bring down costs, shutting physical stores and business units such as Amazon Care. Amazon later announced a companywide hiring freeze before deciding to let employees go.
Many tech companies have cut jobs as the economy sours. Amazon’s layoffs of more than 17,000 employees would represent the highest number of people let go by a tech company in the past few months, according to tallies released on Layoffs.fyi, a website that tracks the events as they surface in media reports and company releases.
The trend has affected companies such as Amazon and others that have acknowledged they grew too quickly in many cases.
Facebook
parent
Meta Platforms Inc.
said it would cut more than 11,000 workers, or 13% of its staff, adding to layoffs at
Lyft Inc.,
HP Inc.
and other tech companies. On Wednesday,
Salesforce Inc.
said that it was laying off 10% of its workforce. Co-Chief Executive
Marc Benioff
said the business-software provider hired too many people as revenue surged earlier in the pandemic. “I take responsibility for that,” he said.
Write to Dana Mattioli at dana.mattioli@wsj.com and Jessica Toonkel at jessica.toonkel@wsj.com
In the worst year for stocks since the Great Recession, several big names are headed for their worst year on record with just one trading day left in 2022.
The S&P 500 index
SPX,
+1.75%
and Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
+1.05%
are both headed for their worst year since 2008, with declines of 20.6% and 9.5% respectively through Thursday. But at least 19 big-name stocks — and half of another — are headed for a more ignominious title for 2022, according to Dow Jones Market Data: Worst year ever.
Tesla Inc.
TSLA,
+8.08%
is having the worst year among the group of S&P 1500 constituents with a market capitalization of $30 billion or higher headed for record annual percentage declines. Tesla shares have declined 65.4% so far this year, which would be easily the worst year on record for the popular stock, which has only had one previous negative year since going public in 2010, an 11% decline in 2016.
Tesla may not be the worst decliner on the list by the time 2023 arrives, however, as another Silicon Valley company is right on its heels. Meta Platforms Inc.
META,
+4.01%,
the parent company of Facebook, has fallen 64.2% so far this year, as Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has stuck to spending billions to develop the “metaverse” even as the online-advertising industry that provides the bulk of his revenue has stagnated. It would also only be the second year in Facebook’s history that the stock has declined, after a 25.7% drop in 2018, though shares did end Facebook’s IPO year of 2012 30% lower than the original IPO price.
Only one other stock could contend with Tesla and Meta’s record declines this year, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has some familiarity with that company as well. PayPal Holdings Inc.
PYPL,
+4.46%,
where Musk first found fame during the dot-com boom, has declined 63.2% so far this year as executives have refocused the company on attracting and retaining high-value users instead of trying to get as many users as possible on the payments platform. It would be the second consecutive down year for PayPal, which had not experienced that before 2021 since spinning off from eBay Inc.
EBAY,
+4.76%
in 2015.
None of the other companies headed for their worst year yet stand to lose more than half their value this year, though Charter Communications Inc.
CHTR,
+1.99%
is close. The telecommunications company’s stock has declined 48.2% so far, as investors worry about plans to spend big in 2023 in an attempt to turn around declining internet-subscriber numbers.
In addition to the list below, Alphabet Inc.’s class C shares
GOOG,
+2.88%
are having their worst year on record with a 38.4% decline. MarketWatch is not including that on the list, however, as Alphabet’s class A shares
GOOGL,
+2.82%
fell 55.5% in 2008; the separate class of nonvoting shares was created in 2012 to allow the company — then still called Google — to continue issuing shares to employees without diluting the control of co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
Apart from that portion of Alphabet’s shares, here are the 19 large stocks headed for their worst year ever, based on Thursday’s closing prices.
Company
% decline in 2022
Tesla Inc.
TSLA,
+8.08%
65.4%
Meta Platforms Inc.
META,
+4.01%
64.2%
PayPal Holdings Inc.
PYPL,
+4.46%
62.6%
Charter Communications Inc.
48.0%
Edwards Lifesciences Corp.
EW,
+2.87%
41.9%
ServiceNow Inc.
NOW,
+3.67%
39.9%
Zoetis Inc.
ZTS,
+3.00%
39.3%
Fidelity National Information Services Inc.
FIS,
+2.03%
said it would stop making so-called forever chemicals and cease using them by the end of 2025, as criticism and litigation grow over the chemicals’ alleged health and environmental impact.
3M Chief Executive
Mike Roman
said that the decision was influenced by increasing regulation of the chemicals known as PFAS, and a growing market for substitute options.
“Customers are taking note of PFAS regulations. They’re looking for alternatives,” Mr. Roman said in an interview. “We’re finding other solutions that have the same properties,” he said.
The company’s move involves chemicals used to make nonstick cookware, food packaging and other consumer and industrial products. 3M estimated its current annual sales of the chemicals total about $1.3 billion.
Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are commonly called “forever chemicals” because they take a long time to break down in the environment. Such chemicals include highly durable compounds long prized by manufacturers for their resistance to heat, and their ability to repel water, grease and stains.
Newsletter Sign-up
The 10-Point.
A personal, guided tour to the best scoops and stories every day in The Wall Street Journal.
In recent decades, research has linked exposure to some forms of the chemicals with health problems including kidney and testicular cancers, thyroid disease and high cholesterol, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The synthetic compounds have also been found in drinking water, including some municipal systems and private wells, as well as in rainwater around the world.
Regulators and environmental groups have taken aim at the chemicals, and thousands of lawsuits alleging contamination and illness have been filed in recent years targeting 3M and other manufacturers.
3M stopped producing some types of PFAS chemicals in the early 2000s but has continued to make other types, which the company has said can be safely produced and used. 3M said Tuesday it would stop making all fluoropolymers, fluorinated fluids and PFAS-based additive products by the end of 2025.
The company also said it would stop using PFAS across its products by the end of 2025, saying that it has already reduced its use of the substances over the past three years.
3M’s shares declined about 0.5% in midday trading, while major U.S. stock indexes slightly increased. The company’s stock has fallen about 29% so far this year, compared with a 19% decline in the S&P 500 stock index.
The EPA has said there are roughly 600 PFAS chemicals in commercial use today. The American Chemistry Council, which represents chemical makers, said Tuesday that PFAS are integral to thousands of products in technologies including semiconductors, batteries for electric vehicles and 5G technology.
The group said its members are dedicated to the responsible production, use, management and disposal of PFAS chemistries, and that it would continue to work with the EPA toward policies that protect human health and allow the chemicals to continue to be used.
3M’s exit from PFAS was seen as a victory by environmental groups that for years have raised alarms over the chemicals.
Scott Faber, senior vice president of government affairs at the Environmental Working Group, said he didn’t think 3M will ever be held fully accountable for producing the chemicals. “But by exiting the market they have sent a powerful signal to the other polluters that it’s simply unaffordable to poison all of us,” Mr. Faber said.
3M’s net sales of PFAS chemicals represent about 4% of the company’s total annual sales, according to research by RBC Capital Markets. “This is a step in the right direction for 3M given all the regulatory scrutiny of PFAS chemicals,” RBC analysts wrote in a note to investors Tuesday.
Over the course of exiting the business of manufacturing the chemicals, 3M said it expects to incur pretax charges of about $1.3 billion to $2.3 billion, including a $700 million to $1 billion charge in the current quarter. The St. Paul, Minn.-based manufacturer said it intends to fulfill current contractual obligations during the transition period.
The EPA in August proposed designating two forms of PFAS chemicals as hazardous substances under the federal superfund law. The American Chemistry Council and companies such as 3M opposed the move, saying that it wasn’t based on the best available science and that it wouldn’t speed up remediation of contaminated sites.
Industry analysts said plant cleanup costs are likely to increase as the EPA uses broad discretion to impose cleanup terms under the Superfund designation. They said the hazardous substance designation also likely would hinder sales growth for the PFAS chemicals that 3M continues to produce, as customers look for alternatives.
3M pioneered the development of PFAS chemicals in the late 1940s, building on atomic research that used fluorine gas. By bonding fluorine with carbon, 3M found it could create durable compounds that could be adapted for use in consumer and industrial products.
3M’s plants where PFAS chemicals are produced have come under increasing regulatory focus for soil and water contamination. 3M has committed billions of dollars to clean up plant sites in recent years, including an $850 million settlement with the state of Minnesota related to a plant in Cottage Grove, Minn. The company also agreed earlier this year to provide about $600 million to remediate contamination connected to a plant in Belgium where PFAS chemicals have been produced.
3M also produces PFAS chemicals at plants in Alabama, Illinois and Germany.
3M phased out production of two PFAS chemicals, known as PFOA and PFOS, in the early 2000s. Those two forms of PFAS chemicals have been at the center of thousands of lawsuits targeting 3M and other manufacturers.
—Will Feuer contributed to this article.
Write to Kris Maher at Kris.Maher@wsj.com and Bob Tita at robert.tita@wsj.com
Cloud gaming is an emerging technology that allows people to stream videogames to nearly any internet-connected device, similar to how movies and shows are viewed on
Netflix,
Hulu and other streaming platforms.
The business model being developed alongside cloud gaming is a subscription service, where consumers get to play a catalog of games for a flat monthly or annual fee. With cloud gaming, players can avoid downloading games to their devices, which takes up memory, and they don’t need to invest in hardware such as a console or high-end computer.
The FTC and videogame industry participants anticipate cloud gaming will become a much larger part of the market in years to come. With its lawsuit, the FTC says it is protecting the videogame-distribution market—as it is today and how it is expected to evolve—from being dominated by a few companies.
Newsletter Sign-up
Technology
A weekly digest of tech reviews, headlines, columns and your questions answered by WSJ’s Personal Tech gurus.
Microsoft is an early leader in cloud gaming with its Xbox Game Pass subscription service. The company’s $75 billion deal forActivision would bolster its content library, adding several blockbuster franchises including “Call of Duty,” “World of Warcraft” and “Candy Crush Saga.”
Microsoft, which has pledged to fight the FTC’s suit, has said it is an underdog in the existing console market, with Xbox’s position trailing
Sony Group Corp.’s
PlayStation and
Nintendo Co.
’s Switch. The company doesn’t disclose Xbox sales by volume.
Shoppers are seeing more out-of-stock messages than ever, but inventory tracking websites like HotStock and Zoolert are giving people a better chance of finding the hot-ticket products they’re looking for. Here’s how those websites work. Illustration: Sebastian Vega
The technology giant has also said that it has no meaningful presence in mobile, the biggest corner of the overall videogame industry by revenue.
Apple Inc.
and
Alphabet Inc.’s
Google, makers of the predominant smartphone operating systems, play a critical role in how people access mobile games, and they take a cut of developers’ in-app and subscription sales.
Xbox Game Pass, which Microsoft launched in 2017, offers a library of hundreds of games for subscribers to play starting at $9.99 a month. The basic plan allows subscribers to download individual games on their Xbox or PC to play whenever they want. For $14.99 a month, subscribers can play some of thosegames via the cloud, all part of Microsoft’s ambitions to build a “Netflix of gaming.” The company in January said Game Pass had 25 million subscribers.
Global consumer spending on cloud-gaming services and games streamed via the cloud will reach a combined $2.4 billion by the end of this year, according to an estimate from Newzoo BV. That is a tiny fraction—1.4%—of the $184.4 billion in overall spending on videogame software.
Sony, which has aggressively lobbied governments around the world to oppose the Microsoft-Activision tie-up, and others have attempted to grow their own cloud-gaming subscription services. Microsoft, for now, is the dominant player, accounting for 60% of the overall cloud-gaming business last year, according to an estimate from research firm Omdia.
Microsoft is an early leader in cloud gaming with its Xbox Game Pass subscription service.
Photo:
etienne laurent/Shutterstock
The FTC appears concerned that it “can’t see the unintended consequences even just a few years down the road for an acquisition like this,” said
Paul Swanson,
a Denver-based antitrust lawyer at Holland & Hart LLP. “What they’re saying here is we’re going to err on the side of preserving as many independent competitors as we can.”
Over the past decade, Microsoft has poured billions into its cloud operations primarily for selling software and infrastructure for enterprise customers. It is now building out a separate cloud infrastructure to power its videogaming ambitions, which have been under development since it launched its first Xbox console in 2001.
Cloud gaming hasn’t been an easy business to navigate. The technology is difficult for companies to execute smoothly because games need to support multiple players with minimal delay regardless of where players are located. Earlier this year, Google shut down its game-streaming service, Stadia, after struggling to gain traction with users.
Microsoft remains heavily invested in its Xbox hardware, but cloud gaming gives it an opportunity to reach more gamers. It wants to build its own mobile app store, a move it says would create more competition in mobile videogames, not less. The Redmond, Wash., company has argued that Apple and Google’s app marketplaces have policies that pose technical and financial barriers to its goals.
Representatives for Apple and Google didn’t respond to requests for comment. Apple has said that it doesn’t prevent cloud-gaming apps from appearing in the App Store and that it isn’t trying to block their emergence.
Industry researcher and academic
Joost van Dreunen
said Microsoft’s mobile move would likely benefit the videogame ecosystem by diminishing Apple and Google’s grip.
Microsoft has said it is an underdog in the console market, with Xbox trailing consoles such as Nintendo’s Switch.
Photo:
Guillaume Payen/Zuma Press
“It breaks down the so-called walled-garden strategy that has dominated the game industry for 20 years,” he said.
Since Microsoft announced its deal for Activision, which it values at nearly $69 billion after adjusting for the developers’ net cash, some videogame players have been concerned about what it means for industry competition.
Steve Schweitzer of State College, Pa., is worried that Microsoft will raise the price of Game Pass over time. He said that it is affordable now but that in a few years, if Microsoft becomes more dominant, it could bump up the price and start cutting back on quality. Mr. Schweitzer, 55 years old, said he remembers back in the 1990s when Microsoft was able to use its market power to capture market share in the browser wars. “I’ve seen this game before,” he said.
Before its lawsuit, the FTC had been reviewing the deal for months. Regulators in other jurisdictions, including the European Union and the United Kingdom, are doing the same. The company has gained approval for the deal in smaller markets such as Brazil and Saudi Arabia.
Write to Sarah E. Needleman at sarah.needleman@wsj.com and Aaron Tilley at aaron.tilley@wsj.com
Meta Platforms Inc. has long given unfair deference to VIP users of its Facebook and Instagram services under a program called “cross check” and has misled the public about the program, the company’s oversight board concluded in a report issued Tuesday.
The report offers the most detailed review to date of cross check, which Meta has billed as a quality-control effort to prevent moderation errors on content of heightened public interest. The oversight board took up the issue more than a year ago in the wake of a Wall Street Journal article based on internal documents that showed that cross check was plagued by favoritism, mismanagement and understaffing.
Income-seeking investors are looking at an opportunity to scoop up shares of real estate investment trusts. Stocks in that asset class have become more attractive as prices have fallen and cash flow is improving.
Below is a broad screen of REITs that have high dividend yields and are also expected to generate enough excess cash in 2023 to enable increases in dividend payouts.
REIT prices may turn a corner in 2023
REITs distribute most of their income to shareholders to maintain their tax-advantaged status. But the group is cyclical, with pressure on share prices when interest rates rise, as they have this year at an unprecedented scale. A slowing growth rate for the group may have also placed a drag on the stocks.
And now, with talk that the Federal Reserve may begin to temper its cycle of interest-rate increases, we may be nearing the time when REIT prices rise in anticipation of an eventual decline in interest rates. The market always looks ahead, which means long-term investors who have been waiting on the sidelines to buy higher-yielding income-oriented investments may have to make a move soon.
During an interview on Nov 28, James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and a member of the Federal Open Market Committee, discussed the central bank’s cycle of interest-rate increases meant to reduce inflation.
When asked about the potential timing of the Fed’s “terminal rate” (the peak federal funds rate for this cycle), Bullard said: “Generally speaking, I have advocated that sooner is better, that you do want to get to the right level of the policy rate for the current data and the current situation.”
Fed’s Bullard says in MarketWatch interview that markets are underpricing the chance of still-higher rates
In August we published this guide to investing in REITs for income. Since the data for that article was pulled on Aug. 24, the S&P 500
SPX,
-0.50%
has declined 4% (despite a 10% rally from its 2022 closing low on Oct. 12), but the benchmark index’s real estate sector has declined 13%.
REITs can be placed broadly into two categories. Mortgage REITs lend money to commercial or residential borrowers and/or invest in mortgage-backed securities, while equity REITs own property and lease it out.
The pressure on share prices can be greater for mortgage REITs, because the mortgage-lending business slows as interest rates rise. In this article we are focusing on equity REITs.
Industry numbers
The National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (Nareit) reported that third-quarter funds from operations (FFO) for U.S.-listed equity REITs were up 14% from a year earlier. To put that number in context, the year-over-year growth rate of quarterly FFO has been slowing — it was 35% a year ago. And the third-quarter FFO increase compares to a 23% increase in earnings per share for the S&P 500 from a year earlier, according to FactSet.
The NAREIT report breaks out numbers for 12 categories of equity REITs, and there is great variance in the growth numbers, as you can see here.
FFO is a non-GAAP measure that is commonly used to gauge REITs’ capacity for paying dividends. It adds amortization and depreciation (noncash items) back to earnings, while excluding gains on the sale of property. Adjusted funds from operations (AFFO) goes further, netting out expected capital expenditures to maintain the quality of property investments.
The slowing FFO growth numbers point to the importance of looking at REITs individually, to see if expected cash flow is sufficient to cover dividend payments.
Screen of high-yielding equity REITs
For 2022 through Nov. 28, the S&P 500 has declined 17%, while the real estate sector has fallen 27%, excluding dividends.
Over the very long term, through interest-rate cycles and the liquidity-driven bull market that ended this year, equity REITs have fared well, with an average annual return of 9.3% for 20 years, compared to an average return of 9.6% for the S&P 500, both with dividends reinvested, according to FactSet.
This performance might surprise some investors, when considering the REITs’ income focus and the S&P 500’s heavy weighting for rapidly growing technology companies.
For a broad screen of equity REITs, we began with the Russell 3000 Index
RUA,
-0.18%,
which represents 98% of U.S. companies by market capitalization.
We then narrowed the list to 119 equity REITs that are followed by at least five analysts covered by FactSet for which AFFO estimates are available.
If we divide the expected 2023 AFFO by the current share price, we have an estimated AFFO yield, which can be compared with the current dividend yield to see if there is expected “headroom” for dividend increases.
For example, if we look at Vornado Realty Trust
VNO,
+1.01%,
the current dividend yield is 8.56%. Based on the consensus 2023 AFFO estimate among analysts polled by FactSet, the expected AFFO yield is only 7.25%. This doesn’t mean that Vornado will cut its dividend and it doesn’t even mean the company won’t raise its payout next year. But it might make it less likely to do so.
Among the 119 equity REITs, 104 have expected 2023 AFFO headroom of at least 1.00%.
Here are the 20 equity REITs from our screen with the highest current dividend yields that have at least 1% expected AFFO headroom:
Company
Ticker
Dividend yield
Estimated 2023 AFFO yield
Estimated “headroom”
Market cap. ($mil)
Main concentration
Brandywine Realty Trust
BDN,
+1.82%
11.52%
12.82%
1.30%
$1,132
Offices
Sabra Health Care REIT Inc.
SBRA,
+2.02%
9.70%
12.04%
2.34%
$2,857
Health care
Medical Properties Trust Inc.
MPW,
+1.90%
9.18%
11.46%
2.29%
$7,559
Health care
SL Green Realty Corp.
SLG,
+2.18%
9.16%
10.43%
1.28%
$2,619
Offices
Hudson Pacific Properties Inc.
HPP,
+1.55%
9.12%
12.69%
3.57%
$1,546
Offices
Omega Healthcare Investors Inc.
OHI,
+1.30%
9.05%
10.13%
1.08%
$6,936
Health care
Global Medical REIT Inc.
GMRE,
+2.03%
8.75%
10.59%
1.84%
$629
Health care
Uniti Group Inc.
UNIT,
+0.28%
8.30%
25.00%
16.70%
$1,715
Communications infrastructure
EPR Properties
EPR,
+0.62%
8.19%
12.24%
4.05%
$3,023
Leisure properties
CTO Realty Growth Inc.
CTO,
+1.58%
7.51%
9.34%
1.83%
$381
Retail
Highwoods Properties Inc.
HIW,
+0.76%
6.95%
8.82%
1.86%
$3,025
Offices
National Health Investors Inc.
NHI,
+1.90%
6.75%
8.32%
1.57%
$2,313
Senior housing
Douglas Emmett Inc.
DEI,
+0.33%
6.74%
10.30%
3.55%
$2,920
Offices
Outfront Media Inc.
OUT,
+0.70%
6.68%
11.74%
5.06%
$2,950
Billboards
Spirit Realty Capital Inc.
SRC,
+0.72%
6.62%
9.07%
2.45%
$5,595
Retail
Broadstone Net Lease Inc.
BNL,
-0.93%
6.61%
8.70%
2.08%
$2,879
Industial
Armada Hoffler Properties Inc.
AHH,
-0.08%
6.38%
7.78%
1.41%
$807
Offices
Innovative Industrial Properties Inc.
IIPR,
+1.09%
6.24%
7.53%
1.29%
$3,226
Health care
Simon Property Group Inc.
SPG,
+0.95%
6.22%
9.55%
3.33%
$37,847
Retail
LTC Properties Inc.
LTC,
+1.09%
5.99%
7.60%
1.60%
$1,541
Senior housing
Source: FactSet
Click on the tickers for more about each company. You should read Tomi Kilgore’s detailed guide to the wealth of information for free on the MarketWatch quote page.
The list includes each REIT’s main property investment type. However, many REITs are highly diversified. The simplified categories on the table may not cover all of their investment properties.
Knowing what a REIT invests in is part of the research you should do on your own before buying any individual stock. For arbitrary examples, some investors may wish to steer clear of exposure to certain areas of retail or hotels, or they may favor health-care properties.
Largest REITs
Several of the REITs that passed the screen have relatively small market capitalizations. You might be curious to see how the most widely held REITs fared in the screen. So here’s another list of the 20 largest U.S. REITs among the 119 that passed the first cut, sorted by market cap as of Nov. 28:
Company
Ticker
Dividend yield
Estimated 2023 AFFO yield
Estimated “headroom”
Market cap. ($mil)
Main concentration
Prologis Inc.
PLD,
+1.29%
2.84%
4.36%
1.52%
$102,886
Warehouses and logistics
American Tower Corp.
AMT,
+0.68%
2.66%
4.82%
2.16%
$99,593
Communications infrastructure
Equinix Inc.
EQIX,
+0.62%
1.87%
4.79%
2.91%
$61,317
Data centers
Crown Castle Inc.
CCI,
+1.03%
4.55%
5.42%
0.86%
$59,553
Wireless Infrastructure
Public Storage
PSA,
+0.11%
2.77%
5.35%
2.57%
$50,680
Self-storage
Realty Income Corp.
O,
+0.26%
4.82%
6.46%
1.64%
$38,720
Retail
Simon Property Group Inc.
SPG,
+0.95%
6.22%
9.55%
3.33%
$37,847
Retail
VICI Properties Inc.
VICI,
+0.41%
4.69%
6.21%
1.52%
$32,013
Leisure properties
SBA Communications Corp. Class A
SBAC,
+0.59%
0.97%
4.33%
3.36%
$31,662
Communications infrastructure
Welltower Inc.
WELL,
+2.37%
3.66%
4.76%
1.10%
$31,489
Health care
Digital Realty Trust Inc.
DLR,
+0.69%
4.54%
6.18%
1.64%
$30,903
Data centers
Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc.
ARE,
+1.38%
3.17%
4.87%
1.70%
$24,451
Offices
AvalonBay Communities Inc.
AVB,
+0.89%
3.78%
5.69%
1.90%
$23,513
Multifamily residential
Equity Residential
EQR,
+1.10%
4.02%
5.36%
1.34%
$23,503
Multifamily residential
Extra Space Storage Inc.
EXR,
+0.29%
3.93%
5.83%
1.90%
$20,430
Self-storage
Invitation Homes Inc.
INVH,
+1.58%
2.84%
5.12%
2.28%
$18,948
Single-family residental
Mid-America Apartment Communities Inc.
MAA,
+1.46%
3.16%
5.18%
2.02%
$18,260
Multifamily residential
Ventas Inc.
VTR,
+1.63%
4.07%
5.95%
1.88%
$17,660
Senior housing
Sun Communities Inc.
SUI,
+2.09%
2.51%
4.81%
2.30%
$17,346
Multifamily residential
Source: FactSet
Simon Property Group Inc.
SPG,
+0.95%
is the only REIT to make both lists.
To make the deal work, Mr. Musk has been trying to add subscription revenue and reassure advertisers about the platform’s future. Twitter was losing money before Mr. Musk bought the company, and the deal added a debt burden that requires fresh sources of cash.
It is tough to determine the state of the company. Twitter no longer has to file regular financial reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are crucial tools for determining a company’s financial health.
Analysts and academics have been able to piece together a picture of the company from information Mr. Musk has offered as well as details of the deal and the company’s last regulatory filings. Bankruptcy could be one result. Mr. Musk, the world’s richest person, could also raise new funds, or buy back debt from lenders, giving Twitter a buffer to turn around its business.
Here is a look at their assessments of Twitter’s financial situation and prospects.
Twitter Finances, Pre-Musk
Twitter is and was a popular tool for politicians, celebrities and journalists. But as a business, it was stagnating.
It hasn’t booked an annual profit since 2019, and posted a loss in eight years of the past decade. The company’s net loss narrowed in 2021, to $221.4 million from $1.14 billionthe previous year.
Twitter has struggled to attract new users and increase revenue, which came in at about $5.1 billion last year. In its last quarterly filing as a public company, for the period ended June 30, revenue was $1.18 billion, down slightly year-over-year.
Newsletter Sign-up
WSJ | CFO Journal
The Morning Ledger provides daily news and insights on corporate finance from the CFO Journal team.
Nearly 90% of its revenue last year came from advertising, and it traditionally has been the company’s main source of revenue. In 2021, Twitter took in $4.51 billion from advertisers, and $572 million from licensing data and other services.
The company had more than $2 billion in cash and less than $600 million in net debt before the takeover talks—very little debt for a company in the S&P 500 index. But that cash position was down 35% from a year earlier as of June 30, filings show, and Mr. Musk paid for Twitter by taking on $13 billion in debt. He paid for the rest in equity, some contributed by multiple investors.
Twitter had a market capitalization of $37.48 billion in March, the month before Mr. Musk agreed to buy it, S&P data showed. Social-media stocks have slumped sharply since then. But now, according to
Jeffrey Davies,
a former credit analyst and founder of data provider Enersection LLC, “This thing’s probably not worth more than what the debt stack is, quite frankly, unless you put a lot of option value just on Elon.” Mr. Musk last month said he and investors were overpaying for the company in the short term.
Revenue Under Musk
Mr. Musk said earlier this month that Twitter had suffered “a massive drop in revenue” and was losing $4 million a day. It isn’t clear if that reflects the broader downturn in the digital ad market or the pause in advertising by several companies since Mr. Musk bought the business.
Some companies, including burrito chain
Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc.,
cereal maker
General Mills Inc.
and airline
United Airlines Holdings Inc.,
have paused their ad spending on Twitter over uncertainty around where the company is headed. The departure of several top executives from its ad department have soured relationships, The Wall Street Journal has reported.
The exodus of advertisers poses a threat for a company so reliant on that revenue stream. “As an online ad company, you’re flirting with disaster,” said
Aswath Damodaran,
a finance professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business.
Elon Musk has purchased Twitter, ending a monthslong saga over whether or not he would go through with his offer to acquire the social media platform. WSJ takes an inside look at the tweets, texts and filings to see exactly how the battle played out. Illustration: Jordan Kranse
Deal negotiations for long-term contracts that usually begin at the end of the year haven’t taken place yet or have been put on hold. Those deals comprise more than 30% of Twitter’s U.S. ad revenue, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Revenue will likely remain under pressure until advertisers fully grasp the new business model, potentially leading many of them to return to the platform, said
Brent Thill,
a senior analyst at Jefferies Group LLC, a financial-services firm. “Those advertisers will come back if they feel that the users are there and there’s an ability to monetize their advertisement,” Mr. Thill said.
But that could take time. Mr. Thill said it could take months for advertisers to get clarity. “It’s an enigma,” he said.
Market-research firm Insider Intelligence Inc. recently cut its annual ad-revenue revenue outlook for Twitter by nearly 40% through 2024.
Mr. Musk wants the company to lean more on subscriptions and depend less on digital advertising. He said last Tuesday that the company’s upgraded subscription service, costing $7.99 a month, would launch Nov. 29.
A walkway at Twitter headquarters in San Francisco. The company has aggressively cut staff to reduce expenses.
Photo:
George nikitin/Shutterstock
Reducing Costs
The company has moved quickly to slash costs, including cutting its staff by half. Salaries and other compensation make up a large chunk of overall expenses. The company had 7,500 full-time employees at the end of 2021, up from 5,500 a year earlier, filings show.
The layoffs of roughly 3,700 people could save the company roughly $860 million a year, if the employees that are leaving made an average of about $233,000 annually—the company’s most recently disclosed median pay figure. The estimated savings would represent about 15% of Twitter’s $5.57 billion in costs and expenses last year. Its costs and expenses climbed 51% from the previous year, as hiring drove up its payroll.
More employees left the company last week, rejecting Mr. Musk’s demand that they commit to working “long hours at high intensity” to stay.
Debt Mountain
Before Mr. Musk’s acquisition, net debt totaled $596.5 million as of June 30, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, a data provider. That compares with a negative balance of $2.18 billion the prior-year period, indicating a cash surplus.
Twitter paid $23.3 million in interest expense in the quarter ended June 30, according to a filing.
Now, the company will have to pay at least $9 billion in interest to banks and hedge funds over the next seven to eight years, when the $13 billion in debt matures, according to a review of Twitter’s loans by Mr. Davies, the former credit analyst.
The interest payments are substantial for a company that reported $6.3 billion in total operating cash flow over the past eight years, he said.
What’s more, the company’s debt stack now includes floating-rate debt, meaning that interest costs are set to rise as the Federal Reserve continues to increase interest rates. Twitter’s debt was entirely fixed rate before the deal.
Twitter’s credit ratings, which were below investment grade before the transaction with Mr. Musk, have deteriorated further.
Moody’s
Investors Service on Oct. 31 downgraded Twitter’s rating to B1 from Ba2, a two-notch drop, and S&P Global Ratings on Nov. 1 downgraded it to B- from BB+, a five-notch drop.
If Twitter files for bankruptcy, Elon Musk’s $27 billion investment would likely be wiped out.
Photo:
Susan Walsh/Associated Press
Financial Prospects
Twitter’s financial challenges could result in the company filing for bankruptcy, raising equity or buying back some debt from its lenders, analysts and academics said.
If Twitter files for bankruptcy, as Mr. Musk warned was possible in an all-hands meeting earlier this month, his $27 billion investment would likely be wiped out because equity holders are the last to be paid when a company restructures.
Buying back debt from lenders at a steep discount would help the company reduce its debt load and interest costs as well as its valuation, which would be beneficial in the long run, Mr. Davies said.
“I don’t think they can issue any more debt,” Mr. Davies said. “It’s a really, really tough structure.”
The company could also replace some of the debt with equity, both from Mr. Musk and from outside investors, said
David Kass,
a finance professor at the University of Maryland’s
Robert H. Smith
School of Business. For that, Mr. Musk would need to persuade potential investors that he has a viable long-term business plan, he said. Replacing debt could enable the company to generate cash. Mr. Musk has said some of his latest
Tesla Inc.
stock sale, yielding almost $4 billion in cash, was because of Twitter.
If successful, the company could generate positive free cash flow in two or three years, which it could use to pay down the residual debt and eventually go public again, Mr. Kass said. “The prospect of an eventual IPO within three to five years would be a very attractive enticement for large funds,” he said.
—Theo Francis and Jennifer Williams-Alvarez contributed to this article.
Maintaining your physical fitness and mental well-being is crucial to living a longer and happier life.
There are about two dozen tests or screenings older adults can get to help ensure optimal health and wellness, based on recommendations from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel of experts in primary care and prevention, and on Medicare’s coverage of preventive health service.
Of course, exactly which tests you need depends on a variety of factors, including your age, weight, sex, family history and risk factors, as well as on your doctor’s recommendations.
The Affordable Care Act mandates preventive care with no cost-sharing, so in 2011, Medicare began offering a variety of free preventive-health services. Some services may need to be ordered during an annual wellness visit in order to be covered; otherwise, you may need to cover the costs out of pocket or with private insurance.
“People are living into their 90s, independently and in the community, and loving it. But in order to get there, you’ve got to do this stuff,” said Richard Besdine, a professor of medicine and public health at Brown University. “Not all of these are fatal diseases, but they can take the fun out of life. And what’s the point of that?”
Besdine said a Mediterranean-style diet and daily exercise are at the top of the list of the most important habits for aging well. Adequate sleep is also crucial, as are quitting smoking and limiting alcohol.
Mental health is equally important. Many older adults face depression, loneliness and isolation amid life changes such as the loss of a spouse. Ask a doctor for a depression screening if you or a loved one are showing any signs of depression.
And keep up with vaccines, such as those for COVID-19, shingles and the flu. Also consider getting the pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPSV23), which helps protect against meningitis and bloodstream infections, and the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13), which protects against pneumonia.
Here’s a rundown of routine tests you should get as an older adult:
Eye test Eye health may decline gradually as people get older, but the changes may not be noticeable right away. Poor eyesight can affect your ability to drive, get around the house and perform daily tasks. Also, as you age, the risk for eye problems such as cataracts and glaucoma increases.
In addition, recent research has found that up to 100,000 U.S. dementia cases could have potentially been prevented with improved eye care.
According to a study published this year in JAMA Neurology, one of the top things you can do to help reduce your risk for Alzheimer’s and related dementias is to get vision problems corrected with the help of eye exams, eyeglasses and cataract surgery.
Researchers found that about 1.8% of U.S. dementia cases were associated with visual impairment and projected that by 2050, that total would rise to around 250,000 cases. The investigators also found that incidence of impaired vision in older adults was higher for Hispanic people, at 11%, compared with 8.3% on average for Black and non-Hispanic white people.
Last year, a study published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology also suggested that certain eye conditions including age-related macular degeneration, cataracts and diabetes-related eye disease may be associated with an increased risk of dementia.
“Avoiding dementia is the No. 1 job of physicians and patients,” Besdine said. “Do everything you can to maintain your mental and physical health.”
Hearing exam While we’re talking about dementia, get your hearing tested — and get a hearing aid if you need one.
If you have hearing loss, you have a greater chance of developing dementia, according to a 2020 Lancet commission report that listed hearing loss as one of the top risk factors for dementia.
People with moderate hearing loss were twice as likely to experience cognitive decline as their peers, while those with severe hearing loss faced five times the risk, research has found.
In the U.S., hearing aids are now available over the counter — and they cost just hundreds of dollars, rather than the several thousands that prescription devices can cost. The White House estimated that people could save nearly $3,000 by buying over-the-counter devices.
Also read: ‘It democratizes what you get’: Hearing aids are now available over the counter — what you need to know
Walmart
WMT,
+1.51%,
Walgreen
WBA,
-0.95%,
CVS
CVS,
+2.55%
and Best Buy
BBY,
+2.88%
are among the national retailers that now sell hearing aids.
Dental exam Gum disease increases the risk of a heart attack. That alone should get you to the dentist, but gum health can also be a good barometer of your overall health. Your teeth, gums, mouth and throat need to be checked by a dentist, ideally twice a year. Medicare does not cover dental checkups, however, so private insurance or out-of-pocket payments are necessary.
Blood-pressure screening High blood pressure, or hypertension, is common; more than half of the adults in the U.S. have it. As you age, your arteries change and become stiffer. Left untreated, hypertension can lead to strokes, heart attacks and heart disease.
Diabetes screening After age 65, both men and women should be screened for diabetes regularly. The American Diabetes Association recommends that a fasting blood-sugar test be done at least once every three years in order catch diabetes early and manage it so it doesn’t become a life-threatening disorder.
Breast-cancer screening The Mayo Clinic supports screening for breast cancer beginning at age 40. Women up to age 75 should get a mammogram every one to two years, depending on their risk factors. Risk factors include having started menstruation before age 12, a family history of breast cancer, dense breasts and genetic mutations. After age 75, women should discuss the need for continued breast-cancer screening with their doctor.
Osteoporosis screening As you age, your bones become thinner, which can make you more susceptible to fractures or breaks, especially in the hips and spine. All women older than 64 should get a bone-density scan at least once a year. Men over 70 should also consider getting screened for osteoporosis, especially if the condition runs in their family.
Prostate cancer Prostate cancer is a common disease among men, especially those over the age of 65. Doctors can check for prostate cancer with a physical examination and a blood test. Some signs of prostate cancer include difficulty urinating, unexplained weight loss or blood in the urine.
Colon-cancer screening Colorectal cancer is more common among older adults, with an average age at diagnosis of 68 for men and 72 for women. If you experience changes in bowel habits, abdominal pain or bleeding, see your doctor.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends that adults age 45 to 75 be screened for colorectal cancer. Types of screening include stool tests, flexible sigmoidoscopy, colonoscopy and CT colonography (virtual colonoscopy). Adults ages 76 to 85 should talk to their doctor about whether they should continue to get screened.
Skin exam The American Cancer Society recommends regular screening for skin cancer. Be sure to ask your doctor to check your skin if you have any unusual moles or skin changes or if you’re at high risk with a history of skin cancer, have close relatives with skin cancer or have a weakened immune system.
is planning to begin large-scale layoffs this week, according to people familiar with the matter, in what could be among the largest round in a recent spate of tech job cuts after the industry’s rapid growth during the pandemic.
The layoffs are expected to affect many thousands of employees and an announcement is planned to come as soon as Wednesday, according to the people. Meta reported more than 87,000 employees at the end of September. Company officials already told employees to cancel nonessential travel beginning this week, the people said.
The planned layoffs would be the first broad head-count reductions to occur in the company’s 18-year history. While smaller on a percentage basis than the cuts at Twitter Inc. this past week, which hit about half of that company’s staff, the number of Meta employees expected to lose their jobs could be the largest to date at a major technology corporation in a year that has seen a tech industry retrenchment.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said recently that ‘some teams will grow meaningfully, but most other teams will stay flat or shrink over the next year.’
Photo:
Michael Nagle/Bloomberg News
A spokesman for Meta declined to comment, referring to Chief Executive
Mark Zuckerberg’s
recent statement that the company would “focus our investments on a small number of high priority growth areas.”
“So that means some teams will grow meaningfully, but most other teams will stay flat or shrink over the next year,” he said on the company’s third-quarter earnings call on Oct. 26. “In aggregate, we expect to end 2023 as either roughly the same size, or even a slightly smaller organization than we are today.”
The Wall Street Journal reported in September that Meta was planning to cut expenses by at least 10% in the coming months, in part through staff reductions.
The cuts expected to be announced this week follow several months of more targeted staffing reductions in which employees were managed out or saw their roles eliminated.
“Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here,” Mr. Zuckerberg told employees at a companywide meeting at the end of June.
Newsletter Sign-up
Alert
Technology
Major news in the technology sector.
Meta, like other tech giants, went on a hiring spree during the pandemic as life and business shifted more online. It added more than 27,000 employees in 2020 and 2021, and added an additional 15,344 in the first nine months of this year—about a fourth of that in the most recent quarter.
Meta’s stock has fallen by more than 70% this year. The company has highlighted deteriorating macroeconomic trends, but investors have also been spooked by its high spending and threats to the company’s core social-media business. Growth for that business in many markets has stalled amid stiff competition from TikTok, and
Apple Inc.’s
requirement that users opt-in to the tracking of their devices has curtailed the ability of social-media platforms to target ads.
Last month, investment firm Altimeter Capital said in an open letter to Mr. Zuckerberg that Meta should slash staff and pare back its metaverse ambitions, reflecting the rising discontent among shareholders.
Meta’s expenses have also risen sharply, causing its free cash flow to decline by 98% in the most recent quarter. Some of the company’s spending stems from heavy investments in the additional computing power and artificial intelligence needed to further develop Reels, Meta’s TikTok-like short-form video platform on Instagram, and to target ads with less data.
But much of Meta’s ballooning costs stem from Mr. Zuckerberg’s commitment to Reality Labs, a division of the company responsible for both virtual and augmented reality headsets as well as the creation of the metaverse. Mr. Zuckerberg has billed the metaverse as a constellation of interlocking virtual worlds in which people will eventually work, play, live and shop.
Meta has invested heavily in promoting its virtual-reality platform, but users have been largely unimpressed.
Photo:
Guillermo Gutierrez/Zuma Press
The effort has cost the company $15 billion since the beginning of last year. But despite investing heavily in promoting its virtual-reality platform, Horizon Worlds, users have been largely unimpressed. Last month, the Journal reported that visitors to Horizon Worlds had fallen over the course of the year to well under 200,000 users, about the size of Sioux Falls.
“I get that a lot of people might disagree with this investment,” Mr. Zuckerberg told analysts on the company’s earnings call last month before reaffirming his commitment. “I think people are going to look back on decades from now and talk about the importance of the work that was done here.”
Following the call, analysts downgraded their rating of Meta’s stock and slashed price targets.
“Management’s road map & justification for this strategy continue to not resonate with investors,” analysts at RBC Capital Markets said in a note last month.
Write to Jeff Horwitz at jeff.horwitz@wsj.com and Salvador Rodriguez at salvador.rodriguez@wsj.com
Twitter Inc. has suffered “a massive drop in revenue” because of advertisers cutting back on using the social-media platform, new owner
Elon Musk
said Friday, as the company started sweeping layoffs just over a week after the billionaire took it over.
Mr. Musk, in a tweet Friday, blamed the cutback in advertising on “activist groups pressuring advertisers.” He said that the company hadn’t changed content moderation and had tried to address activists’ concerns. “Extremely messed up!” he said, casting the pullback as an assault on free speech.
Mr. Musk’s remarks came after several big-name advertisers, including food company
General Mills Inc.,
GIS -0.63%
Oreo maker
Mondelez International Inc.,
MDLZ 0.44%
and
Pfizer Inc.
PFE 0.74%
and others have temporarily paused their Twitter advertising in the wake of the takeover of the company by Mr. Musk, The Wall Street Journal has reported. German car-making giant
Volkswagen AG
said it had recommended to its various brands they pause advertising on Twitter to assess any revisions the company makes to its brand safety guidelines.
Mr. Musk’s tweet comes after Twitter, in a message sent to staff Thursday, said staffers would be notified by 9 a.m. Friday if they had lost their position or were still employed, the Journal reported.
Twitter by early Friday began notifying employees who had been laid off, according to documents viewed by the Journal.
Roughly 50% of Twitter’s workforce has been hit with layoffs, according to an email sent overnight to one of those affected in the U.S. that was viewed by the Journal. It didn’t specify what departments the terminated employees worked in.
Twitter had more than 7,500 employees at the start of this year, according to a regulatory filing.
The staff reductions were intended “to place Twitter on a healthy path,” according to the company’s Thursday email. “We recognize that this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions to Twitter, but this action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s success moving forward,” the company added.
In the layoff emails, Twitter said employees assigned “nonworking” status would continue to receive compensation and benefits through a separation date, which for one person was designated as early February and for another early January. It said to expect to receive one month’s base pay in severance approximately 45 days after the termination date, in addition to providing instructions for returning company property such as laptops.
Twitter didn’t say whether employees should expect to receive year-end bonuses, which historically have been based on individual and company performance. The company also didn’t mention whether employees would receive equity payments during the nonworking period.
Some employees said they had lost access to Twitter communication tools overnight. An email sent to an employee in Canada and seen by the Journal said that suspended access to the company’s systems didn’t mean the person’s employment has been terminated.
The layoffs cap a tumultuous period for Twitter staff that began in April, when the company disclosed Mr. Musk had become its largest individual shareholder. Mr. Musk then agreed to join Twitter’s board, before deciding not to. He launched a bid for the company that Twitter eventually accepted. Weeks later Mr. Musk raised questions about the deal, then tried to abandon it, before reversing course again last month and saying he would go ahead with the transaction. Along the way, he at times criticized the company and its executives.
The Thursday email said Twitter’s offices would be temporarily closed to ensure the safety of employees, the company’s systems and customer data. Employees who were in an office or on their way to one were asked to go home, according to the email.
Twitter employees have been bracing for job cuts. The Journal previously reported that the company was drafting plans for broad layoffs, with one investor saying up to 50% of staff could be cut and that employees would be evaluated to determine the scope of the firings.
Elon Musk has purchased Twitter, ending a monthslong saga over whether or not he would go through with his offer to acquire the social media platform. WSJ takes an inside look at the tweets, texts and filings to see exactly how the battle played out. Illustration: Jordan Kranse
Signs of pushback against Twitter’s actions emerged in the wake of the apparent dismissals. In a federal lawsuit dated Thursday, a handful of Twitter employees accused the company of violating federal and California law in failing to provide enough warning of a mass layoff.
The lawsuit, filed in California federal court by five former employees of Twitter who said they were terminated this week, said the company’s layoffs violated the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act and its California equivalent, which require giving 60 days of advance written warning of dismissing a large number of employees of a company at once. The lawsuit asked the court to issue an order blocking Twitter from its alleged violations of the acts. Twitter didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
In April, as Mr. Musk was moving to buy Twitter, entrepreneur
Jason Calacanis,
a close ally, suggested cutting the number of Twitter employees to roughly 3,000, according to messages between the two, which were released as part of litigation around the transaction.
A staff of 3,000 would represent the lowest level since 2013, the year Twitter went public, when the platform had about 2,700 employees and its revenue was roughly 13% of its level last year.
Twitter’s employee numbers began climbing in 2019, after ranging between approximately 3,000 and 4,000 for several years. Twitter has said that the increase in recent years was driven by investments in engineering, product, design and research.
Even before officially taking control at Twitter, Mr. Musk had indicated that he was concerned about the company’s expenses. Twitter has posted a loss in eight of its past 10 fiscal years, according to FactSet.
Mr. Musk moved quickly to make personnel changes at the top of the company. Last week, on the same day he closed the deal, he fired Twitter Chief Executive
Parag Agrawal
and three other top executives. Mr. Musk fired the executives for cause and is saying he isn’t required to pay them multimillion-dollar severance packages, the Journal reported. Other executives have departed since.
Mr. Musk has leveraged other parts of his business empire to try to put his imprint on Twitter. He brought in some
Tesla
engineers to begin working on reshaping the social-media platform, the Journal reported. Also added to an internal company directory were some people who appeared to work for the Boring Co., a tunneling business Mr. Musk founded.
Broadly, the social-media industry is struggling with weaker revenue from digital advertisers. Such advertising has slowed due to several factors, including rising inflation, the war in Ukraine, and
Apple
privacy changes that have made it harder to track the performance of ads. Twitter rival Snap Inc. this year said it was letting 20% of staff go.
Facebook
parent Meta Platforms Inc. also has indicated it was trimming ranks.
Tech companies beyond social media also have embarked on belt tightening that is leading to job losses and hiring freezes. On Thursday, ride-hailing company
Lyft Inc.
and payments company Stripe Inc. announced major layoffs, and
Amazon.com Inc.
said it would freeze corporate hiring for months.
Write to Sarah E. Needleman at sarah.needleman@wsj.com and Alexa Corse at alexa.corse@wsj.com
