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Speaker 1: This is lot of Flux.

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Speaker 2: I'm Brett and I'm justin. As Friday, the seventh of March.

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Speaker 1: Boy, the latest gender pay gap figures in Australia have

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Speaker 1: been released by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency and the

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Speaker 1: research shows that only twenty one percent of employers have

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Speaker 1: no gender pay gap between men and women and Juzy Boy.

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Speaker 1: While these numbers are slightly better than last year, this

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Speaker 1: agency says we still have a long way to go.

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Speaker 2: Very true, Block Sam. If you want to kick off

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Speaker 2: the weekend on a high, there is one place to be.

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Speaker 2: It's winning fifty bucks in the Flux app this Friday.

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Speaker 2: All you've got to do is download the app the

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Speaker 2: the quickest person to get the three quick six questions correct,

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Speaker 2: and the fifty bucks is all yours to make sure

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Speaker 2: to download their Flux.

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Speaker 1: Apps to get involved three marketable stories today, Juzzy Boy,

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Speaker 1: Let's do it for our first freedom. Furniture is officially

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Speaker 1: up for sale after its parent company looks to find

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Speaker 1: a new owner after its big turnaround.

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Speaker 2: And nothing says Cozy Home vibes like a new furniture

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Speaker 2: auction be Man, so tell me more.

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Speaker 1: And Furniture was founded in nineteen eighty one in Sydney

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Speaker 1: and has spread its stylish She had Affordable Empire to

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Speaker 1: sixty stores across Australia and New Zealand.

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Speaker 2: Think plush couches, trendy rugs, flower pots, outdoor furniture and

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Speaker 2: Jusie boy.

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Speaker 1: It's been through more owners than a well loved vintage

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Speaker 1: arm chair.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was owned by the founding family, then acquired

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Speaker 2: by a private equity company.

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Speaker 1: Then it actually listed on the ASX, and then it

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Speaker 1: was taken private by Steinhoff International, which also owned.

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Speaker 2: Best and Less, Harraska, Fantastic Furniture and.

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Speaker 1: Plush, and then spun out into a rebranded company called

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Speaker 1: Greenlit Brands. Now get this, jazzy boy. Freedom struggled in

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Speaker 1: the late twenty tens but went through an extensive turnaround.

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Speaker 2: And now it generates more than four hundred million revenue

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Speaker 2: per annum and twenty bill in ebitdak.

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Speaker 1: But with this positive turnaround, Greenlit Brands reckons their work

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Speaker 1: is done and it is now time to sell Freedom.

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Speaker 2: And who might the buyer?

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Speaker 1: Bab Man Well, private equity firms that specialize in retail

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Speaker 1: turnarounds are pretty much expected to show the most in here,

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Speaker 1: Judy Boy. So what is the key learning here to

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Speaker 1: private equity firms, struggling retailers are just untapped gold mines. Sometime.

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Speaker 2: Private equity firms have a history of snapping up struggling

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Speaker 2: retail brands and giving them a strategic makeover. Remember private

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Speaker 2: equity firm Anchorage Capital.

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Speaker 1: Snapped up David Jones for just ninety two and a

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Speaker 1: half million bucks, which.

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Speaker 2: Was a steal considering Woolworth South Africa plaid two point

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Speaker 2: one billion dollars for David Jones just nine years earlier.

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Speaker 1: Anchorage Capital Partners has already raided greenlit brands.

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Speaker 2: Yep, It's acquired a bundle of retailers like Best and Less,

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Speaker 2: Harris scaff and Debenham's Australian are.

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Speaker 1: The goal of private equity is to strip out costs

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Speaker 1: from the retailer, refine the strategy, and ultimately make the

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Speaker 1: company more profitable.

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Speaker 2: And eventually sell it for a juicy return on its investment.

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Speaker 1: But Freedom Furniture is already quite profitable, so unlike.

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Speaker 2: The usual private equity rescue missions, this one might just

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Speaker 2: be about sprucing things up For our second story.

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Speaker 1: Donald J. Trump has announced plans to build a strategic

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Speaker 1: reserve of five cryptocurrencies and no prizes here. Crypto saw

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Speaker 1: a three hundred billion US dollar rally.

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Speaker 2: Sometimes you just feel that Trump's treating the economy like

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Speaker 2: one big reality TV show, don't you. Yeah, what is

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Speaker 2: happening here?

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Speaker 1: So in July last year, Donald Trump strutted onto the

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Speaker 1: stage at a major bitcoin conference.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was at the time he was campaigning to

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Speaker 2: become the forty seven Prayers of the United States, and

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Speaker 2: he outlined a plan for the US to have a

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Speaker 2: national bitcoin stockpile.

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Speaker 1: And the price of bitcoin skyrocketed.

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Speaker 2: Then Trump announced an executive order in January this year

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Speaker 2: calling for the formation of a group to make recommendations

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Speaker 2: around crypto, and the price of bitcoin jumped again. But

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Speaker 2: since then, being man, Trump's been a little quiet on

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Speaker 2: this concept of a plan.

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Speaker 1: In fact, the price of bitcoin actually dropped around twenty

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Speaker 1: percent from its previous peak because crypto had started to

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Speaker 1: doubt whether this reserve was actually legitimate.

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Speaker 2: And then in comes Trump to save the day for

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Speaker 2: bitcoin and other currencies.

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Speaker 1: He's just announced plans to implement a strategic reserve of

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Speaker 1: not only bitcoin.

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Speaker 2: And not just one other digital currency.

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Speaker 1: We're talking five cryptocurrencies in the supposed strategic reserve.

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Speaker 2: We're talking Ripple, Solana, Cardano, etherorem and Bitcoin.

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Speaker 1: And while there are no clear details on how much

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Speaker 1: or when this is all happening, the market didn't care.

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Speaker 2: The prices of some of these coins jump more than

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Speaker 2: twenty percent.

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Speaker 1: So what is the key learning here?

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Speaker 2: A strategic reserve is essentially a country's emergency piggy bang,

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Speaker 2: and it's usually filled with things like oil and gold, cash,

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Speaker 2: and even food supplies.

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Speaker 1: The idea is to have a backup in case of

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Speaker 1: major world crises.

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Speaker 2: It might be a major supply chain disruption or even

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Speaker 2: geopolitical risks, and given US strategic reserves a kind of

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Speaker 2: end of world type staff, adding digital currencies is a

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Speaker 2: big move.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Why is that?

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Speaker 2: Well, it could change the way that digital assets are

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Speaker 2: viewed globally.

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Speaker 1: It kind of moves crypto from a speculative investment to

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Speaker 1: much more legitimate financial safeguard, and if.

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Speaker 2: The US actually follows through, it could set a precedent

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Speaker 2: for other nations to do the same.

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Speaker 1: And further legitimize crypto as an asset class with real

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Speaker 1: world economic influence. For our third and final story, Anthropic,

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Speaker 1: the AI competitor to chat GPT, has raised a new

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Speaker 1: of capital that values the company had more than sixty

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Speaker 1: one billion US dollary dues.

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Speaker 2: The race to consumer and business wallows is heating up

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Speaker 2: in the iras b Man, so tell me what's going

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Speaker 2: on here.

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Speaker 1: So Anthropic is an AI startup that was founded in

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty one by former open Ai employees and b Man.

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Speaker 2: Anthropics developed a family of large language models also known

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Speaker 2: as llm's and this one's named Claude. It's a competitor

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Speaker 2: to chatchbt Grock three, Deep Seek, and Google's Gemini. Last November,

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Speaker 2: Amazon through casual four billion US dollars to Anthropic.

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Speaker 1: And while open Ai is growing, Claude is also rapidly expanding.

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Speaker 2: In fact, Beman Anthropics and Your revenue run rate from

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Speaker 2: Claude was reportedly around one billion US dollars last year.

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Speaker 1: And does boy that number has increased by thirty percent

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Speaker 1: so far in twenty twenty five.

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Speaker 2: So now Anthropics rates another three and a half billion

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Speaker 2: US dollars at a post money valuation of nearly sixty

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Speaker 2: two billion US dollars.

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Speaker 1: Its plan is to use this cash to expand its

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Speaker 1: compute capacity and deepen its research capabilities, and.

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Speaker 2: Ultimately accelerate its international expansion in the AI race.

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Speaker 1: Fascinating, So what is the key learning here?

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Speaker 2: AAR companies need two things to be sustainable, cutting edge

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Speaker 2: technology and a way to scale it profitably.

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Speaker 1: You see, training AI models cost billions, but so does

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Speaker 1: getting them in front of users.

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Speaker 2: In fact, be Man Andthropy expects to burn three billion

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Speaker 2: US dollars this year.

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Speaker 1: OpenAI lost about five billion US dollars last year and

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Speaker 1: is expecting to lose up to fourteen billion by twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty six.

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Speaker 2: That's why these companies are basically in never ending funding rounds.

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Speaker 1: But this is where strategic partnerships come in.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. These partnerships hopefully allow AI companies to get distribution

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Speaker 2: without the exorbitant acquisition costs. Open Ai has Microsoft, Google

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Speaker 2: has Gemini, and of course Anthropic has Amazon.

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Speaker 1: Right now, AI is a game of who can outlast

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Speaker 1: the competition without bleeding out financially.

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Speaker 2: Flat Sam. If you've been listening to the pod this week,

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Speaker 2: then you are in the pole position to win quick

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Speaker 2: six today. To make sure to download the Flux app

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Speaker 2: your chance to win.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening and we'll see you on Monday