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$GOOG $AAPL $META The Digital Markets Act is in effect for more than a full quarter now. It’s a new EU law that regulates large tech companies and e.g. Alphabet, Apple and Meta must follow a long list of new obligations. Below’s an overview of what has changed so far. 1/

“Gatekeepers” are the largest providers of digital core platform services (CPS) in the EU and only they are governed by the DMA. The EC originally designated six firms as gatekeepers: Google, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, and Microsoft.

$BKNG is the newest addition to the group. It recently surpassed the thresholds and was designated as the seventh gatekeeper by the EC in May 2024. It received six months to comply with all of the DMA’s obligations by November.

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$GOOG $AAPL As expected, Google lost its antitrust lawsuit United States v. Google in first instance. Below are 10 initial observations about yesterday’s decision, what’s next and why the company could ultimately prevail on appeal. 1/

Judge Mehta from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia released a 286 pp. strong opinion yesterday in which the court held that a) the markets for general search services and general search text ads are relevant product markets, b) Google has monopoly power in those markets (demonstrated through indirect evidence in the form of 89.2% share in the market for general search services and 88%+ share in the market for general search text ads, c) Google’s distribution agreements are exclusive and have anticompetitive effects and d) Google has not offered valid procompetitive justifications for those agreements.

In short, Google’s defense strategy to highlight healthy “competition for the contract”, cross-market benefits and the fact that its default deals “allow the browser’s search functionality to work effectively out of the box” were not accepted as procompetitive justifications by the judge.

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$MSFT $ATVI appealing to the CAT means they will have to demonstrate how the CMA today acted irrationally, illegally or with procedural impropriety. 2/9
The CAT (UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal) is a different judicial body than the CMA. Appeal cases are heard before 3 CAT members: the President or Chairman plus 2 ordinary members, who can be experts in law, business, accounting, economics or other related fields.

1/14 A lot to unpack regarding the result of FEMSA's strategic review. $FMX stock gained +9% (~$3 bn.) yesterday and now trades at 52W high.

FMX will divest its 14.8% stake in Heineken worth ~$7.9 bn pre tax (23% of market cap) and return excess cash to shareholders over 2-3yrs. 2/ The divestment plan doesn't stop with $HEIA. To "materially simplify corporate structure", FMX will seek strategic alternatives for Envoy (Logistics & Distribution) and its minority investments like Jetro (Cash & Carry).

Parts of Solistica will be integrated as cost centers.

1/25 Uncommon Facts about $GOOG Common Stock

Google apps with 1 bn+ users:

1 bn: Photos
1 bn: Maps
2 bn: Gmail
2 bn: YouTube
3 bn: Play
3 bn: Android
3 bn: Workspace
3 bn: Chrome
4 bn: Search

I talk about Search, YouTube, Cloud and Waymo here: patient-capital.de/s/Investor-Let… 2/

Back in 97 Sergey Brin & Larry Page faced a dilemma: pursue Stanford PhDs or focus on BackRub (later: Google)

They opt to sell BR for $1.6m to Excite

As the deal fell through, they changed priorities and ran Google themselves. One early backer (25% of 1m round)? Jeff Bezos!

/ Thread: $FMX Deep Dive

100 pg. slide deck here 👉🏼 patient-capital.de/s/FMX.pdf

In this thread I'll walk you through my assumptions why FEMSA owns one of the best retail assets in LatAm with sizable growth potential.

The deck has eight chapters, starting with "FMX AT A GLANCE". 2/

$FMX owns c-store chain OXXO: the clear market leader in Mexico with 20k stores and an 85% share of the formal market.

OXXO has a 10x lead vs. #2 $SVNDY (7-Eleven) in Mexico and >13m people shop at its stores every day. It's the #2 domestic retailer by revenue after $WALMEX

1/ Thread: $SPOT Deep Dive

80 pg. slide deck here 👉🏼 patient-capital.de/s/SPOT.pdf

In this thread I'll walk you through my assumptions for the bear, base and bull case for Spotify.

The deck has seven chapters, starting with "SPOT AT A GLANCE". 2/

With 172m paid subs and 381m MAUs $SPOT is the clear leader in music streaming (35% ms). SPOT is 2x the size of its nearest competitor $AAPL in terms of paid subs and has 2x the user engagement.

But so far SPOT never turned a full year profit + the stock dropped sharply TTM.