C-SUITE

The Fortune 500: Record Highs, Disappointing Lows

The Fortune 500 list is a bit like prom: Walmart’s been queen eight-years running, and you can pretty much guess who else is joining onstage. 

But there’s another group worth keeping tabs on—companies with female CEOs, which last year jumped 12% to...37. That means just 7.4% of Fortune 500 companies have a female CEO. Of those...

• Only three in the Global 500 are women of color (Gap’s Sonia Syngal, AMD’s Lisa Su, Yum China’s Joey Wat); none are black or Latina.  
• Seven lead a Fortune 100 company. More head smaller companies at the bottom of the rankings. 

Things are improving...slowly

But the lack of representation bleeds into other senior leadership positions, like board rooms.

• According to Deloitte’s Women in the Boardroom, 18% of North American board seats in 2018 were held by women, while 4.5% of chairs were.
• Last year, California became the first state to set a minimum requirement for female board members at publicly held companies.

One trend to watch: Research into the “glass cliff” shows struggling companies are more likely to appoint women and people of color as CEO. 

Other highlights

The 500 companies in Fortune’s list account for two-thirds of the American economy and $14.2 trillion in revenue. The top 10: Walmart, Amazon, ExxonMobil, Apple, CVS, Berkshire Hathaway, UnitedHealth Group, McKesson, AT&T, and AmerisourceBergen. 

The rankings are based on FY2019 revenue, which means no factoring in the C-word. But Fortune surveyed the CEOs in April to hear how they’re managing the pandemic:

• 27% think workers will be back in offices by the end of 2020. 
• Most think it’ll take until Q1 2022 before economic activity returns to pre-pandemic levels. 27% said Q1 2023. 

Big picture: “It feels obvious that the aggregate revenues of the Fortune 500 will decline in 2020, and the ramifications will be devastating,” per Fortune Data Sheet.

MEDIA

Kevin Mayer Leaves Disney for More Viral Pastures

Yesterday, TikTok announced Kevin Mayer will become its next CEO. His credentials include leading Disney’s streaming division and strong footwork to that one Drake song.

This is a big get. As head of the division called “Direct-to-Consumer & International,” Mayer presided over the release of Disney+, the company’s big dive into streaming. So far, so good: Since its November launch, Disney+ has racked up nearly 55 million subscribers.

His new company isn’t doing too shabby either. TikTok has been a quarantine darling—the perfect video platform for showcasing the insane things people will do when stuck at home for two months. In late April, TikTok topped 2 billion global downloads; in Q1, it had the best quarter of any app ever, per Sensor Tower. 

It wouldn’t be a Disney story without a little palace intrigue. Mayer was considered a likely choice to succeed former CEO Bob Iger when he stepped down in February. Instead, head of parks Bob Chapek was tapped for the position. 

With Disney hobbled from the coronavirus, maybe the snub was a blessing in disguise for Mayer? 

PHARMA

Moderna Family

In good news for people who were tired of trying to pronounce remdesivir, biotech company Moderna announced yesterday its experimental COVID-19 vaccine showed promising results.

Those results: An early stage human trial showed that the vaccine was able to produce antibodies in patients that fight off the virus, a key signal that a vaccine is working. 

Markets rejoiced

As has been the case for much of the current economic crisis, positive news from the medical community was the Mentos to the market’s Diet Coke. 

• Stocks had their biggest day since early April, and Moderna’s shares closed up 20%.

Words of caution: This was only Phase 1 of a typically three-phased trial. There are “lots of vaccines that look good out of Phase 1 that don’t turn out to be good products,” explains Daniel Salmon, a director at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

+ While we’re here: Let’s add one more difficult-to-pronounce drug to the story. Yesterday, President Trump announced he has been taking the anti-malarial hydroxychloroquine for the last week, despite an FDA advisory stating that the drug has “not been shown to be safe and effective” in preventing the coronavirus. 

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ENERGY

Oil Is Staying Positive

You heard him. On Monday, oil futures rallied to a two-month high ahead of today’s June contract expirations.

Refresher: Oil futures = financial instruments that let investors buy “abstract oil.” When futures contracts expire, they get converted into IRL oil. 

Nightmare flashbacks

When May contracts expired in late April, prices for the U.S. oil benchmark collapsed into negative territory. Some feared June expirations would trigger a similar slide. Last Wednesday, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission warned brokerages and exchange operators they might need to intervene.

Thankfully, they were wrong. Oil prices are trading above $30 for the first time since mid-March. Send thank you notes to...

• Rising demand for oil in reopening economies, especially the U.S. and China
• Supply cuts amounting to 10.7 million barrels/day 
• Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s pacifying economic commentary on 60 Minutes Sunday night 

Big picture: Prices are still only half of January’s high of $60+/barrel, it’s still the early days for reopenings, and the threat of a second COVID-19 outbreak casts a long shadow.

VENTURE CAPITAL

SoftBank’s Slidemaker in Chief Is at it Again

SoftBank’s earnings call yesterday was the latest instance of CEO Masayoshi Son using the powers of Microsoft Paint to illustrate his grand vision.

• In 2010 Son was game-planning for the next 300 years with nuggets of copy like, “Think till our brains crush.” 
• You also have to check out his 2019 presentation outlining WeWork’s path to profitability. 

This latest slide deck broke down the unicorn-gobbling effect of the “Valley of Coronavirus.”

• SoftBank's $100 billion Vision Fund, which holds large stakes in WeWork and Uber, reported a $17.7 billion loss in the last fiscal year, the worst loss in the company's 39-year history.

Bottom line: The performance of Vision Fund 1.0 has all but killed hopes of raising external financing for Vision Fund 2.0 “If the results are bad, you can’t raise money from investors,” Son explained.

+ While we're here: SoftBank is reportedly looking to sell $20 billion worth of shares in T-Mobile in what would be one of the biggest stock trades in history, the WSJ reports. 

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WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Uber is cutting 3,000 more jobs, closing 45 offices, and reevaluating its noncore businesses.
• JCPenney said it’ll close 242 of its stores (nearly 29% of total locations) as it undergoes bankruptcy. 
• A Facebook survey showed 31% of small businesses shut down in the last three months.
• Apple stores are reopening around the country, but you’ll need a face mask and temperature check to enter.
• More Apple: Attorney General William Barr blasted Apple for not helping unlock a suspected terrorist’s iPhone. The DOJ accessed it anyway.

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