Altria on Thursday wrote down the investment it made last December in Juul Labs by more than a third, an implicit recognition that the stake the cigarette giant took in the embattled vape company was among the most ill-timed in recent corporate history.
The $4.5 billion writedown gives Juul a new valuation of about $24 billion. Late last year, Altria paid nearly $13 billion for a 35 percent stake in Juul, just before Juul became the target of regulators, politicians, and health officials who blamed it for stoking a major spike in youth vaping.
In its earnings call, Altria said it would continue to support the leadership changes at Juul, which is now run by a former Altria executive, and planned layoffs that could reduce headcount by as much as 15 percent.
Earlier this week, Fidelity also cut the value of its Juul stake by nearly 50 percent. Juul had been part of Fidelity's Blue Chip Growth Fund. The fund reported that its Juul investment fell a whopping $352 million in September alone as the government's crackdown on flavored vape products ramped up and more reports surfaced of people dying from a mysterious vaping-related illness. None of those deaths ー 34 have been confirmed as of last week ー have been directly tied to Juul products. BuzzFeed also reported this week on an explosive lawsuit by a former Juul executive who alleges that the company shipped more than a million contaminated pods to customers. Juul has called that suit baseless.
Altria's major investment in Juul was the clearest indication that the big cigarette makers, facing a worldwide decline in smoking, saw their future in vaporized nicotine. Nearly a year later, that bet is anything but clear.
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
