Daily Deal—These are live rounds. Under radar is CEO change. Dr. Kjell Gruner is new president and CEO of Porsche Cars North America (PCNA). He is 53 and currently CMO and Global VP Marketing of Porsche worldwide.
Entries/Exits—Gruner will leave Germany HQ and come to ATL to succeed Klaus Zellmer, who I met nearly five years ago when he arrived from Germany to take the reins of PCNA. He will now take over as CMO of parent company VW. "Leaving on a jet plane,” which by the way was a song written by John Denver as one last-ditch effort to save his relationship with Annie, his only stabilizer in his life. Denver not yet a solo artist so he let Peter, Paul and Mary record it.
Side Deal—Be back next Tuesday. Tied up with Redneck Reverie book and, confession—micromanaging the process of answering hundreds of emails on it from readers. As far as I can see it is about the only thing Bezos does not have walled off in publishing. I tried to do an end run with CliffCo.com, where we picked up books from printer and did not work out well. Stalinesque. Bezos’ belief: a world of robots and him.
Sure you heard Delta hocked the family jewels, Frequent Flyer miles, to borrow billions to stay afloat—much bigger and juicer story in travel industry is Carnival, who is bleeding $800M per month and has $8B left in bank today. They just borrowed $1B by selling shares, which are down 70%. Very tempting but I may back up the truck. You know those ships will sail full when vaccine comes out, if they are not sunk in bankruptcy. I am going to talk to Clint and Char and let you know.
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IPO Glow—After shutting down its flagship magazine, Playboy is trying to re-enter public in a SPAC with the hedge fund that invested in it seven years ago.
Upcoming events @ Porsche:
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