Enter the piano-verse… The maker of Steinway pianos is going from the concert stage to the stock exchange. Last week Steinway Musical Instruments filed to go public on the NYSE (the exact date isn’t set). Its IPO comes as luxury spending booms, particularly in China.

• Old keys: Steinways sell for between $60K and $2.4M. Last year the 169-year-old brand scored nearly $60M in profits, a 14% jump from 2020.
• New tricks: Steinway’s self-playing Spirio accounted for a third of its piano sales last year. Two out of three Spirio owners can’t even play piano, but they can stream live concerts or classic Duke Ellington shows at cocktail parties.

Powerhouse performers, meet luxury listeners… Steinway’s come far from its NYC roots. The company built its brand on partnerships with star pianists (Billy Joel) and iconic venues (Sydney Opera House): 97% of pianists use Steinways in concert. Steinway ships pianos anywhere on Earth for its nearly 2K elite “Steinway Artists” (it even sent one to an iceberg). But to expand, Steinway is focusing on homebuyers. Increasingly they’re in China:

• More music: Today China has 7X as many pianists as the US. That trend’s accelerating: 30M kids in China study piano, compared to fewer than 10M in the entire rest of the world.
• Bigger spending: Luxury spending in China’s surging: consumers worth $30M+ — Steinway’s sweet spot — have doubled in the past five years.

Just in time for Earth Day… Carl Icahn's latest beef differs from his usual shareholder-focused strategy of corporate raiding. Yesterday the billionaire investor wrote a passionate letter to McDonald’s investors accusing the fast-food giant of animal cruelty. Icahn has a small ($50K) stake in the Golden Arches, but it hasn’t kept him from waging a public proxy battle over the company’s pork-supply-chain practices.

• The issue: A decade ago, McDonald’s vowed to phase out suppliers that use controversial gestation crates (think: supertight metal stalls for pregnant pigs). Update: still hasn’t happened.
• Icahn’s answer: Add two of his hand-picked directors to McDonald’s board to ensure the pigs are treated better.
• Mickey D’s response: Icahn’s demands are “unfeasible” and would create a “financial burden” for its customers (read: more expensive bacon).

Sustainability hypocrisy… ESG (environmental, social, and governance) investing is one of the hottest trends on Wall Street. Last year, investors poured a record $120B into sustainable assets — 2X more than in 2020. While arguing animal welfare should be a pillar of ESG, Icahn’s also calling out corporate green promises as hollow marketing ploys. And he says the big asset managers (like: BlackRock) reap billions without holding companies accountable.

• Secured: Looks like he’s really going for it: Elon says he’s lined up $46.5B in financing to buy Twitter. Twitter execs popped a “poison pill” to stop the takeover, so he might take his offer directly to shareholders.
• Change: The Obamas are leaving Spotify after the streamer didn’t offer them a new podcast deal. The former first couple is reportedly shopping for a new deal with a wider (aka non-exclusive) reach.
• Primed: For a fee, Amazon’s letting other online retailers offer its Prime delivery service directly on their sites. The strategy shift is a direct response to Shopify’s explosive growth.
• Minus: CNN+ is shutting down, just a month after its lavish launch. It’s one of the biggest failures for a new media venture in recent history, and comes after CNN pitched the streamer as its digital future.
• Vanish: Shares of Snap tumbled, then recovered, after the Snapchat parent missed profit and earnings expectations, citing a “challenging” quarter. Silver lining: Snap saw 18% annual growth in daily active users.

• Earth Day
• Earnings expected from Verizon, American Express, and Honeywell

Authors of this Snacks own: shares of Amazon, Snap, Twitter, Spotify, and Exxon

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