Welcome to Backchannel — the weekend briefing from The Closer, where we break down the week's smartest plays in deals, business, and power.
This week's centrepiece: How L'Oréal CEO Nicolas Hieronimus engineered a deal that gives his company half a century of luxury beauty dominance—while Kering walks away with €4.7 billion and a strategic reset. Top Reads: BlackRock's $40bn AI data center play, Goldman's $1bn bet on athlete representation, and the best business long reads of the week.
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— Bradley
WEEK AHEAD
- Mon 10/28: Microsoft Q1 earnings (Azure growth, AI capex trajectory)
- Tue 10/29: Alphabet Q3 results (Cloud momentum, Waymo scaling)
- Wed 10/30: Meta Q3 earnings (Reality Labs burn rate, AI ad performance)
- Thu 10/31: Amazon Q3 report (AWS deceleration or reacceleration?)
- Fri 11/1: U.S. October jobs report (Fed rate-cut implications)