Berkshire Hathaway’s newly revealed 4% stake in Bending Spoons thrust the Milan-based software conglomerate into the spotlight.
Suddenly, everyone wanted to know what BSP 0.00%↑ is and how it works — so CEO Luca Ferrari hopped on CNBC last week to explain.
Bending Spoons typically buys digital businesses that already have large, loyal customer bases and rebuilds them from the inside. Their methods, though, tend to rub some people the wrong way — what with sweeping layoffs, subscription price hikes, and codebases re-written by artificial intelligence. Unlike others who run a similar playbook, Bending Spoons holds the companies it acquires basically forever.
Ferrari highlighted Evernote as the template. “We bought the business when it was a little better than break-even,” he said, “but not very profitable. We’ve greatly improved revenue over the subsequent three years and massively expanded margins.”
If the Bending Spoons turnaround machine is so good, why has organic revenue growth (3% in the most recent quarter) been so modest?
“For every new acquisition,” he told CNBC, “we typically greatly improve revenue for the first two to three years. Over the first six quarters after an acquisition closes, on average, we have improved revenue by well over 30%. But that doesn’t mean the organic growth of the acquired businesses will be much higher indefinitely.”
In other words, Bending Spoons can unlock explosive growth in the first few years of ownership — but then the business will settle into whatever returns its market and competitive position naturally allows.
“Anyone who’s looking to invest in Bending Spoons, I would recommend they consider doing so on the belief that we can acquire plenty of companies going forward — and not that our organic growth will be particularly strong,” said Ferrari.
“The overwhelming majority of our growth has been — and we believe will continue to be — from new acquisitions.”
On that front, there’s plenty of road ahead. In its IPO prospectus, Bending Spoons claims to have identified more than 1,000 digital businesses as potential targets. And the company’s recent activity backs that up, with five acquisitions (AOL, Eventbrite, Tractive, Airtable, and Miro) in the last twelve months alone.
Ferrari calls that tempo “toward the higher end of what we generally feel ideal for us — but we [can] do a little bit more if the appropriate opportunity presents itself”.
By putting acquisitions front and center — and, likewise, de-emphasizing organic growth as a metric — Bending Spoons has signaled investors exactly what to watch: the pace, price, and quality of its future deals.
More news and notes from the Berkshire Hathaway orbit…
Nearly eighteen months after Warren Buffett’s surprise retirement announcement, Berkshire Hathaway’s stock price once again hit new all-time highs. Both Class A ($824,765) and Class B shares ($549.96) achieved new record highs yesterday — with each also up close to 10% so far this month.
“The market spent a year pricing Berkshire without Warren Buffett,” Adam Patti of VistaShares told CNBC, “and I think it has finally decided that Greg Abel can, in fact, run it.” In particular, he pointed to Abel’s willingness to put Berkshire’s record cash pile to work with billions in new investments and share repurchases.
“I think Berkshire is on its upswing now,” he continued. “Typically, what we see is Berkshire is a coiled spring. When it comes back, it comes back fast and furious.”
Colonel Sanders defects to Coca-Cola. After nearly forty years as a Pepsi loyalist, KFC just switched sides in the soda wars. By the end of Q1 2027, all of its domestic locations will serve Coke products.
KFC frames the move as a milestone in its “Kentucky Fried Comeback”. In a memo to franchisees, president Catherine Tan-Gillespie called the move “a critical step” in that effort. “A new beverage offering, with a new partner in Coca-Cola, gives us a platform to innovate, meet changing tastes, and give customers more reasons to choose us.”
BNSF Railway and CSX deepened their partnership with a new coast-to-coast premium intermodal train linking Los Angeles and New Jersey. It runs seven days a week and makes the trip in just 100 hours, which shaves 26 hours off the previous interline schedule. Neither railroad will name the service’s anchor client, but all signs point to Amazon — with observers reporting 100+ Amazon containers aboard each day. A BNSF representative told Trains that since its October 5 launch, this service has shifted about 100 daily highway loads from truck to rail.
BNSF also continues to press its case against the Union Pacific x Norfolk Southern merger. Zak Andersen, the railroad’s vice president of communications, carried the same message to shippers in farm country and the Pacific Northwest: this deal, if approved, will leave you with fewer options and higher bills.
On the Agriculture in America podcast, Andersen warned that a combined railroad would control roughly half the market. “When you have that much concentration,” he said, “pricing power follows.”
Turning to Seattle Red 770 AM radio, he argued that the Ports of Seattle and Tacoma would be especially hard hit. His evidence comes from Union Pacific’s own merger application, which projects traffic to Los Angeles growing much faster than traffic to Pacific Northwest ports. “They’re trying to incentivize traffic down to the California ports at the expense of Washington, Seattle, and Tacoma.”
Andersen also dismissed the idea that converting trucks to rail on a combined transcontinental line could ever deliver the volume growth both railroads promise. “Supposedly,” he said, “it’s about converting trucks to rail. We don’t buy that at all.”
“Their growth projections are unrealistic. They’ve actually lost volume since their last big merger and [now] they’re all of a sudden going to grow a lot in three years? We don’t buy it. They’re going to get this on price. You don’t pay for an $85 billion merger on truck conversion in the Midwest.”
Pre-orders for the iPhone Duo opened last Friday and sold out almost immediately. Not just for launch day, but for the rest of the year. Within minutes, the Apple Store showed late January 2027 as the estimated shipping date for every configuration. The $1,999 starting price obviously didn’t slow many people down.
“The pre-order demand for iPhone Duo, our first foldable iPhone, has been nothing short of extraordinary,” Apple told the Financial Times. “We are working hard to get this revolutionary new product into customers’ hands as quickly as possible.”
Apple has reportedly boosted orders for Duo components by 44% as it rushes to deal with the deluge of pre-orders and interest from around the globe.
It would be nice to say this is all about demand, but supply probably played some part, too. Especially considering prior reports of production issues that limited yields. Still, an instant sell-out is never a bad headline for a brand-new (and pricy) product.
NetJets opened a new facility in Las Vegas as part of its landmark collaboration with Signature Aviation. “We invest where our owners want to be,” said president Patrick Gallagher, “and we build experiences worthy of how they travel.”
“Las Vegas’s position as a global destination for premier sporting events, world-class entertainment, and luxury hospitality drives significant surges in owner travel throughout the year.”
The numbers back that up. NetJets flight activity in and out of Vegas grew nearly 45% from 2022 through 2025 — and is up another ~30% since the start of this year.
The new campus spans more than 300,000 square feet and includes a premium private terminal for owners, two hangars, a service hub, and expansive ramp space. NetJets is also working with Signature Aviation on in-progress terminal construction in Dallas, Florida, and Washington, D.C.
I love it when a small detail reveals something important about a person. Mark Tobak, over at Hedge Fund Alpha, connects an anecdote from the recent Wall Street Journal piece on Warren Buffett’s nightly YouTube habit to his “superpower” for seeing the world exponentially — and his appreciation for the power of compounding.