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Turkey’s devastating earthquake comes at a critical time for the country’s future
Adem Altan | AFP | Getty Images
Nine hours apart and measuring a magnitude of 7.8 in Turkey and 7.5 in Syria on the Richter scale, the quakes were the region’s strongest in nearly a century.
At the time of writing, the death toll from the quakes is more than 12,000, with many still missing and critically injured. The World Health Organization put the number of people affected by the disaster at 23 million. At least 6,000 buildings collapsed, many with residents still inside them. Rescue efforts continue to be the top priority, with some 25,000 deployed in Turkey and thousands more sent in from overseas — but a bitter winter storm now threatens the lives of the survivors and of those still trapped under rubble.
Syria, ravaged by 12 years of war and terrorism, is the least prepared to deal with such a crisis. Its infrastructure is heavily depleted, and the country remains under Western sanctions. Thousands of those in the affected areas are already refugees or internally displaced people.
With the dust of the catastrophe still settling, regional analysts are zoning in on the longer-term rippling effect that the catastrophe could have on Turkey, a country whose 85 million-strong population was already mired in economic problems — and whose military, economy, and politics have a major impact far beyond its borders.
A crucial year for Turkey
This year will serve as a critical inflection point for Turkey, as it approaches a presidential election on May 14. The result of that election — whether current President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stays in power or not — has massive consequences for Turkey’s population, economy, currency, and democracy.
Erdogan’s response to the disaster — and potential calls for accountability as to why so many buildings were insufficiently designed to withstand such tremors — will now play a major role in his political future.
“If the rescue effort is mishandled and people get frustrated, there’s backlash,” Mike Harris, founder of Cribstone Strategic Macro, told CNBC on Tuesday. “And the other issue of course, is the buildings and which ones have gone down. To the extent these were built under the new codes and the authorities didn’t impose regulations, there could be some serious blowback for Erdogan. So Erdogan’s lost control of the narrative.”
Erdogan called for the early May election amid a national cost of living crisis, with local inflation above 57% — down from more than 80% between August and November. Several analysts say that the move reveals Erdogan’s urgency to secure another term in power before his controversial economic policies backfire.
Harris described the president created “this weird situation where inflation is running at 80%, but he needs to keep the currency stable between now and the election.”
Through very unorthodox policies, Erdogan has “found a very creative way, a very costly way, to de-dollarize the economy, basically,” he said, giving examples like allowing Turks to keep their bank deposits at a 13% interest rate, then promising to cover their losses, if the currency drops further.
Harris boldly predicted: “Actually, the currency has to collapse if he wins, because there will be no confidence and he’s created this artificial scenario that can’t be sustained for a prolonged period of time.”
Additionally, Erdogan’s earlier fiscal pre-election promises — populist moves like increasing salaries and lowering the pension age — may be impossible now, as more public funds will need to be directed toward rebuilding entire cities and towns.
Economic anxiety
Turkey’s economic decline has been fueled by a combination of high global energy prices, the Covid-19 pandemic and war in Ukraine, and, predominantly, by economic policies directed by Erdogan that have suppressed interest rates despite soaring inflation, sending the Turkish lira to a record low against the dollar. Turkey’s FX reserves have dropped sharply in recent years, and Ankara’s current account deficit has ballooned.
The Turkish lira lost nearly 30% of its value against the dollar in the last year, severely damaging Turks’ purchasing power and hurting Erdogan’s popularity.
Turkey’s opposition parties have not yet put forth their candidate. The strongest potential challenger, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, was arrested and slapped with a political ban in December over charges his allies say are politically motivated and used solely to prevent him from running for president.
Investors in recent years have been pulling their money out of Turkey in droves. One major emerging markets guru, Mark Mobius of Mobius Capital Partners LLP, remains bullish despite the earthquake disaster and economic problems.
“When it comes to investing in Turkey, we still believe it’s a viable place to invest,” Mobius said. “In fact, we do have investments there. The reason is the Turks are so flexible, so able to adjust to all these disasters and problems … even with high inflation that with a very weak Turkish Lira … So it doesn’t scare us at all to invest in Turkey.”
Mobius did note the glaring issue of Turkey’s earthquake preparation, which may soon come to haunt Erdogan’s election chances.
“This is one of the big problems, the building codes in some of these areas are not up to par,” he said.
NATO and Turkey’s powerful role on the global stage
Internationally, Turkey’s future affects the war in Ukraine, given Erdogan’s role as a mediator between Ukraine and Russia. Turkey is the main NATO member still standing in the way of Sweden and Finland’s accession to the powerful defense alliance.
Ankara is also brokering the Black Sea Grain Initiative between Ukraine and Russia, which allows vital supplies of grain to be exported from Ukraine to the rest of the world despite a Russian naval blockade on Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.
Erdogan’s response to the earthquakes — and subsequent election performance — will have an impact on all of these.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to meet Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday.
Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Turkey will get some relief from Western pressure on its NATO stance in the wake of the earthquakes, but not for long, says Sinan Ulgen, chairman of the Istanbul-based Center for Economics and Foreign Policy.
“It’s going to be temporary,” Ulgen said. “Turkey will look at a few weeks of reprieve, but after that it will be more back to business on the foreign policy side.”
For now, Western allies and countries from around the world are sending aid and rescue teams to help with Turkey’s disaster relief efforts. Ankara will need to roll out massive public spending to support those in need and rebuild all the areas affected by the quakes.
“The positive side is that Turkey has fiscal space,” Ulgen said. Turkey has a public debt-to-GDP ratio of around 34%, which is very low compared to the U.S. and Europe. According to him, this “means that Turkey has room for fiscal spending, even if that means a sizeable increase in the public debt ratio.”
As a large country, Turkey has significant capacity to handle natural emergencies. Still, Ulgen added, “no matter what the capacity at hand, it was going to be insufficient to respond to this type of disaster unfortunately.”
Shares of the company soared more than 45% during after-hours trading.
For the quarter ended Jan. 28, net sales dropped slightly to $2.23 billion from $2.25 billion in last year’s fourth quarter. The video game retailer also posted a profit of $48.2 million, or 16 cents a share, compared to a loss of $147.5 million, or 49 cents, a year ago.
GameStop did not provide financial guidance and has not done so since the early days of the pandemic. Its results can’t be compared with Wall Street estimates because too few analysts cover the company.
The retailer had been working to steer itself back to profitability, and got there in part by cutting costs. Selling, general and administrative expenses came in at $453.4 million for the quarter, or 20.4% of sales, compared to $538.9 million, or 23.9% of sales, in the year-earlier period.
Scott Olson | Getty Images
CEO Matt Furlong said on an investor call the company is going into 2023 with further plans to cut excess costs including in European markets, where it has already exited and begun to pull out of some countries. He said that GameStop is also considering bolstering its business with higher margin categories such as toys.
GameStop had previously been riding some short-term, meme-stock momentum, but that has since leveled out and the company has made progress in right-sizing its business by cleaning up its inventory levels and reworking its cost structure.
The stock closed trading on Tuesday at around $18 per share, down dramatically from its 52-week high of nearly $50 about a year ago.
GameStop’s turnaround plan was reinvigorated by a leadership shake-up in 2021 that put Furlong, an Amazon veteran, at the helm and added Ryan Cohen, Chewy founder and former Bed Bath & Beyond activist investor, as board chair. The company also laid off staff and replaced its chief financial officer.
The retailer has been working to revamp its real estate portfolio and increase its online business as the video game industry heads in that direction.
For the full fiscal year, GameStop saw $5.93 billion in sales, down slightly from $6.01 billion in fiscal 2021, and saw increased revenues from its collectibles category, which the retailer is banking will promote long-term growth.
Like many retailers, GameStop experienced supply chain delays that left it with a backlog of inventory after it previously tried to meet high demand. The company is still hanging on to $682.9 million in inventory, which is down from $915 million a year ago, according to its fourth-quarter balance sheet.
As part of its revival strategy, GameStop also has been trying to improve its cash balance. This quarter, its cash and cash equivalents were $1.39 billion.
While managing the burdens of its brick-and-mortar presence, the company has also been working to find its digital identity. So far, those experiments have come with a few missteps.
In September, it launched an ill-fated partnership with the now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX. The companies had planned to collaborate on e-commerce marketing and GameStop was going to sell FTX gift cards in its stores. Two months later, GameStop tweeted that it would be “winding down” the partnership and refunding anyone who had purchased an FTX gift card in its stores.
In addition, the company has been experimenting with an NFT marketplace since July. That launch came amid chatter of a “crypto winter” as cryptocurrencies experienced a widespread cooldown from their 2021 rallies. The marketplace saw an initial volume surge but has since leveled off and may not be the ticket to a stable digital presence the company had hoped it would be.
Still, Furlong said on a call with investors that compared to 2021, when many “predicted we were heading for bankruptcy,” the company is better positioned.
“GameStop is a much healthier business today than it was at the start of 2021,” he said.
Mike Segar | Reuters
Nike, like other retailers, has been in the process of offloading a glut of inventory brought on by supply chain disruptions and shifting consumer demands that’s been weighing on its margins.
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Gross margins were down to 43.3% for the quarter, a decrease of 3.3 percentage points, due to higher markdowns and promotions its used to liquidate its inventory.
While Nike CEO John Donahoe told investors last quarter he believes the company is past its inventory peak, the company warned gross margins were expected to take a hit during the holiday quarter.
Inventories were up 16% compared with the year ago period at $8.9 billion, which the company attributed to higher product input costs and elevated freight expenses.
Here’s how the sneaker giant performed in its third fiscal quarter of 2023 compared with what Wall Street was anticipating, based on a survey of analysts by Refinitiv:
- Earnings per share: 79 cents vs. 55 cents expected
- Revenue: $12.39 billion vs. $11.47 billion expected
The company’s reported net income for the three-month period that ended Feb. 28 was $1.2 billion, or 79 cents per share, compared with $1.4 billion, or 87 cents per share, a year earlier.
Sales rose to $12.39 billion, up 14% from $10.87 billion a year earlier.
Nike has been looking to see a sales rebound in China, its third-biggest market by revenue, as the region recovers from the Covid pandemic. But those hopes failed to materialize. Sales were down 8% in the region during the third quarter to $1.99 billion, despite the end of China’s zero-Covid policy that had weighed on operations.
Wall Street analysts had anticipated sales in the region of $2.09 billion, according to StreetAccount estimates.
Sales in China have been soft as consumers contended with sweeping lockdowns and rising infections. While some activity has begun to pick back up, consumers aren’t back to pre-pandemic shopping levels just yet, according to a Citi research note.
Outside China, Nike saw double-digit sales increases in all of its other markets. Sales in North America were up 27% and in Europe, Middle East and Africa, revenue jumped 17% compared with the year-ago period. In Asia Pacific and Latin America, sales were up 10%.
DTC
For the last several years, Nike has been working to build out its direct-to-consumer sales and has invested heavily in the channel by building out experiential stores, developing its loyalty program and growing its e-commerce sales.
The investments into its DTC channel has come at a cost, but sales have continued to grow. Nike Direct sales were up 17% during the holiday quarter to $5.3 billion and Nike digital sales jumped 20%.
Selling and administrative expenses were up 15% to $4 billion, the bulk of which was related to wage-related expenses and Nike Direct costs.
As part of its efforts to focus on DTC, Nike has ties with a host of wholesalers, and over the last two quarters has relied on those partnerships to offload inventory. Wholesale revenues were up 12% in the quarter, following 19% growth during the previous quarter.
On Monday, Foot Locker CEO Mary Dillon touted a “renewed” and revitalized relationship with Nike, its biggest brand partner.
Jeff Halstead | Icon Sportswire | Getty Images
Last year was transformative for women’s professional soccer, as Berman took the helm of an organization that had been plagued with problems ranging from accusations of emotional and sexual abuse and sexism, and an overall lack of confidence in the league.
The NWSL hired Berman, who was a labor lawyer at Proskauer Rose for 13 years, in March 2022, from her role as deputy commissioner of the Premier Lacrosse League. Her biggest priorities? Restore faith in women’s soccer and grow the business.
Since then, the commissioner has made changes to not only drastically transform the culture of the league but also supersize the business through its infrastructure, staffing and rules. Sports Business Journal named her the “Best Hire of the Year” for 2022.Â
It’s all led to a pivotal moment for the league, as it looks to add more teams and its media deal is up for grabs. Then, this summer, the FIFA Women’s World Cup will put the league’s talent on display – about 25% to 30% of NWSL’s players will travel to Australia and New Zealand for the tournament.
At the moment, the league has momentum. Berman told reporters Tuesday that business is strong and ticket sales are rising.
“Attendance and ticket sales are really the rocket fuel that will grow this league,” she said. “We’re up 20% in season ticket holders on a league-wide basis.”
Building on a strong year
More than 1 million fans attended matches last year, the league said, as nearly every market grew following the pandemic. Attendance was up about 80% in 2022, while ticketing revenue grew more than 125%, according to NWSL.
Sponsorship revenue also surged 87% last year, Berman said. The league averaged 37 sponsorship deals per team, which is more than any other women’s sport, according to sports data and intelligence platform Sponsor United. The league also plans to expand to 14 teams from 12 beginning next year.
The NWSL just signed a deal to bring soccer back to Utah with a new ownership group in a deal reportedly worth between $2 million and $5 million, a major bargain that had been part of a deal negotiated in 2020, before team valuations started to soar.
The league is also in advanced discussions to further expand in San Francisco for 2024, followed by Boston, which is launching “later,” both with a whopping $50 million franchise tag, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Women’s pro soccer valuations are also soaring. It used to take a few million dollars to get in on the league. Today, Angel City FC, based in Los Angeles, is valued at $100 million, according to Sportico.
NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman speaks during the 2023 NWSL Draft at the Pennsylvania Convention Center on January 12, 2023 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Images)
Tim Nwachukwu | Getty Images Sport | Getty Images
Athletes, celebrities and investors all want a piece of the action. Big name investors include everyone from Eli Manning, Kevin Durant, Sue Bird, Natalie Portman and Jennifer Garner.
“I think, if anything that we’ve learned in the last 11 months, which is that the market will tell us our value so long as we give it the appropriate opportunity to produce that value. And everything that I’ve seen, has validated that,” Berman said.
The league is busy looking for new ownership groups in Chicago and Portland after a yearlong investigation. Portland Thorns owner Merritt Paulson and Chicago Red Stars owner Arnim Whisler both announced in December, they would be selling their teams.
Berman said the vetting stages for new ownership groups in Chicago and Portland are in “advanced stages,” and they aren’t going to set an “artificial deadline.” She said it’s about putting the right person in place who is not just well resourced but also willing to invest in the club to provide a professional environment.
“The old ways of doing business are probably no longer applicable,” Berman said. “We’re not going to close deals in 30 to 60 days. We’re dealing with really sophisticated people who appropriately have questions,” she added.
Berman says they are not looking for the quick win when it comes to ownership, rather finding the right partner.
“We’re looking to go from a mentality of surviving to thriving,” she said. “I think all of that requires a changes in mentality, culture and expectations.”
As part of that transformation, Berman and the league are investing heavily.
The league recently moved its headquarters to Madison Avenue in New York from Chicago. It is also beefing up staff, doubling the number of people in the league office in order to support all the new initiatives they are working on. Berman said multiple teams have doubled or tripled their investment into staffing as well.
“These little things actually matter in terms of having people feel professional and valued,” she said.
In January, ahead of the NWSL draft, Berman outlined major updates to the salary cap. Each team will see a 25% increase from $1.1 million per year in 2022 to $1.375 million in 2023.
Media deal up for grabs
Viewership for NWSL matches also rose 30% last year on Paramount +.
Last year’s championship, which aired in primetime thanks to sponsor Ally Financial upping its financial commitment, was the most-watched game in league history, with a 71% increase in viewership. Paramount+ said it was the most streamed NWSL matched ever, even though it was up against Game 1 of the World Series and a college football game between rivals Michigan and Michigan State.
These metrics should come in handy as the league’s three-year, $4.5 million deal with Paramount Global, which also owns CBS, is set to expire at the end of the new season.
Berman said she’s had robust conversations about the rights, and said there are several interested parties.
“We think that there are some really interesting opportunities here and overseas to consider as we think about growing our brand globally and really claiming our space as the best league in the world,” she said.
The league also announced a recent partnership with EA Sports to feature NWSL players and clubs in EA Sports FIFA game for the first time ahead of a new season.
Culture change
OL Reign forward Megan Rapinoe (15) scores on a penalty kick during the second half of the National Womens Soccer League game between NJ/NY Gotham FC and OL Reign on September 21, 2022 at Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey.
Rich Graessle | Icon Sportswire | Getty Images
The NWSL’s culture is under the microscope, as well.
The league is implementing major reforms – from new mandatory training sessions, the addition of anonymous hotlines, player surveys, safety officers, mental health benefits and more.
The league was involved in a yearlong investigation after two former players came forward and accused longtime coach Paul Riley of sexual harassment. Sally Yates, a former top Justice Department official, conducted her own investigation, as well. The reports confirmed the allegations of systemic abuse, sexual misconduct and found “widespread misconduct” in more than half of the league’s teams.
Berman took swift action following the findings, making changes in personnel, putting new infrastructure in place to prevent future problems and issuing massive fines to the offending teams. The NWSL permanently banned Riley and three other coaches who were accused of misconduct. Riley has denied the accusations.
“The teams are really welcoming of the increased focus and support in this area knowing that it is really sort of table stakes as we think about the growth of the league,” Berman said.
Berman spent much of her first year as commissioner on a “listening tour,” meeting with players, coaches and executives to hear “first-hand experiences” and what needs to change.
Today, Berman hopes the new changes and protections will position the league for success.
Berman said she’s heard from players that they are tired from the burdens of having to carry some of weight of culture challenges and reforms.
“I think it’s their hope that we the league and through ownership and management can really take on the burden and work behind the scenes to offer the playing environment that meets the standard that I’ve committed to, which is a place that makes the players proud to play,” Berman said.
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