The Rundown - Delta Taps Amazon for Wi-Fi, McCormick Buys Unilever’s Food Business for $45 Billion

Episode Date: March 31, 2026

Market update for Tuesday March 31, 2026Check out the Public app for incredible investing tools and to support the show (LINK)Follow us on Instagram (@TheRundownDaily) for bonus content and instant reactions.In today’s episode:Delta tapped Amazon’s Leo satellite service for in-flight Wi-FiMcCormick struck a deal to buy most of Unilever’s food business for $45 billionEli Lilly agreed to buy Centessa in a deal worth up to $7.8 billionNvidia takes a $2 billion stake in MarvellConstellation Energy shares fell after investors were left waiting for a major new AI power deal announcementAllbirds is being sold for just $39 million

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in under 10 minutes. My name is Zadadmani, and today is Tuesday, March 31st. In today's episode, we'll tell you about Delta's latest deal with Amazon to bring faster Wi-Fi to the skies. We'll also break down a mega food merger between McCormick and Unilever. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out how much all birds just sold for. It's a pretty shocking number. We got a great show for you today.

Let's go. Well, stocks struggled on Monday with the S&P 500 dropping 0.4% while the NASDAQ was down 0.7%. The Dow did squeeze out a 0.1% gain, but nobody cares about the Dow. You know, what's interesting is that Mondays have typically been the market's favorite day since the war started. In fact, the S&P 500 has gone up every single Monday since the war. the war, usually because investors were getting some sort of positive headlines or truth social posts over the weekend.

Well, that streak has finally come to an end. I think at this point, investors aren't as willing to blindly trust every headline and true social posts about the Iran situation. It all really comes down to oil. And as long as the Strait of Hormuz is still closed like it still is, oil will stay elevated and that will keep stocks under pressure. And the thing is, no one knows when the Strait of Hormuz will be reopened. In fact, there was a report from the Wall Street Journal last night that Trump is willing to end

the war with Iran without reopening Hormuz. So that's why oil prices keep rising. Brent Crude, which is the international benchmark for oil, is trading around $116 a barrel, while WTI, which is the U.S. benchmark, closed above $100 yesterday for the first time since 2022. And consumers are starting to feel that at the pump. Gas prices just cross $4 a gallon nationally for the first time since 2022. They're up more than a dollar from a month ago. At these price levels, you're probably going to start hearing the phrase demand destruction being thrown around a lot more. This is when consumers and businesses simply start using less energy because they can't afford it. In fact, there are already reports of countries all over the world declaring emergencies because of energy shortages. So there is a lot

of uncertainty right now and the vibes aren't great. We're going to continue to stay on top of everything and break it down for you here every single day. So make sure you guys are subscribed to the podcast and tuning in every day to stay in the loop. Let's run through some headlines. starting with airline Wi-Fi. Delta Airlines just announced a deal to bring Amazon satellite internet service called Leo on 500 of its planes starting in 2028.

Delta says this service will deliver internet speeds that are three to five times faster than what passengers get on flights today. And we're talking like streaming 4K video on an airplane. Now, this is a big deal for Amazon because right now, SpaceX's Starlink is absolutely dominating these satellite internet. internet space, and more specifically the airline Wi-Fi market. Starlink has signed deals with

airlines including United, Southwest, Alaskan Air, British Airways, Air France, and Emirates. So I guess for Amazon, landing Delta, one of the biggest and most premium airlines in the world, is a pretty big win. Now, Amazon has a lot of work to do to catch up to Starlink. Starlink has about 9 to 10,000 satellites already in orbit, and they're also a proven service. Amazon, on the other hand, only has a few hundred satellites in orbit, but they think their service will end up being better than Starlink. So we'll see what ends up happening, but there's a deeper play here when it comes to Amazon and Delta. Delta already uses Amazon Web Services for a ton of their back end operations. So Delta CEO Ed Bastion sees this as more than just a Wi-Fi deal.

Two companies are also talking about building more personalized in-flight experiences, including better content on seatback screens. Maybe all Delta flights will have Amazon Prime video content on there. Who knows? Personally, I'm just happy that airline Wi-Fi is getting better and free. I was always the guy that would pay the $8 to buy the Wi-Fi, and most times it would barely work. Now, we're getting Wi-Fi that's free and can stream Netflix in 4K.

Let's shift gears and talk about a big shake-up happening in the food industry. McCormick is buying Unilever's food business in a deal worth $45 billion. Now, when you think of McCormick, you're probably thinking of all their spices. You know, they own brands like Frank's Red Hot, Chalula, French mustard, and all those little red cap spice bottles today. in your cabinet right now. But after this deal, McCormick will get a lot bigger, adding brands like Helmand's Mayo and Norse seasoning. Those are two massive brands. In fact, 70% of Unilever's food sales came from those two brands alone, and now they're going to be under the McCormick

umbrella. See, for Unilever, this is a huge strategic pivot. Their food business makes up more than a quarter of their overall sales, and it's actually one of their most profitable divisions. But the growth just hasn't been there lately. Sales and food have lagged behind Unilever's personal care and beauty brands for years now. and that was dragging down to company's overall growth targets. So the company is shedding the weight and getting leaner. No pun intended. Last year, they spun off the ice cream business,

which now is trading separately as Magnum Ice Cream Company. Before that, they sold their tea business. Now they're shedding their food business. What's left will essentially be a health and beauty company with brands like Dove and Axe. This deal is expected to close in mid-20207, assuming it gets shareholder and regulatory approval. The market's initial reaction isn't great, though.

Cormick and Unilever stock are both down around 4 to 5% this morning at the time of this recording. Now, since we're on the subject, I have a mini hot take here. I think that Chulula is kind of overrated, all right? I'm kind of afraid to say it because Chulula stands are going to come after me in the comments, but it's just how I feel, all right? There are better hot sauces out there. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Shares of the drug maker Contessa are absolutely ripping higher this.

morning up more than 40% after Eli Lilly agreed to buy the biotech company in a deal worth up to $7.8 billion. Contessa is a UK-based drug maker developing treatments for sleep disorders like narcolepsy and excessive daytime sleepiness. Their elite therapy is still in mid-stage trials, so Eli Lilly is paying a big premium for potential here. By the way, this would be Eli Lilly's biggest acquisition since they bought Luxo Oncology for about $8 billion back in 2019, and it's another sign that Lilly is trying to build out their business beyond just weight loss drugs. Obviously, Lilly has been printing money with their GLP ones like Zepound and Manjaro, but they know they can't just be a weight loss company forever.

So now they're using all that cash to bulk up other parts of the pipeline. Recently, Eli Lilly spent $2.4 billion to buy Orno Therapeutics to build out their next-gen cell therapy capabilities. They spent over a billion dollars on autoimmune drug maker Ventix. So yeah, I think it's a smart move by Eli Lilly to start diversifying. while they're making all that cash from the gLP ones now sticking with the winners here let's talk about marvel their shares are up around nine percent this morning after invidia announced that they were taking a two billion dollar stake in the chip company this deal brings marvell deeper into invidia's a i ecosystem which should make it easier for customers to build specialized AI compute

using invidia's infrastructure to me the bigger picture here is that invidia seems to be handed out two billion dollar checks to every AI company in the world over the last few months they've invested in Corweave, Nebius, Synopsis, Coherent, and Lumentum. Now, on the flip side, let's talk about Constellation Energy. This stock is down around 5% this morning, and for the company provided an underwhelming investor update. See, investors were hoping that Constellation would announce a new deal to sell nuclear power to a tech company for AI data centers,

but that announcement never came. You know, Constellation's stock has tripled over the last two years because of these deals they've signed with Meta and Microsoft, but the CEO said they're still working on new deals, but aren't ready to announce anything yet. So the concern for investors is that the Constellation growth story is now losing momentum. In fact, the stock is down around 19% this year and down about 28% from its highs back in October of last year. Let's wrap the show with the fun fact.

The sneaker company, Allbirds, is being sold for just $39 million. I don't know if you guys remember Allbirds, but they were the hottest shoe company in Silicon Valley. every tech bro was wearing them. In fact, the company was worth around $4 billion at its peak after IPOing in November of 2021. Now, I'll be honest with you, I had a pair of Allbirds, and they were great shoes. But the problem is selling comfortable wool sneakers isn't enough to build a $4 billion company. Allbirds eventually fell out of fashion and sales started to decline, despite the company expanding into other products like leggings, jackets, and running shoes. Those just never really caught on. Now, to make matters worse, the company opened a ton of retail

locations which increased their costs significantly. And that led to the eventual downfall of the company and they're being bought by American Exchange Group, which is a footwear and accessories company that you've probably never heard of. I guess the lesson here is that the sneaker and apparel market is very competitive, especially when you have giants like Nike and Adidas to compete with. And despite Allbirds having a tech first reputation, at the end of the day, they were just selling shoes. You know, it kind of blows my mind that Allbirds was worth $4 billion back in 2021. It's just another reminder of just how crazy 2021 was. Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. Hope you guys enjoyed today's episode if you did. And you have like five extra seconds.

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