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The Past Two Years Have Been Historic for Japan’s

Financial Markets—Will 2025 Be More of the Same?
A convergence of macroeconomic trends, geopolitical shifts, and transformative
reforms has propelled Japanese assets to unprecedented heights. Looking
ahead to 2025 and beyond, these dynamics show no signs of slowing.

n March 4, 2024, the atmosphere at the Tokyo

O Stock Exchange (TSE) was electric. Traders held

their breath, eyes glued to monitors, until a
collective gasp echoed as the Nikkei 225 closed above
Yamaji Hiromi
Group CEO
Japan Exchange Group, Inc.
the 40,000 mark.
This milestone was not an isolated incident but the latest
highlight in a series of positive developments for Japan. “Japan is now in a new beginning,” says Hirofumi Tamada,
Over the past two years, IPO valuations grew exponentially, President of Ichiyoshi Securities, which specializes in small-
and private equity dealmaking reached new highs, with to-mid cap stock investments. “For 30 years, deflation made
deal values tripling the annual average from 2018 to 2022. investment unattractive, leading to economic stagnation.
This stood in contrast to the Asia-Pacific region, where deal However, the situation has changed as inflation has taken
volumes fell to their lowest levels since 2014. hold and the mindset is finally shifting toward investment.”
Several interconnected forces were at the heart of this To sustain this momentum, the BoJ is set to continue
momentum. For one, the return of inflation after decades its gradual approach to raising interest rates. Following
of deflationary pressures prompted capital to flow from the August market crash triggered by the unwinding
deposits to investments. This was supported by the Bank of the yen carry trade, the BoJ postponed further rate
of Japan’s (BoJ) commitment to low interest rates, which hikes, underscoring its commitment to maintaining
weakened the yen and boosted corporate earnings. The stability and investment appeal. In the aftermath, the
fiscal year ending March 2024 marked the third consecu- Nikkei 225 rebounded at record speed.
tive year of record-high profits for listed companies. Corporate governance reforms are also poised to gain
Equally significant were internal developments de- further traction. Over the past decade, these reforms
cades in the making. Corporate governance reforms, gradually introduced capital efficiency and account-
launched during the Abe Administration, accelerated as ability into Japanese boardrooms. Now, as corporate
the TSE pressed companies to improve share prices and Japan undergoes a historic generational shift, these
valuations. “Voluntary, incentivized reforms have gradu- initiatives are advancing at a faster pace. With the av-
ally reshaped the landscape,” explains Yamaji Hiromi, erage CEO age at 64, a younger generation of leaders
Group CEO of the Japan Exchange Group, owner of the is stepping in—leaders who have seen firsthand the
TSE. “These reforms—supported by market segment re- benefits of stronger governance and are embedding
structurings and a focus on equity cost awareness—have these principles into Japan’s corporate culture.
delivered visible gains in corporate governance, under- “The effect that this is having is similar to a snowball:
pinning sustainable, mid- to long-term value.” the more it rolls, the bigger it becomes,” argues Mr.
Furthermore, the expansion of the Nippon Individual Yamaji. “And now it is rolling down a steeper hill than
Savings Account (NISA)—a tax-free scheme designed before, with much more speed.”
to shift household savings into fi nancial markets— On top of increased valuations for listed companies, this
boosted the domestic investment base, with 10.2 trillion acceleration is expected to impact the private equity space
yen of new investments flowing into NISA between “These reforms are pushing companies to divest non
January and September 2024. businesses, which increases deal flow,” explains Masa
“The NISA program is beneficial for the Japanese Yoshizawa, Representative Director of The Longr
people, especially the younger generation,” says Mikita Group, a private equity firm specializing in mid-cap d
Komatsu, President of Daiwa Asset Management, a “While some companies previously regarded dives
subsidiary of Daiwa Securities and one of the largest as a failure of management, today’s leaders see M&
asset managers in the country. “It has already encour- a solution to drive profitability by focusing on their
aged more people to think about investing, penetrating business, enhance growth, and address succession is
deeper into the general population.” Driven by demand-led inflation, corporate govern
reforms, and a generational shift in leadership, Jap
The Year Ahead entering a transformative era. As geopolitical tension
Looking to 2025 and beyond, the factors that fueled Japan’s economic uncertainty weigh on other Asian econo
bull run are expected to grow stronger. While inflation’s Japan’s combination of structural changes, macro
initial return was ignited by short-term factors like elevated nomic stability, and increased domestic investment
energy prices, Japan is transitioning to demand-led infla- it a uniquely attractive option for long-term investo
tion. With wages rising 5.28% in 2024—the largest increase while the past two years have been historic for Ja
in 33 years—a virtuous cycle is taking hold. financial markets, it seems the best is yet to come.
This article is based on interviews conducted by The Worldfolio. To learn more, visit: www.theworldfolio.com
 Sei Matsui,
DAIWA ASSET MANAGEMENT Head of Global
Multi-Strategy
HELPS INVESTORS NAVIGATE Team

NEW ERA OF OPPORTUNITIES

Japan enters a new era ABOUT THE GLOBAL
To many, our world has entered a new era: after years of
MULTI-STRATEGY
ultra-loose monetary policy, central banks rapidly raised
interest rates, supply chain disruptions led governments TEAM
to promote the onshoring of critical industries and the rise
of digitalization has triggered an AI revolution, unlocking
new sectors for investment.
While these shifts are global, Japan has been uniquely
affected. The country’s low-interest-rate policy weak-
ened the yen and sparked the long-awaited return of in-
flation, boosting corporate earnings. Economic tensions
in China also pushed investors toward safer alternatives,
bringing new liquidity into Japanese assets. Together
with corporate governance reforms, these trends fueled
a historic bull run in Japanese equities.

What does this mean for investors?

As investors look to a future where macroeconomic
conditions, monetary policies and technology evolve,
a change in strategy is needed. Successfully navigating Opportunities in growth stocks investing
this landscape requires more than traditional metrics
or quantitative analysis. It demands an investment
f ramework that assesses intangible assets, predicts
long-term competitiveness, and ensures that manage-
ment decisions align with emerging technological and
economic trends.

Daiwa Asset Management’s Strategy

Designing products tailored to this new era is the
mission Daiwa Asset Management (DAM) is commit-
ted to. Founded in 1959, the company has become a
cornerstone of Japan’s financial landscape, growing its
AUM to over 32 trillion yen as of March 2024. As the core
asset management arm of the Daiwa Securities Group, GROWTH IN ASSETS UNDER MANAGEMENT (JPY in Trillions)
the firm offers a diverse range of products covering
Japanese and global securities, including ETFs, REITs,
32
fixed income instruments, and actively managed funds.
In today’s investment environment, where stock-
picking has become essential to success, DAM distin-
guishes itself through its Global Multi-Strategy
team. This team, composed of senior fund
managers with decades of cumulative
experience, applies a forward-looking,
long-term investment philosophy tai-
lored to the challenges and opportuni-
ties of our modern era.

Mikita Komatsu, President,

Daiwa Asset Management Co., Ltd.
https://www.daiwa-am.co.jp/english/
This document is for informational purposes only and should not be con-
strued as financial, investment, or professional advice. It does not constitute
a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any securities or financial instru-
ments. Daiwa Asset Management Co. Ltd. (DAM) makes no representation
or warranty regarding the accuracy or completeness of the information
provided. Furthermore, DAM disclaims any liability for any loss or damage
arising from the use of this document or reliance on its contents.
 SPONSORED CONTENT

Ichiyoshi Securities is your strategic partner for

investing in Japan’s small and mid-cap stocks
n 2017, Lasertec, a little-known Japanese

I maker of inspection devices, introduced a

groundbreaking equipment: the first of its
kind capable of inspecting EUV photomasks.
At the time, Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography—a
cutting-edge technology that enables the production of
faster, smaller, and more efficient semiconductors—was
on the verge of commercialization.
Twelve months after, the world’s largest chipmak-
ers, TSMC and SAMSUNG, began test production us-
ing EUV. Fast forward to 2024 and the technology has
revolutionized semiconductor manufacturing and made www.ichiyoshi.co.jp/english
next-generation applications like Generative AI, 5G, and
high-performance computing a reality. have produced over 3,000 reports annually—a breadth of
During this time, Lasertec established a monopoly in information unmatched in Japan. “We also conduct face-
EUV mask inspection, driving its share price from around to-face interviews with company leaders to understand
500 yen in 2017 to a staggering 35,000 yen by December their strategy and direction,” adds Tamada.
2021. Today, it stands as a cornerstone of the chip supply At the heart of Ichiyoshi’s ethos lies a steadfast com-
chain, with its stock price crossing 45,000 yen in 2024. mitment to being a “Name-Brand Boutique House”
While Lasertec’s rise may seem exceptional, it is not as in the financial industry, a philosophy that leads the
rare as it appears. Since 2000, the Topix Small and Topix company to develop products that only it can offer. The
Mid400 indices—which track small and mid-cap stocks latest is Ichibanboshi, a fund that invests primarily in
on the Tokyo Stock Exchange—have consistently out- undervalued stocks and small to mid-cap companies
performed the Topix100. This trend is driven by Japan’s from across the world. From October 2023 to October
“hidden champions”—small to mid-sized enterprises that 2024, total returns for Ichibanboshi exceeded 25%.
dominate niche markets with specialized, high-tech solu- For investors seeking diversified investments with more
tions. Amid shifts in semiconductor and automotive pro- predictable performance, the company recently launched
duction, machine autonomy, and additive manufacturing, Mizunara, a fund that covers stocks and REITs across Japan
these companies are poised to expand across industries, and global markets, focusing on achieving mid to long-
offering investors potential for outsized returns. term capital gains while securing high dividend income.
However, finding these “hidden gems” is no easy task, As no-load funds, a rare offering among Japan’s face-to-
as it requires deep expertise, a strong understanding of face securities companies, Ichibanboshi and Mizunara
corporate culture, and direct access to company strategy are advantageous products for investors in terms of cost.
and management—capabilities not readily available to Product diversification is a core strategy at Ichiyoshi
foreign investors. Addressing this gap is precisely what Securities, whose focus centers on sustainable growth.
made Ichiyoshi Securities’ success. Founded in 1948, this Unlike traditional securities firms, which rely on brokerage
boutique securities firm specializes in identifying equities commissions, Ichiyoshi has shifted to a “stock-type business
with significant mid-to-long-term growth potential. model”, earning revenue from trust and wrap account fees.
“Our uniqueness lies in our specialization in small to “Since 2000, we have focused on increasing our cus-
mid-caps,” explains Mr. Hirofumi Tamada, President of tomer assets under custody and enhancing the manage-
Ichiyoshi Securities. “We have more analysts focused on ment of our customers’ assets,” explains Mr. Tamada. “Be-
small to mid-cap stocks than any other firm.” To solidify cause our uniqueness lies in offering mid-to-long-term
its position, the company established the Ichiyoshi Re- investment strategies through personalized, face-to-face
search Institute in 1987. Since then, the Institute’s analysts communication, having the confidence to shift our busi-
ness model demonstrates that long-term retention is
Differences in mid- to long-term stock price performance
in stock price indexes by size (TSE)
both beneficial and advantageous.”
Thanks to this specialization strategy, Ichiyoshi’s cus-
tomer assets under custody have grown from 400 billion
yen to 2 trillion yen over the past 20 years. The company’s
medium-term management plan, “3·D,” which runs
until March 2026, now aims to achieve 3 trillion yen in
customer assets under custody.
As technological advancements continue to reshape
industries, more success stories like Lasertec’s are set to
emerge. With its deep expertise, specialized research
capabilities, and commitment to long-term growth,
Ichiyoshi Securities offers investors a strategic partner
to navigate this dynamic landscape and to uncover
Japan’s next “hidden gems.”
 SPONSORED CONTENT
Strategic focus and long-term relationships fuel
The Longreach Group’s success in booming PE market
With more than 20 years of experience in mid-cap deals and a well-defined investment strategy,
The Longreach Group has emerged as one of the clear winners in Japan’s private equity boom.
apan’s private equity (PE) mar-

J ket has emerged as a rare bright

spot in the global investment
landscape. While M&A activity glob-
ally faltered, Japan recorded a 23%
year-over-year increase in deal value
in 2023, reaching $123 billion. The
country now leads Asia-Pacific’s PE
market, capturing 30% of the region’s
total deal value—a sharp rise from 7%
in previous years. The momentum
has carried into 2024, with Japan- Mark Chiba, Group Chairman and Partner (left),
related M&A volumes growing an- Masamichi Yoshizawa, Representative Director and Partner (right)
other 20% in the first half of the year.
This growth stems from a variety “Our investment strategy is crystal The firm’s latest fund, LCP4, ex-
of factors. Japan’s low interest rates clear,” explains Masamichi Yoshiza- emplif ies its continued success.
and weak yen not only created fertile wa, Representative Director and Co- Closing with commitments of ¥78
ground for investments, but also at- founder. “Specific deal types, mid-cap billion—up f rom ¥65 billion in its
tracted foreign capital, especially from focus, and control buyouts across three predecessor fund—LCP4 reflects
Asia-Pacific investors wary of China. areas: consumer businesses, industrial the confidence of investors in Long-
More importantly, macroeconomic technology, and business services.” reach’s disciplined and diversified
shifts, regulatory reforms, and a chang- Part of Longreach’s success is owed approach. “LCP4’s three thematic
ing corporate mindset have further to its focus on the mid-cap segment, areas naturally hedge against risk,”
fueled dealmaking opportunities. which provides the company with a explains Masamichi. “Industrial tech-
Corporate governance reforms in- stream of opportunities. “Less than nology benefits from a weaker yen
troduced a decade ago have driven 10% of the dry powder in Japan flows due to exports, while the consumer
transparency and efficiency. Updated to the mid-cap space,” explains Mark sector thrives on stable domestic
Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) rules and Chiba, Group Chairman and Co- conditions. Business services, being
pressures to enhance valuation have founder. “Our space has more deal highly localized, remain unaffected
prompted companies to divest non- flow relative to available capital.” by currency fluctuations, providing
core assets, delist, or seek partners— To expand in this segment, the firm natural hedges against economic
prime opportunities for private equity. offers mid-cap companies some- and currency shifts.”
The government also strengthened the thing many cannot: international Growth in commitments (JPY in billions)
M&A environment with guidelines re- expertise. Based in both Tokyo and 80
quiring boards to consider unsolicited Hong Kong, Longreach is a Japan- 70
78

offers and hostile takeovers. Decades- focused firm with distinctive global 60 65
old cross-shareholdings insulating and cross-cultural capabilities, a
50
firms from takeovers are unwinding, strong advantage in a market where
40
creating openings for activists. Mean- domestic competitors lack global
30 32
while, a generational shift has left nearly experience, while international ones
1.5 million family-owned firms without centralize decision-making offshore. 20

successors, positioning private equity The company’s deep understanding 10

as a solution to pressing challenges. of the Japanese market also allows it to LCP2 LCP3 LCP4
Amid this thriving market, The implement a distinctive sourcing strat-
Longreach Group has emerged as a egy. Rather than chasing auctions, As Japan’s PE market expands, The
clear winner. Founded in 2003, the Longreach dedicates years to cultivat- Longreach Group is poised to lead
firm has spent two decades refin- ing trust with target companies—an the mid-cap segment. Its strategic
ing its mid-cap investment strategy, approach perfectly suited to Japan’s focus, relationship-building, and
focusing on corporate divestitures, business culture, where relationships global connectivity ensure it thrives
founder successions, and bolt-on are paramount. “In our market, a lot of amid competition while unlocking
acquisitions. From transforming the decision-making isn’t just about new economic value.
McDonald’s Japan to achieving a pricing, but about finding the right
high-profile exit with Quasar Medi- partner to work with,” says Mark. “Our
cal—winner of the ‘2023 Exit of the ability to nurture long-term relation-
Year’ in the ‘Mid Cap’ category by the ships and avoid auctions is a competi-
Asian Venture Capital Journal —the tive edge. Notably, our last four deals
firm has built a standout track record. have been exclusive.” www.longreachgroup.com
 Dream it

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 January 2025
◼ PHOTOGRAPH BY LISA SORGINI FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK

For couples struggling to build a family, egg donors around the world offer hope ▷ 66

9
Contents Contributors

The Year Ahead Seven Bloomberg News reporters

After an eventful 2024, here’s our annual foreshadowing of the people, and a freelancer led a yearlong
feuds, politics, economic shifts and technological changes that will investigation of the human egg trade.
matter in 2025
● Natalie Obiko Pearson, a senior
Taking the long view to make a case for optimism 12 investigative reporter based in Tokyo,
Trump’s economic agenda won’t hurt right away 14 reported from Japan and India.
In Norway, the electric vehicle future is now 16
What’s the price, you ask? That depends 20 ● Jessica Brice, a senior investigative
Keeping carp from ruining Great Lakes fisheries 21 reporter based in São Paulo, reported
The feuds to follow in 2025 23 from Argentina, the US and Australia.
The Right Stuff: What to treat yourself with this year 24
What happens when the crypto biz is unleashed? 26 ● Susan Berfield, a senior investigative
AI and EVs drive a surge in America’s need for power 29 reporter based in New York, reported
Ten books to look forward to 32 from Southern California, as well as
Even if the wars end, the world will pay 34 from New York and Denver.
China’s rescue plan fails to shore up housing prices 37
Growing pains for AI 40 ● Vernon Silver, a senior investigative
Search chatbots could upend the internet economy 42 reporter based in Rome, reported
Grand Theft Auto VI may finally be ready to rule 45 from Italy and Greece.
The Property Brothers size up the renovation market 46
Big Pharma will add to the menu of weight-loss drugs 48 ● Kanoko Matsuyama, a global
Tickets are going fast for live entertainment 49 business reporter based in Tokyo,
Decoding the lingo of today’s office mortgage lender 50 reported from India and Japan.
Private credit: It’s not just for billionaires anymore 52
A look at 2025 through the eyes of those turning 25 54 ● Cindy Wang, the deputy bureau
Fifty companies to watch 57 chief in Taipei, reported from Southern
California, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Inside the Global Trade in Human Eggs
● Sinduja Rangarajan, a senior
From India to Taiwan, Argentina to Greece, women investigative data reporter based in
are providing this increasingly valuable resource, San Francisco, worked to quantify and
sometimes unwittingly, to a booming fertility industry. map the global egg trade.
In a special Bloomberg Businessweek investigation,
their interwoven stories illuminate the lucrative, largely ● Fani Nikiforaki, a journalist based in
unregulated business of helping families have children 66 Chania, Greece, reported from there.

Pursuits Travel Special: A still unspoiled Algeria or Spain’s

next big thing or hot vacations in cool places—we Cover
give you the 25 places to go in 2025 97
We worked with
French artist Magali
Exit Strategy Can you guess which of these priciest prices is right? 116 Cazo to create four
abstract iterations
of the human egg.
Primarily composed
in ink and paint on
paper, her depictions
are vivid, organic and
arresting—showing the
◼ ILLUSTRATION BY MAGALI CAZO

A. Merger B. IPO C. Sports team D. Yacht E. Athlete F. Body of work G. Painting H. Car I. Sculpture J. Jewel K. Watch L. Shoes M. License plate N. Shirt O. Dress egg to be as our cover
Sticker Shock Answers story portrays it: a
precious resource.

How to contact Bloomberg Businessweek ▶ Email bwreader@bloomberg.net ▶ X @BW ▶ Instagram @businessweek ▶ Facebook facebook.com/
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10 Bloomberg Businessweek
12
 REMARKS

AN OPTIMIST’S GUIDE
TO A CHAOTIC WORLD
◼ BY BRAD STONE

Proponents of scientific expertise, recently reported that vaccines have Trump and his congressional allies
international cooperation, free trade— reduced infant mortality by 40% over are likely to withdraw the US from the
as well as anyone hoping for a calm, the past half-century and that global Paris Agreement on climate change
measured competence emanating economic growth has lifted more than and prod energy companies to increase
from Washington, DC—are probably 1.3 billion people out of extreme poverty. fossil fuel production. But they’re also
viewing 2025 from under the dining Recipients of the weekly newsletter likely to spur the development of
room table with something close to all- Fix the News have learned that Africa nuclear power in the US, a technology
consuming dread. On Jan. 20, Donald has reduced deaths from infectious dis- that makes some people squeamish
Trump will reassume the US presidency, ease by 42% since 2015, that fatality but which many scientists think must
and most of the cabinet appointments rates from drug overdoses in the US play a major role in driving the world
that have so unsettled the political have fallen for seven months straight toward decarbonization.
establishment in the weeks leading up and that solar power installations Several physicians are even find-
to that date will be embraced by the are accelerating around much of the ing reasons to be hopeful about
Republican-controlled Senate. world and global capacity recently hit public health. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,
But negativity and despair are no 2 terawatts. nominated to lead the Department of
way to bring in a new year. In two of “Our view is that the world is bad but Health and Human Services, is likely
his books, The Better Angels of Our that it’s better in most ways than people to campaign against ultraprocessed
Nature and Enlightenment Now, Harvard imagine. It’s probably the best time ever foods that have contributed to high
University psychologist Steven Pinker to be alive,” says Keith Moore, head of obesity rates, even as he rails danger-
makes the case for looking past the editorial at the Gapminder foundation, ously against vaccines and fluoride in
hysteria of daily headlines to recognize which is headquartered in Stockholm. drinking water. “I think there’s been too
areas of substantial human progress. The organization’s site quizzes read- much negativity. What he’s really doing
On measures such as extreme pov- ers to reveal their misperceptions on is questioning things,” says Shebani
erty, infant mortality and human rights, migrants (only 15% are refugees who Sethi, an associate professor of med-
despite occasional setbacks like wars flee their homes), population growth (it’s icine at Stanford University, who notes
and pandemics, things are getting dra- slowing), beef consumption (humans eat that life expectancy in the US now lags
matically better, not worse. more fish) and other issues. “One place Europe’s after their being even 50 years
Trump, Pinker tells me, “was aided they do overestimate progress is on cli- ago. “It would be such a win for us to
and abetted” in his depiction of a coun- mate. People think we are transitioning start changing the food supply.”
try in decline by the news media, which faster than we actually are,” Moore says. It’s also quite possible that Trump,
usually overlooks positive trends and Even those who typically read climate with Elon Musk’s help, could cut regula-
“deliberately puts a negative spin on news with a deep sense of foreboding tions, boost business activity and make
news,” such as with a headline on fall- can find a few reasons for hope. More the government more efficient. This isn’t
ing unemployment that might highlight than 40% of the world’s electricity meant to dismiss the consequences of
how some people still have problems came from zero-carbon sources in Trump’s promised mass deportations or
◼ ILLUSTRATION BY CHRIS HARNAN

finding work. 2023 for the first time, according to the long-term significance of another
Pinker is a fan of independent BloombergNEF. Thanks to a sagging round of his judicial appointments. It’s
websites that use data to illustrate economy and rapid adoption of clean simply a case for holiday cheer for those
broad trends and generally portray a energy, the carbon emissions from who might need an extra helping of it.
more positive view. The Up Wing, an China, responsible for 30% of 2023’s Because one can’t hide under the
Australian website founded in 2024, global total, may have already peaked. dining room table forever. <BW>

January 2025 The Year Ahead 13

 ◼ THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

TRUMP TORCHES THE AND FINANCIAL MARKETS

WILL FEEL THE HEAT AS
THE PRESIDENT REWRITES

ECONOMIC PLAYBOOK RULES ON TRADE, DEBT

AND ALSO SECURITY

◼ BY TOM ORLIK

Donald Trump won a second term in Decades of free-trade orthodoxy have 2024. Inflation is set to slow to 3.4% from
the White House by promising a bonfire frayed the blue collars of US factory 6%, with readings in the US and other
of the verities—the truths that wonks in workers. Wars in Ukraine and Gaza have advanced economies drifting back to the
economic and foreign policy circles hold called into question Washington’s con- 2% central banks have long targeted.
sacred. Free trade is out, protectionism tinued leadership in world affairs. Still, the global economy—along with
is in. Worrying about the debt is out, tax The blaze will take a while to get the financial markets—is going to feel
cuts are in. The US security guarantee is going, for the simple reason that any some heat.
out, do-it-yourself defense is in. administration—even one with a work- There aren’t a lot of things econo-
The established order Trump wants ing knowledge of Washington—can only mists agree on. One is that trade is good.
to overturn hasn’t covered itself in glory. move so quickly to implement its to-do By sharpening competition and encour-
Under President Joe Biden, inflation in list. For the year ahead, Bloomberg aging specialization, it drives productiv-
the US soared close to 10%, partly as Economics forecasts global growth at ity higher, boosting growth and lifting
a result of overdone fiscal stimulus. an unremarkable 3.1%, unchanged from incomes. As a bonus: Trade helps keep
a lid on inflation in developed countries
by giving their consumers access to
lower-priced goods made by workers in
China, Mexico and other places.
Yet to quote from the title of a 2023
book by Robert Lighthizer, the architect
of tariffs in Trump’s first term, no trade
is free. Lighthizer writes evocatively
about how offshoring hollowed out the
Ohio steel town where he grew up. The
exodus of manufacturing jobs has been
a major drag on working-class incomes.
China, meanwhile, leveraged access to
global markets to transform itself into
the world’s No. 1 exporter and a geo-
political rival to the US.
Dashing to the free-trade barri-

◼ ILLUSTRATION BY CHRIS HARNAN ◼ DATA: BLOOMBERG ECONOMICS. AS OF DEC. 10, 2024

cades, economists—including those at
Bloomberg Economics—have fired their
modeling artillery at Trump’s pledges of
60% tariffs on China and 20% on the rest
of the world. Tariffs at those levels would
be historically elevated, and so, unsur-
prisingly, our models predict a major
blow to US gross domestic product and
a jump in inflation.
In reality, and drawing on the experi-
ence of Trump’s first term, tariffs are
likely to stop short of his campaign-trail
pledges. They’ll likely be targeted, not
across-the-board, and delivered in
stages instead of all at once. For 2025
that means a modest impact on the US

14 The Year Ahead Bloomberg Businessweek

and China, building to a more significant ◼ SOUTH ASIAN ECONOMIES WILL
hit to growth—spilling over to Mexico,
Canada and other key trade partners—
THE MACRO LEAD THE PACK ON THE GROWTH
FRONT IN 2025, WITH EUROPEAN
in 2026. OUTLOOK ECONOMIES BRINGING UP THE REAR
Nevertheless, something import-
ant has changed. Even in the best-case
Year-over-year change in real GDP, Bloomberg Economics estimates
scenario, the swing from free trade to
2024 2025
protectionism is bad news for the global
economy. If Trump goes full throttle on -2% 0% 2% 4%
tariffs, everything from Apple Inc.’s Asia India

supply chain to General Motors Co.’s Philippines

made-in-Mexico autos are at risk.
Indonesia
Another idea most economists agree
on: Big deficits are bad news. Sure, in a Malaysia

downturn, opening the public spend- China

ing taps to pump up demand is a good
Saudi Arabia
idea. But in normal times, outside war
or recession, borrowing should be kept Pakistan

under control. Sri Lanka

The Biden administration is already
Argentina
playing fast and loose with fiscal policy.
The deficit for 2024 is projected to come Turkey

in close to a nosebleed-inducing 7% of Peru

GDP, a consequence of too much stim-
Nigeria
ulus during the pandemic and failing to
rein in spending fast enough after the Thailand

emergency was over. Singapore

Trump is promising to play faster and
Sweden
looser. He and his advisers are touting
a classic supply-side recipe, with a dash Colombia

of protectionism thrown in. First, cut Spain

taxes—stoking animal spirits. Second,
Chile
raise tariffs—offsetting some of the lost tax
revenue. Finally, slash public spending— US

closing the remainder of the gap. Canada

The trouble is, tax cuts are easy to
Australia
deliver; raising tariff revenue and cutting
public spending are much harder. Hiking Hong Kong

duties enough to raise significant sums South Africa

risks a bigger blow to growth and hike to
South Korea
inflation—as well as discouraging imports
and so actually reducing revenue. Elon Japan

Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been New Zealand

charged with finding $2 trillion in savings
Brazil
in the federal budget. It’s a tall order: The
lion’s share of spending goes to defense, Poland

Social Security and Medicare, sacred UK

cows that even Trump won’t turn into a
Switzerland
red-meat sacrifice.
US public debt is already rising fast, Mexico

climbing from 79% of GDP in 2019 to close Russia

to 100% in 2024. With Trump promising
Italy
to extend tax cuts from his first term—
currently set to expire in 2025—there’s a France

real risk it continues to race higher. Germany

January 2025 The Year Ahead 15

 Bond vigilantes are already ◼ ALMOST ALL OF ITS
punishing Washington for its borrowing NORWAY DEFEATS 2025 CAR SALES WILL BE
excesses. The yield on 10-year US ELECTRIC, THANKS TO
Treasuries almost touched 4.5% in THE COMBUSTION LAVISH INCENTIVES PAID
November, up from 3.6% in September. FOR BY OIL EXPORTS
And with Treasury borrowing costs
being the global benchmark, a slew of
ENGINE
other countries, including Chile, E5ypt
and South Africa, will have a harder time ◼ BY KARI LUNDGREN
managing deficits and debts.
On security, allies in Europe and Asia In 2017, Norway set a goal of eliminating Norway’s car import association, which
count on the US as a guarantor of peace sales of fossil-fuel-powered cars by represents companies ranging from
and stability. Pax Americana, paid for 2025. At the time it seemed like little Chinese upstarts to German stalwart
with US blood and treasure, has been a more than a feel-good fantasy to soften Volkswagen AG. “We set ambitious goals,”
defining feature of the post-World War II the image of a government led by Erna he says, “but those goals were followed
global order. Trump’s “America First” Solberg, a conservative advocate of oil up with the right policies.”
instincts mean it can no longer be taken production who’d earned the sobri- Those policies are mostly incentives,
for granted. In Ukraine his pledge to end quet “Iron Erna.” But as the deadline which date to 1994, when the Think
the war within 24 hours of taking office approaches, it turns out that the Nordic City—a boxy little EV that made its debut
threatens to force Kyiv into an unequal country will come within a whisker of at the Lillehammer Winter Olympics—
negotiation with Moscow. In Taiwan his meeting that milestone. was exempted from registration taxes.
transactional approach raises new ques- Sure, the achievement has been As the technolo5y came into its own a
tions about the security of a crucial node facilitated by the country’s fossil fuel decade or two later, successive govern-
in the semiconductor supply chain. For exports—$108 billion in 2023—but it stands ments piled on perks for EV drivers:
NATO allies his threat to withhold support out against a background of retreating free parking, access to bus lanes and
to any country not increasing its defense electric-vehicle sales across Europe and exemptions from tolls, road fees and
spending is set to add to some European faltering progress in the US, where EV value-added taxes.
nations’ already considerable debt stress. adoption is in danger as Donald Trump While Norway has started unwinding
There is, to be sure, an internal logic returns to power. The initial target was some benefits—since 2023, for instance,
and an intuitive appeal to Trump’s pro- “utopian,” says Harald Andersen, head of buyers of pricier models have had to
posals. Considered as a package aimed
▼ A CIRCLE K EV STATION UNDER CONSTRUCTION
at reshoring the benefits of US economic
dynamism (and ignoring for a moment
the costs), raising tariffs, cutting taxes
and forcing other countries to pay for
their own defense makes sense.
There’s also the hope that voices
of reason in the administration—with
Treasury Secretary nominee Scott
Bessent the current vessel for investors’
hopes—and the daily reality check from
the markets will prevent policy going too
◼ PHOTOGRAPH BY THOMAS EKSTROM FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK

far off the rails. Trump might be pitch-

ing a 60% tariff on China and massive
unfunded tax cuts. Will he deliver them
if the S&P 500 tanks and Treasury yields
spike in anticipation? Presumably not.
Still, most people in economics and
diplomacy would agree that free trade,
fiscal responsibility and the US security
guarantee have delivered significant ben-
efits for America and the world. Trump
disagrees and promises to forge a new
path. In the year ahead, we’ll find out
who’s right. <BW>

16 The Year Ahead Bloomberg Businessweek

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 pay some VAT—the most important popping up in outposts as far-flung A NORWEGIAN EV BOOM
ones remain, making EVs a mainstay as the Arctic island of Svalbard and ◼ Electric vehicles as share of sales
on Norwegian roads. As a result, repair Kirkenes, a few kilometers from the ◼ Electric vehicles as share of fleet
shops are investing in high-voltage train- Russian border. In September, batteries
ing and facilities suitable for working on powered at least 90% of the new cars 100%

batteries. Filling station chains such as sold in every county of Norway, and as
Circle K are ripping out gas pumps to much as 98% in some places, according
make room for electric plugs. And grid to the Road Federation. Even so, EVs
operators are buried under applications today make up only a quarter of cars 50

for the higher-voltage links needed for on the road and won’t likely reach half
charging points. before 2030.
EVs initially took root in cities such There are now about 170 electric-
as Oslo and Bergen, but they’re now powered models to choose from in 0

Norway. Tesla has surpassed Toyota and 2010 2025

▼ CHARGERS AT A CIRCLE K SOUTH OF OSLO PROJECTED
VW to become the bestselling brand.
Chinese manufacturers such as Xpeng,
BYD and Nio are jostling for prime real The initial appeal of EVs was largely
estate in downtown Oslo. And dealers restricted to the most environment-
woo customers with hot dog parties and conscious Norwegians, but that’s chang-
family outings to an alpaca farm. ing as trust in the technology grows and
As other countries seek to hasten charging options multiply, says Christina
the shift away from fossil fuels, they Bu, secretary general of the Norwegian EV
might well adopt Norway’s strategy Association. Early on, it was common for
of offering sweeteners but avoiding buyers to keep their combustion cars as
an outright ban on combustion cars. backups, but today almost two-thirds of
Although gas-guzzlers can still be sold in EV households are battery-only. “People
2025 and beyond, given the scale of the come to me with stars in their eyes and say
incentives—which have meant billions of they never wanted an EV, but now they
dollars in lost tax revenue—EVs have a are so proud to own one,” Bu says. “There
far lower cost of ownership. is a lesson there for other countries.” <BW>

◼ HOT SEAT: OLIVER BLUME CEO OF VOLKSWAGEN

MAKOTO UCHIDA CEO OF NISSAN
◼ PHOTO: TERJE BORUD ◼ ILLUSTRATION BY FROMM STUDIO (2) ◼ DATA: BLOOMBERG, OFV. 2024 AS OF NOVEMBER

Even as the transition to battery-powered cars luxury lineups, still mostly made in Germany. when activist fund Effissimo Capital Management
is hitting speed bumps in various markets, And after the European Union slapped stiff tariffs Pte Ltd. bought a 2.5% stake in Nissan.
the shift remains inevitable, with tech-savvy on Chinese-made EVs, some of Volkswagen’s The company’s problems have their roots
Chinese manufacturers poised to benefit the brands—particularly Porsche—risk retaliatory in the tenure of former Chairman Carlos Ghosn,
most while the erstwhile giants of the industry levies. That could hammer the sports-car who revived the then-struggling manufacturer by
fall behind. This is placing immense pressure maker’s already dwindling sales. cutting costs, boosting capacity and rolling out
on Volkswagen AG’s Oliver Blume and Nissan Despite the billions VW has spent on a slew of models. That worked for a while, but to
Motor Corp.’s Makoto Uchida. homegrown software for its EVs, its chief maintain the momentum and keep profits from
Faced with sagging demand executive officer has acknowledged that the sagging, Uchida had to lay on higher incentives
for electric vehicles in Europe, code isn’t ready for prime time. To bolster VW’s for dealers and fleet sales while leaving
intensifying competition in portfolio, he’s plowing more than €6 billion its lineup largely unchanged.
China and struggles at Audi and ($6.4 billion) into development deals with US American car buyers are
Porsche—luxury nameplates that startup Rivian Automotive Inc. and China’s backpedaling on EVs but
plump up VW’s margins—Blume is Xpeng Inc. But until cars with the new tech start rediscovering hybrids. Nissan has
leading a push to shut three German reaching showrooms in 2026, VW will be peddling suffered from a dearth of both:
factories and lay off thousands electric models based on older technology. Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda
of workers. That’s sparked a If consumers opt for rivals instead, the German Motor Co. have replaced or
standoff with the company’s company risks failing to meet increasingly strict refreshed most of their models
powerful unions, which have EU standards for fleet emissions. in North America in the past
amped up the pressure with At Nissan, meanwhile, Uchida introduced a year or two, but Nissan’s last
temporary walkouts. last-minute rescue plan after the company’s net major update came in 2021.
The two sides are aiming income plummeted 94% for the first half of the “Meeting our sales goals will
to reach a deal by Christmas. fiscal year ending in March 2025, forcing it to be a challenge,” Uchida told
Even if that happens, VW faces lower its full-year forecast by 70%. The CEO in investors in November. “We
huge challenges. A new Trump early November said he’ll cut 9,000 jobs (about need to rebuild our strength so
White House is threatening 7% of the company’s total workforce), slash we can pivot to a more positive
tariffs that could sharply lift production capacity by 20% and forfeit half of path.” <BW> �Monica Raymunt
sticker prices for the his own salary. Days later, the pressure increased and Nicholas Takahashi

January 2025 The Year Ahead 19

PRICES WILL VARY
◼ DYNAMIC PRICING WILL
GO FAR BEYOND AIRFARES
AND HOTELS, TO MANY
CONSUMERS’ DISMAY

◼ BY AMANDA MULL

If rental cars, hotel rooms, ride-share data they can scrape together—the time easiest to implement online, and plenty
trips, airfares and concert tickets have of day, your location, the product’s pop- of internet retailers have been using it
anything in common, it’s certainly not ularity and inventory level, competitors’ in some capacity for years. These mer-
the overwhelming confidence Americans prices, even whether you’ve visited the chants have a significant advantage in
feel when booking and buying them. product page before. And this practice is doing the kind of large-scale, fine-grained
Prices for these kinds of purchases fluc- likely to become much more widespread data collection that makes it possible to
tuate from one minute to the next—or, in in pretty short order. deploy algorithmic models to maximize
many cases, from buyer to buyer. It’s not According to Dipanjan Chatterjee, purchases. Amazon.com Inc. is generally
that fair prices don’t exist, but it can be a vice president and principal analyst regarded as the retailer with the most
impossible to feel sure you’re getting one. at Forrester Research Inc., consumer sophisticated pricing operation. Not only
You have no idea what anyone else might businesses that have been profit-taking does the megaretailer reprice its own
be paying for the same flight or seat or by raising prices over the past few years products constantly, but it also gives its
midsize sedan, or what you might have can’t just keep marking up their products army of third-party sellers access to tools
paid yesterday or could pay tomorrow. the old-fashioned way. Americans seem that can adjust their listings’ prices auto-
The possibility that you’re being taken for to have been pushed to their limit, finan- matically to compete with other sellers or
a fool (or outright discriminated against) cially and psychologically, by the high- better adapt to the changing preferences
looms every time you click “Buy.” est inflation in four decades; additional of Amazon’s internal search.
Put another way, no regular person broad markups would risk alienating cus- Thanks in part to the investment
has ever sat back and thought, “You know tomers and tanking revenue, Chatterjee dollars pouring into seemingly every
what? I want more of my interactions with said in an email. “I fully expect compa- vaguely artificial-intelligence-tinged busi-
the economy to feel like renting a car.” nies will turn to more sophisticated pric- ness, third-party software vendors have
Nevertheless, a suite of tactics collectively ing mechanisms like dynamic pricing to sprung up to offer similar capabilities
known as dynamic pricing has already boost profitability,” he wrote. to everyone from your landlord to your
crept into an expansive array of consumer Dynamic pricing—a blanket term local ice cream shop. Plenty of them
transactions. Through dynamic pricing, that covers many slightly different tac- seem ready to give it a shot: In a recent
retailers algorithmically adjust prices, tics, including surge pricing, demand survey of 755 American restaurant
sometimes in real time, using whatever pricing and personalized pricing—is operators, the ordering platform Toast

◼ ILLUSTRATION BY MOJO WANG

20 The Year Ahead

found that 70% were “very or extremely “Nontraditional pricing strategies deals. A 2021 study of European grocery
interested” in implementing dynamic like dynamic pricing have a marketing stores found that those using dynamic
pricing that would raise or lower prices problem,” Forrester’s Chatterjee says. He pricing through digital tags both improved
depending on foot traffic or order vol- points to Uber Technologies Inc.’s clumsy margins for retailers and reduced the
ume. (Only 7% reported currently using surge pricing—the flavor of dynamic pric- average cost of goods sold to consumers,
the practice.) The proliferation of things ing that people hate most virulently—as especially for perishable products, which
such as plug-and-play order manage- one source of broad public animus could be more effectively discounted as
ment software and Square’s tablet-based toward the idea. expiration dates neared.
checkout systems has made it feasible for It’s watching a formerly predictable Some people in the pricing industry
many more types of businesses to col- purchase become less fair before their have tried to encourage retailers to adopt
lect basic data on customers and use it to eyes that really grates on people. No one dynamic pricing in ways that paint the
quickly adjust prices, dynamically or not. likes that airfares are higher around the practice in a more positive light. In an edi-
For larger brick-and-mortar retailers, holidays or that beachside hotels are torial in the trade publication Restaurant
increasingly popular digital shelf-labeling more expensive during the summer, Dive, Catherine Tabor, chief executive
systems provide similar capabilities but it’s predictable enough that people officer of the food service software com-
across thousands of products. generally accept it. Having to do some pany Sparkfly, urged restaurants to try
The problem—or one of them, form of that calculus every time you buy out “dynamic offers”—essentially, a spon-
anyway—is that customers hate dynamic groceries is an entirely different kind of taneous, data-driven happy hour to boost
pricing almost as much as they hate nor- budgeting burden. foot traffic during slow periods (which
mal price increases. When Wendy’s Co. Whether dynamic pricing does lead to was, of course, why analog happy hour
announced it would test demand-based the higher prices everyone is afraid of is was invented in the first place), instead
pricing at some of its restaurants in 2025, a more complicated question. When it’s of surge pricing that penalizes shoppers
the internet blowback was so swift and used well, pretty much everyone agrees during high demand. Chatterjee was less
forceful it ditched the plan entirely. And that it results in larger and more consis- optimistic about the possibility that com-
when news got out this past summer tent profits for merchants, who are able to panies would use new pricing methods
that Walmart Inc. and Kroger Co. were maximize margins and volumes simulta- purely to offer better value to their cus-
replacing paper price tags with digital neously in a way that’s much harder with tomers. “Surge pricing is a dirty word,” he
shelf labels, both retailers had to publicly static prices. By definition, that means at says. “Companies are trying to figure out
promise they had no plans to use them to least some customers are getting good how to do it without saying it.” <BW>
raise prices indiscriminately.
Ticketmaster’s demand-based pric-
ing has provoked the ire of fan bases as ◼ THE US GOVERNMENT IS SPENDING
disparate as Taylor Swift’s and Bruce
Springsteen’s. When Oasis announced
THE BILLION- BIG TO PROTECT THE GREAT LAKES
FROM THE INVASIVE FISH
its long-awaited reunion tour dates in
the UK, prices soared so high that the
DOLLAR CARP
band refused to allow Ticketmaster to PLAN
use the same tactic on American dates,
calling it “an unacceptable experience
for fans.” ◼ BY LAURA BLISS
The Federal Trade Commission has
taken notice of these tactics, initiating Standing on a windy bridge over the the US Army Corps of Engineers’ Rock
a study last summer on how a handful Des Plaines River in Joliet, Illinois, Scott Island District.
of popular pricing services use surveil- Whitney shows off a diagram of what He’s focused on one in particular:
lance data to manipulate how much they he calls the gauntlet. Pictured is a half- invasive carp, which have menaced
charge people. But as it stands, dynamic mile-long underwater obstacle course Midwest rivers for decades. Whitney’s
pricing is largely regarded as legal, for fish that runs upstream toward Lake gauntlet—officially known as the Brandon
as long as sellers don’t use protected Michigan. A curtain of turbulent bub- Road Interbasin Project at the Brandon
characteristics such as race or gender bles is followed by a bank of speakers Road Lock and Dam—aims to stop the
to determine what buyers will pay. The emitting ear-splitting noise, then a wall carp from getting any closer to Lake
algorithmic nature of dynamic pricing of electrified water and finally a naviga- Michigan. Scientists deem this spot the
also gives sellers plausible deniability; tion lock designed to flush downstream fish’s likeliest entry point into the Great
who’s to say which data points were dis- any organisms that make it that far. “It’s Lakes and its fishing industry, which
positive? The main risk for retailers is hell for the fish,” says Whitney, chief the Great Lakes Fishery Commission
one of perception. of the project management branch for values at $5.1 billion annually. The

January 2025 The Year Ahead 21

 Corps plans to start building the BRIP lagoons. Eventually funding ran out, and
in January at a cost of $1.15 billion, with the research stopped. But some of the
ILLINOIS
Illinois, Michigan and the federal govern- Lake experimental fish were released, finding
Chicago Michigan
ment splitting the tab. their way into surrounding waterways.
The barrier will be the most ambitious The scientists thought the fish wouldn’t
defense against the carp in America. Their breed in the wild. They were wrong.
Romeoville
deep hunger for plankton has wreaked As they’ve migrated up the Mississippi
havoc on ecosystems, effectively pushing Joliet
River basin, two species have had a par-
out native fish throughout the Mississippi Des Plaines INDIANA ticularly suffocating effect. Silver and
Brandon Road
and its tributaries. In addition to screwing River bighead carp can live for decades, eating
Interbasin
with the food chain, the carp are despised Project pounds of plankton every day. Studies
by fishermen. Silver carp—one of four have found silver carp make up more
closely related species native to different than 90% of the aquatic biomass in sec-
parts of Asia—sometimes leap into the tions of the Mississippi.
air at the sound of an outboard motor, a money and effort into trying to curb In 2002, as part of a broader congres-
stress reaction that has knocked anglers the movement of an invasive species,” sional effort to control invasive aquatic
unconscious and shattered facial bones. says Jim Garvey, a professor of zoology species, the Army Corps installed its first
Already, state and federal govern- and director of the Center for Fisheries, electric barrier to fend off non-native fish
ments have poured hundreds of mil- Aquaculture and Aquatic Sciences at in the Chicago Ship and Sanitary Canal,
lions of dollars into control measures, Southern Illinois University. the critical connection point between the
including electric barriers, harvesting The US’s struggle against invasive carp Mississippi basin and the Great Lakes.
programs and even campaigns aimed started with a well-meaning blunder, as In a section of the canal in Romeoville,
at chefs and home cooks. But none will journalist Dan Egan writes in The Death Illinois, about 10 miles upriver from
attempt to seal off the carp’s potential and Life of the Great Lakes. In the 1970s Brandon Road, an underwater carpet
passage into the Great Lakes with this government scientists in Arkansas were of electrodes emits an electrical field
level of investment. “There really is no testing to see if carp imported from Asia designed to deter carp that swim near
other project, probably in the history of could, as an alternative to chemicals, clean it. Over the past two decades, the Corps
humankind, that has put so much time, up algae from catfish farms and sewage has spent about $286 million adding sim-
ilar barriers in Romeoville and tweaking
▼ JUMPING CARP IN THE FOX RIVER
their voltage levels.
How effective these have been is a
topic of controversy. No carp has been
documented passing through them. But a
handful of carp and a lot of their DNA have
been found upstream of the barriers, close
to Lake Michigan. After one DNA discov-
ery in 2009, Michigan sued the Corps and
Illinois, demanding the canal be closed
because of the carp’s threat to Great
Lakes fisheries. Such a closure would’ve
blocked the small amount of barge traf-
fic that uses the canal to travel in and out
◼ PHOTO: RYAN HAGERTY/USFWS ◼ ILLUSTRATION BY TYLOR MACMILLAN

of Lake Michigan and forced Chicago to

rethink its wastewater disposal. Debate
raged over what closure would cost: The
Corps pegged it at $18 billion; advocacy
groups put it closer to $2 billion.
The case wound its way to the
Supreme Court, which eventually rejected
the closure request. But the sense of
emergency was real. “‘Terminator’ carp
threatens Great Lakes,” the Guardian pro-
claimed in 2010. Then-President Barack
Obama nominated a carp czar to oversee
eradication efforts.

22 The Year Ahead Bloomberg Businessweek

 Amid the Great Carp Alarm, Congress
directed the Corps to study additional

2025
◼ THE
options to prevent invasive species from BEEFS
spreading between the Mississippi basin THAT WILL
and the Great Lakes. In 2019 the chief DEFINE
of the Corps signed off on the Brandon

IN
THE NEXT
Road project. Its deterrents are crafted 12 MONTHS
to target carp at different life stages,
Whitney says.
Since most of the project is under-
water, the view from the bridge where
Whitney is showing off the plan won’t
be that different when the BRIP is com-
FEUDS ◼ BY MAX CHAFKIN
plete. The changes will be below the sur-
face: The channel is being reconstructed ◀ SAM ALTMAN VS. ELON MUSK
to eliminate fish hiding spots or food In one corner: the world’s richest man, electric car and rocket impresario,
and self-proclaimed “first buddy” of Donald Trump. In the other: OpenAI’s
sources and to shore up the structural chief executive officer whom Musk has accused, in a lawsuit, of hijacking
integrity of the 91-year-old navigation the venture in pursuit of profit. Altman and OpenAI dispute the allegation,
suggesting that Musk is just trying to harm a business rival. Musk
facility. The plan is to install the BRIP’s countered with a Trumpian coinage, calling Altman “Swindly Sam.”
electrical barriers with superior insula-
tion to the ones operating in Romeoville, ◀ DOG MAN VS. PADDINGTON BEAR
Two very different visions of kid-friendly entertainment are hitting US
which have been known to throw out theaters within a week of each other in late January. The titular star of
stray voltage. The noise from the under- Paddington in Peru (the third film in the critically beloved series) is an
impeccably dressed, polite, extremely British bear. Dog Man’s hero wears
water speakers will sound a little like a a uniform, drinks out of toilets, is nonverbal and comes from the Captain
fork caught in a lawn mower. Underpants cinematic universe.

Biologists are optimistic that the

BRIP will keep carp at bay. And, really, ◀ BLUESKY VS. X
it’s designed to be redundant with the Thanks to Musk’s right-wing pivot and Trump’s election, X (the social
network formerly known as Twitter) is more relevant than it’s been in years.
setup in Romeoville, which will continue But many of the journalists and celebrities who helped popularize the
to operate at a cost of about $15 million platform are now decamping en masse for Bluesky, where “tweets” are
referred to as “skeets,” and everything else looks pretty much exactly like
per year. Illinois also spends more than Twitter before Musk bought it.
$2.5 million a year paying fishermen to
pull millions of pounds of carp out of the ◀ KENDRICK LAMAR VS. DRAKE
Last year’s big rap beef—in which the two rappers released dueling diss
rivers. (In 2022 the state led a campaign tracks—threatens to spill into the courtroom after a company owned by
to persuade chefs to put carp on restau- Drake said it was preparing to file suit against streaming platform Spotify
and Lamar’s record label for allegedly promoting Lamar’s diss tracks over
rant menus, rebranding it “copi,” short for Drake’s own. Spotify has yet to respond publicly; UMG, which represents
copious, but it hasn’t caught on.) “There both artists, called the claim “offensive and untrue.”
is no single thing that anyone can do to
make it a surefire” deterrent, says Reuben ◀ GOOGLE VS. GAIL SLATER
Keller, a professor of environmental sci- In November the US Department of Justice asked a federal judge to force
Google to sell off its Chrome web browser. Google, which described the
ence at Loyola University Chicago who proposal as “radical,” had hoped things would change after January. But
studies aquatic invasion ecology. in announcing that he’d picked Slater, an aide to Vice President-elect JD
Vance, to run the DOJ’s antitrust division, Trump suggested Slater wouldn’t
Definitions of success may vary. The be much of a friend to Google. “Big Tech has run wild for years,” he said.
goal of the BRIP is to stop carp to the great-
est extent possible, but there’s no official ◀ DONALD TRUMP VS. JEROME POWELL
key performance indicator. Whitney The two men appear poised to resume the uneasy dance that defined
their relationship during Trump’s first presidency. This likely means Trump
acknowledges that, over time, carp could complaining, loudly, that interest rates aren’t low enough, while the Federal
adapt to the BRIP’s deterrents and swim Reserve chair, who’s said inflation remains higher than the central bank
would like, attempts to resist pressure from the president.
past them. That’s why he considers the
project an example of “adaptive manage-
ment,” meaning the Corps will continue ◼ OTHER FEUDS WE’RE WATCHING:
to develop and add anti-carp defenses as #Resistance vs. #Resignation; Zyn vs. ALP; Peanut coin vs. Justice coin; ChatGPT vs. New York
Times; sports betting vs. sports watching; Crocs vs. Birks; Meta’s Reality Labs vs. reality; Le Pen vs.
necessary. “It’s the best we can do today,” l’établissement; Love Is Blind cast members vs. Love Is Blind producers; drugstores vs. people who
Whitney says, “to prevent disastrous con- want to buy a bottle of shampoo real quick; Instagram face vs. Mar-a-Lago face

sequences if we fail.” <BW>

January 2025 The Year Ahead 23

 ◼ GO AHEAD AND TREAT YOURSELF

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HELP YOU FOCUS than by sloughing off the deep wrinkles, rough skin and other
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It’s no secret that headphones can see the kickoff of
help with concentration. Neurable the Year of the Snake
and Master & Dynamic’s $699 in the Chinese lunar
MW75 Neuro headphones offer more calendar. Those born
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though. They’re a brain-computer
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◼ COURTESY COMPANIES

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24 The Year Ahead Bloomberg Businessweek

FOR THOSE WHO KNOW
Creators of luxury kitchen appliances. Established 1683.

Experience it

The difference is Gaggenau

 ◼ THE INDUSTRY GOT EXACTLY WHAT IT WANTED IN
CRYPTO WON. NOVEMBER’S ELECTION AND IS IN A POSITION TO WEAKEN
FINANCIAL RULES THAT MIGHT PROTECT THE ECONOMY
NOW WHAT? FROM THE NEXT CRYPTO CRASH

◼ BY MOLLY WHITE

heard Trump and his surrogates talking

about tech regulation, even if it reverses
the reality, which is that the crypto indus-
try has consistently ignored existing
rules while arguing that the government
should pass friendlier ones. “The crypto
industry is built on a foundation of regu-
latory noncompliance,” says Hilary Allen,
a law professor at American University
and the author of Driverless Finance.
The lack of regulation has led to some
spectacular cases of fraud, but the con-
sequences have been relatively limited.
Financial crises turn into full-blown
catastrophes once a crash in one sector
starts doing real damage elsewhere. (You
didn’t need to be holding a big mortgage
on a suddenly cheap house to feel the
pain in the 2008 crash, for instance.)
The silver lining to the 2022 crypto bust,
Crypto is heading into 2025 on a tear. up its antigovernment, antiestablishment which wiped out countless retail inves-
One month after Donald Trump won the ideology, has become the establishment. tors as well as a number of major crypto
US presidential election, Bitcoin crossed The foundation for this unlikely firms, was that people who hadn’t bought
the $100,000 mark for the first time, and reemergence has been under construc- into the hype were insulated from the
evangelists began declaring it only the tion for years. As attention shifted away devastation. But the firewall separat-
beginning of another cryptocurrency from crypto during its downturn, execu- ing the volatile and fraud-prone crypto
bull run. tives and strategists within the industry markets from traditional finance may
This rally feels different from the quietly got to work. That didn’t mean not hold through a Trump presidency,
regular boom-and-bust cycles that building the long-promised killer app that or protect us through the next crypto
defined cryptocurrency’s teenage years. would finally prove the practical utility market downturn.
For the first time, the US will have a of blockchains. Instead, they laid the Industry cheerleaders like Paul Atkins,
president who’s directly endorsed groundwork for an unprecedented polit- Trump’s nominee to run the Securities
cryptocurrencies—and even introduced ical influence campaign. This worked and Exchange Commission, are slated to
his own token. Trump is already lining up out to more than $130 million in political take over leadership at key federal agen-
crypto believers to take key spots in gov- spending in the 2024 cycle, along with a cies, meaning what little enforcement
ernment. Because his campaign prom- heavy public-relations campaign to con- we’ve seen in the sector is likely to dis-
ises at the annual Bitcoin Conference in vince candidates that they couldn’t afford appear. Instead, the new administration
July included establishing a “strategic to alienate single-issue “crypto voters”—a has telegraphed its intention to defang
national Bitcoin stockpile,” analysts are group strategists largely invented from or dismantle the agencies and regula-
seriously discussing whether the coun- whole cloth. tions that protect consumers and main-
try might do it. Even before the election, The crypto campaigners also ampli- tain faith in businesses and markets. The
◼ ILLUSTRATION BY CHRIS HARNAN

BlackRock Inc. and other financial giants fied narratives that federal agencies have result could be a crypto industry that’s
started exchange-traded funds to offer engaged in a wholesale war on crypto much more entangled with everything
cryptocurrencies through traditional bro- and have pursued extragovernmental else. “The ultimate irony,” Allen says, “is
kerage accounts, paving the way for the campaigns to punish innovative financial that the crypto industry is angling to inte-
asset to reach an even broader group of startups that have done nothing wrong. grate itself with the rest of the financial
buyers. Crypto, which has always played This will sound familiar to anyone who’s system so that it will be supported by the

26 The Year Ahead Bloomberg Businessweek

very central banks crypto was originally underfunded regulator with limited interests. In reality, the proposals would
designed to repudiate.” experience overseeing markets com- have reduced regulatory oversight of
Despite industry protests, regulations posed primarily of retail investors. This crypto firms, in some cases leaving it up
had discouraged major banks from get- shift, combined with the likely appoint- to the industry to “self-regulate” or follow
ting too involved in crypto, thus shield- ment of a crypto-friendly CFTC chair, self-imposed “standards.” No amount of
ing them from its subsequent collapse. would end any hope of meaningful over- self-regulation prevented Bankman-Fried
The importance of that separation was sight of the crypto industry. from squandering billions of dollars of his
underscored in March 2023, when two The incoming administration is also customers’ money, which has left mil-
banks that did have significant crypto- likely to target the Consumer Financial lions of people without access to their
currency exposure failed. At that time Protection Bureau, which was created funds for more than two years now.
most retirement and pension funds had in the wake of the 2008 crisis to com- While the industry has declared
minimal exposure, in part because guid- bat predatory behavior in the finance itself ready for its mainstream and insti-
ance dissuaded fiduciaries from offer- industry. Venture capitalist and recent tutional debut, little has changed to
ing crypto options in 401(k) plans, and political megadonor Marc Andreessen prevent the fraud that’s still rampant
in part because of the unavailability of has railed against the CFPB, erroneously within it. Lawmakers who promised to
crypto assets via traditional brokerages. claiming it was responsible for a cam- prevent anything like FTX from happen-
Some of these protections have paign of “debanking” that unfairly tar- ing again never passed any legislation to
already eroded as the SEC—despite its geted cryptocurrency and fintech firms. do so. Some of them have since cozied
reputation as an industry nemesis— (Incidentally, CFPB director Rohit Chopra up to the industry and agreed to work
approved exchange-traded products has condemned “shady practices” at to undermine any real protections. And
linked to Bitcoin and Ether, making Synapse, a company that Andreessen’s although crypto executives condemned
them more available to traditional inves- firm, Andreessen Horowitz, had invested the 2022 events and lamented the dam-
tors and funds. More retirement account in. When Synapse filed for bankruptcy in age to their reputation, they’ve opposed
administrators, including those manag- April, tens of thousands of people were new ideas for legislation to increase
ing employer-sponsored 401(k) plans, are left without access to their money.) After consumer protections.
offering crypto exposure. the election, Elon Musk said the gov- As more institutions turn their eyes to
The industry has been working hard to ernment should “delete CFPB.” Doing cryptocurrencies, and as surging prices
dismantle restrictions on regulated banks so could dramatically limit, if not elimi- tempt a wave of retail investors to buy
getting involved with crypto, lobbying to nate, the government’s ability to ensure in as they hope for huge returns, the
overturn SEC Staff Accounting Bulletin 121, fairness in consumer financial services, stakes have never been higher. Prices
which instructs banks to disclose the including in areas where it’s already could continue to go up, powered by the
crypto assets they hold on behalf of cus- expressed concern, such as digital pay- sugar high of having believers in power
tomers and to maintain sufficient assets ments and crypto gaming. continues. But the industry’s massive
to secure those holdings. The industry The industry’s lobbying is strikingly influence campaign hasn’t changed the
denounced the bulletin, saying it made similar to that of former FTX Chief fundamental risks or the widespread
it “impossible” for banks to hold crypto- Executive Officer and current federal fraud. Another washout could be more
currencies. It persuaded national lawmak- inmate Sam Bankman-Fried. Before his devastating to even more people. It
ers to introduce a bill in February 2024 company’s collapse and the exposure could threaten retirement savings and
that would not only overturn the commis- of the massive fraud lurking just under pension funds, even the broader banking
sion’s guidance wholesale but prevent it its surface, Bankman-Fried hobnobbed system and economy.
from putting up similar guardrails going with congresspeople to pitch his vision There’s a chance that when that
forward. The attempt to revoke the bulle- for legislation that he claimed would happens, crypto will have grown so
tin passed in Congress but was ultimately fill regulatory gaps while allowing the enmeshed with the rest of the finan-
vetoed by President Joe Biden, who crypto industry to flourish. He publicly cial world that a collapse in once-fringe
expressed concern that it would “jeop- spent around $40 million on campaign speculative digital assets must be pre-
ardize the well-being of consumers and contributions. Later it came out that he vented at any cost. Will the industry’s
investors” and hamstring the SEC. had spent closer to $100 million, funnel- endemic fraud and risk-taking ultimately
Under Trump, no such vetoes are ing the difference through “dark money” be backstopped by government bailouts,
likely to prevent Congress, with its channels and illegal straw donors. funded by taxpayers who may them-
increasing ranks of pro-crypto law- Although Bankman-Fried and others selves have no exposure to crypto assets?
makers, from peeling back the SEC’s in crypto said his lobbying would bene- It certainly seems that the believers now
authority. Congress can also be expected fit both the industry and consumer pro- descending on Washington are closer
to try again to move regulatory author- tection, critics worried that his efforts than ever to their goal of taking over the
ity to the Commodity Futures Trading were merely self-serving attempts to pay financial system. At that point, they may
Commission, a much smaller and off lawmakers to elevate FTX’s business be too big to fail. <BW>

January 2025 The Year Ahead 27

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 ◼ THANKS TO AI, DATA CENTERS ARE
AMERICA NEEDS POWER. POPPING UP ACROSS THE COUNTRY.
BUT THE CLIMATE PRICE FOR ALL OF
CAN THE INDUSTRY DELIVER? THIS ENERGY USE IS STEEP

◼ BY WILL WADE AND JOSH SAUL

Delivering power to homes and energy, and Donald Trump’s imminent Although other industries can handle
companies is supposed to be a boring return to the White House promises to fast growth, electricity is different. Big
and predictable business. While it’s true shake up the transition even more. By all infrastructure projects such as power
that the US population has been increas- accounts, the industry isn’t ready. “The plants and transmission lines can take
ing and electrifying more things as it impact of AI on the power grid came a decade to build and can run for a
does, that growth in power use has been on fast,” says Timothy Fox, an analyst half-century or longer.
offset by energy savings as buildings, fac- at ClearView Energy Partners. “We’re Consider what’s happening in
tories and appliances become more effi- seeing load-growth projections that Georgia. The Peach State has a strong
cient. Indeed, electricity consumption in are unprecedented.” manufacturing base and an ever-
the US has changed little since the start of US power demand is expected to increasing number of large data centers—
the 21st century. Until now. climb almost 16% over the next five more than 50 in total. Over the past
Suddenly, America needs more juice— years, more than triple the estimate from year, the state’s largest power company
for factories and homes, electric vehicles a year ago, according to Washington, DC, has more than doubled its forecast for
and heating, and especially data centers consulting firm Grid Strategies. That’s demand from committed and potential
and artificial intelligence. The surge in an enormous shift, since America’s customers building large power-hungry
power demand is unlike anything utilities demand for electricity has risen less than projects. In 2023, Georgia Power said
have seen in decades, perhaps not since 1% a year for more than two decades. those projects would need 17 gigawatts
World War II. That’s going to complicate According to Grid Strategies, load growth of electricity by the mid-2030s, but
the country’s already bumpy shift to clean will hit 3% in 2024. in November it updated that figure
◼ HEATHER KHALIFA/BLOOMBERG

▲ THREE MILE ISLAND IS BEING REVIVED TO HELP

SATISFY DATA CENTERS’ DEMAND FOR ENERGY

January 2025 The Year Ahead 29

 to more than 36GW. For context, haven’t been finalized, and pollution and trade barriers that would threaten
a single gigawatt can power about rules from the Environmental Protection technology key to producing renewable
fg50,000 homes. Agency could be modified. The new power. Few expect the transition in
The surge is prompting utilities and administration is likely to unwind many Washington to be uneventful. Even util-
their big power-using customers to make climate regulations, including those chal- ity heads who say Trump won’t change
some unexpected decisions. After years lenged by utilities, coal enthusiasts and their climate plans are gaming out what
of watching coal plants retire in droves red states. Offshore wind, a longtime tar- the new administration means for them.
as power producers sought to curb their get of Trump’s ire, may be especially vul- At a recent utility conference in Florida,
planet-warming emissions, some utilities nerable, because it’s regulated primarily Bob Frenzel, the chief executive officer
are reversing course on climate goals. by federal agencies. of Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy Inc.,
Customers are clamoring for so much Individual states have broad authority said he’s going to push the new admin-
electricity that operators are keeping to regulate power plants, and many have istration to think about the transmission
their dirtiest fossil fuel plants running become more aggressive about reining lines the US needs for the next century.
longer than expected. in emissions, but the president will still “I’m trying to step into the adminis-
FirstEnergy Corp., based in Akron, have significant leverage. “Trump could tration lingo,” Frenzel said. “Make the
Ohio, plans to continue operating its Fort prevent new restrictions from happen- grid great again.” <BW>
Martin and Harrison coal-fired plants in ing, and he could try to unwind some of
West Virginia, abandoning an earlier the ones that are already on the books,”
pledge to stop using the fuel by 2030. says ClearView’s Fox. ◼ HOT SEAT: KELLY ORTBERG
Other coal plants across the US that were One area that may thrive is nuclear, CEO OF BOEING
scheduled to close in the next several which has had a surge in interest both
years are getting life extensions as utili- from tech companies that need clean Boeing Co. has endured extreme
turbulence in recent years. The US aviation
ties contend with the increased demand. energy and from climate advocates champion’s workhorse 737 suffered fatal
Expec t to see more climate who are taking a more favorable view of accidents in 2018 and 2019, the pandemic
cratered sales, and a near catastrophe in
backtracking in 2025 as regulators stress reactors that supply carbon-free power January 2024—a door plug blew out of
another 737—exposed troubling lapses in
quality control. It’s Kelly Ortberg’s job to
“WHEN PUSH COMES TO SHOVE, STATES get Boeing back on track.
The industry veteran had a rocky start
ARE GOING TO MAKE SURE THEY HAVE when 33,000 hourly workers walked off the
job in September, halting most production

RELIABLE AND AFFORDABLE POWER” for almost two months and costing the
company billions of dollars in lost output.
It didn’t help employee relations when the
“reliability”—making sure there’s enough around the clock. The technology has chief executive officer said he’d eliminate
some 17,000 jobs—about 10% of the global
power on the grid so the lights stay on long benefited from bipartisan support, workforce—at the height of the dispute.
and the data centers continue to hum. and Trump has also spoken in favor of it. But Ortberg is starting to turn things
around. In October he arranged $23 billion
“It’s going to be a challenge to keep up In the past year, major technology in fresh financing to prop up the company’s
with carbon commitments with this new companies, including Alphabet, Amazon depleted reserves. A week later he agreed
to a deal that ended the strike after 53 days.
load growth,” says Rob Gramlich, Grid and Meta, have all announced plans to He says Boeing can return to form as long
Strategies’ president. For many compa- tap nuclear plants to sate their data cen- as employees focus on competition with
archrival Airbus SE and “don’t sit at the
nies, carbon goals are “nice to have,” he ters’ large appetites. Microsoft Corp. watercooler and bitch,” as he put it in his
says, but “when push comes to shove, has agreed to buy power from a reac- first all-hands meeting in November.
Despite blunt comments like that and
states are going to make sure they have tor that Baltimore-based Constellation the ongoing job cuts, the shop floor is
reliable and affordable power.” Energy Corp. plans to restart at Three warming to Ortberg. He’s trying to be more
involved than his hands-off predecessor,
Trump’s administration is likely to Mile Island, the Pennsylvania facility Dave Calhoun, making frequent visits to
push climate goals back further. The that was the site of the worst US nuclear the production lines and buying a house in
Seattle, Boeing’s primary manufacturing
incoming president, a fan of fossil accident, in 19fg9. Having a supporter in hub, whereas Calhoun mostly worked
fuels, has said climate change is a hoax the White House may also speed the con- from his homes in New Hampshire and
South Carolina.
and vowed to roll back parts of the struction of a new generation of small Now Ortberg needs to
Democrats’ signature climate law, modular nuclear reactors. Progress on streamline the sprawling
operation, get production
the Inflation Reduction Act, which he that front has been glacial so far. back up to full speed and
◼ ILLUSTRATION BY FROMM STUDIO

calls a “green new scam.” He’ll have For now, it’s hard to predict how plan a successor to the
737 Max, the popular-
several tools at his disposal that may aid Trump may disrupt the energy indus- yet-troubled plane that
utilities that are rethinking their plans to try. He’s urging oil and natural gas got Boeing into its
current funk—and
close coal plants. producers to increase output, has him into his job. <BW>
Policies for claiming some tax incen- long positioned himself as a friend ——Benedikt Kammel

tives under the Inflation Reduction Act to coal miners and is pushing for tariffs

30 The Year Ahead Bloomberg Businessweek

        

  

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 ◼ THE BOOKS

A READING LIST PEOPLE WILL BE

TALKING ABOUT
OVER THE NEXT
12 MONTHS

FOR THE NEW YEAR

◼ BY JAMES TARMY

MARK TWAIN
NONFICTION By Ron Chernow, May 13, Penguin Press

HUBRIS: THE AMERICAN ORIGINS If contemporary readers think of Twain

OF RUSSIA’S WAR AGAINST UKRAINE (and one suspects they rarely do unless
By Jonathan Haslam , Jan. 28, Belknap Press they’re in high school English class), they
tend to associate him with The Adventures
It may be comforting to see the invasion of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of
of Ukraine as arising solely from Vladimir Huckleberry Finn. This is a grave injustice
Putin’s desire to resurrect the glory days to Twain (real name: Samuel Langhorne
of Russian imperialism. But Haslam, a Clemens) and to themselves. Now, Pulitzer
professor of international relations at Prize-winning Chernow has written one of
the University of Cambridge and a lead- his trademark lengthy, gripping and acces-
ing expert on the Soviet Union, con- sible biographies, in this case burnishing
vincingly traces a line from America’s the reputation of one of the 19th century’s
conduct during and after the fall of the greatest literary voices.
USSR to Russia’s bellicosity today. Haslam
is by no means a Putin apologist, but TO SAVE AND DESTROY:
kicking a country while it was down, WRITING AS AN OTHER
he shows, was always bound to have By Viet Thanh Nguyen, April 8,
Belknap Press
serious consequences.

WORLD EATERS: HOW VENTURE Nguyen, who wrote the Pulitzer-winning

CAPITAL IS CANNIBALIZING novel The Sympathizer, has compiled the
THE ECONOMY essays he delivered in 2023 and 2024 at
By Catherine Bracy, March 4, Dutton Harvard’s Norton Lectures into this com-
pact volume. Topics range from the value
In theory, venture capital is just a way (social, financial) of his cultural “other-
to direct money from institutional inves- ness” to the responsibilities of minority
tors to fledgling businesses. Every major creators in the arts. Slight as the book may
American tech company to emerge in be, it’s packed with what we’ve come to
the past few decades, and countless expect from Nguyen: clean, fluid prose,
less famous ones, has been backed by a combination of political and social cri-
VC. And yet Bracy, the chief executive tique with allusions to his own biography,
officer of advocacy group TechEquity, as well as arguments so compelling they
◼ PHOTO ILLUSTRATIONS BY BORIS PRAMATAROV

argues this model is pernicious in ways feel like simple recitations of fact.
we’re only beginning to grasp. She takes
issue with what she describes as venture WHEN IT ALL BURNS: FIGHTING
capital’s emphasis on “hyper maximal- FIRE IN A TRANSFORMED WORLD
ist growth”—saying it focuses too much By Jordan Thomas, May 27, Riverhead Books
on short-term success—and persuasively
demonstrates how VC’s prevalence has Forest fires are now a fact of life in the
created a startup monoculture. US, as evidenced recently by thousands

32 The Year Ahead Bloomberg Businessweek

of acres of New Jersey burning for weeks. MAZELTOV
East Coast fires, though, are nothing com- By Eli Zuzovsky, Feb. 11, Henry Holt & Co.
pared with the million-acre infernos expe-
rienced in California, which are fueled by A bar mitz vah is a coming- of-age
both climate change and overdevelop- ceremony that brings opportunity for
ment. The immediacy, danger and horror limitless forms of misery and stress to
of the destruction are vividly described in the pubescent man-to-be. And when that
this first-person account of fighting them “man” standing in front of the Torah in
as part of the elite Los Padres Hotshots an Israeli synagogue is perhaps slightly
crew by Thomas, an anthropologist and more neurotic and definitely more gay
scholar. This isn’t merely a triumphant than his peers, those flash points are
story of machismo and heroism; Thomas compounded. Rather than dwell on
is just as interested in how we got into this the slapstick of adolescence, Zuzovsky, Peter Schjeldahl. This novel follows an
mess as what he did to mitigate it. a Rhodes scholar currently getting his accomplished freelance writer living in
Ph.D. at the University of Oxford, posi- New York who embarks on a sanctioned
tions his protagonist within the complex extra marital affair. It has parallels to
and often problematic context of his Miranda July’s All Fours, which also
FICTION family, country and community. revolves around a woman of a cer-
tain age experimenting with sex and
THE ENGLISH PROBLEM THE FACT CHECKER romance beyond her nuclear family. But
By Beena Kamlani, Jan. 28, Crown By Austin Kelley, April 15, Grove Atlantic Calhoun’s book is lighter and a bit grit-
tier, with the consequences of infidelity
This novel follows Shiv, the son of a prom- Kelley, a former fact-checker at the New delivered as a relief.
inent Indian lawyer who’s sent to the UK Yorker, has written a debut novel about
to study law in the 1930s. (The plan was (you guessed it) a fact-checker at a mag- REMEMBER THIS
devised by his father’s friend, Mahatma azine like the New Yorker. And while this By Anthony Giardina, March 4,
Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Gandhi.) The idea is for Shiv to return to line of work is perhaps not as scintillat-
India and use his newfound skills to help ing as he’d have us believe, the plot that
it achieve independence. Of course, it springs from such humble beginnings It’s rare to find a book this well written
isn’t that simple, largely because aspects is worth a read. While working on an and paced. Giardina takes his time set-
of assimilation prove more seductive than inconsequential piece about the Union ting up the stakes: Miranda is a would-be
Shiv anticipates. Kamlani, a veteran edi- Square Greenmarket, his protagonist biographer of an overlooked painter
tor and writer who’s somehow only now trips into a rabbit hole populated with named Anna Soloff, who’s becoming
publishing her first novel, does a superb odd, only-in-New-York characters. a market sensation after her death.
job of illustrating the barbarity of the Miranda’s father, Henry, has been an
British ruling class while underscoring CRUSH overlooked playwright for much of his
the nobility and contradictions of their By Ada Calhoun, Feb. 25, Viking own life, until a self-help book makes
subjugated Indian counterparts. The him belatedly famous. Separately the
book never feels moralizing or pedantic, Calhoun is best known for Also a Poet, two dance around their responsibili-
even as it introduces a range of figures a much- heralded 2022 memoir that ties (to themselves and everyone else)
we’re more accustomed to seeing in detailed her complicated relation- as they gradually find a middle ground
history books. ship with her father, the late art critic among art and compromise. <BW>

January 2025 The Year Ahead 33

WARS WITH
◼ BAD PEACE DEALS WOULD
COMPOUND THE ALREADY
HIGH COST OF DETERRING
FUTURE AGGRESSION

ENDLESS COSTS
◼ BY MARK WHITEHOUSE

The election of Donald Trump could very small. A calculator developed by Germany’s
make 2025 a pivotal year for the wars Kiel Institute for the World Economy, using his-
in Ukraine and Gaza, given that torical data on more than 150 conflicts since
the president-to-be of the world’s 1870, estimates a cumulative loss of about
leading superpower has pledged $300 billion, or just 0.25% of countries’
to put an end to both. Even if he combined annual gross domestic prod-
succeeds, the economic conse- uct. In practice, with its large defense
quences of these conflicts will be industry and ample energy supplies,
long-lasting, and his dealmaking the US might even gain.
won’t necessarily make them better. That said, not all output is created
The two wars are already among the equal. There’s a difference between
worst human tragedies of the 21st cen- producing steel to make build-
tury. Probably more than 180,000 ings and manufacturing mis-
combatants and 40,000 civilians have siles to obliterate them.
perished, including thousands of chil-
dren. In addition, the so-called indirect
deaths of Palestinians—from starvation
and disease—likely exceed 60,000.
Millions more have been driven from
their homes, perhaps never to return.
The rubble in Gaza alone could take
years to clear away. The geopolitical
repercussions are hard to predict—as the
sudden collapse of the Bashar Al-Assad

◼ ILLUSTRATION BY DANIEL ZENDER, HOT SEAT: ILLUSTRATION BY FROMM STUDIO ◼ DATA: COMPILED BY BLOOMBERG
regime in Syria eloquently demonstrates. are warning
Yet so far global stock markets don’t they may be
seem terribly concerned. Through the forced to slash
end of November, a Bloomberg index production and workers. But US
of global equities had risen about 25% liquefied natural gas companies
since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, have ramped up exports to Europe,
2022, and 32% since Hamas attacked and defense companies such as
Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Germany’s Rheinmetall AG have
Why so sanguine? Wars have win- seen their stock prices soar
ners and losers. Ukraine’s economy on expectations of surging
has shrunk significantly; Gaza’s has col- orders and earnings.
lapsed. The cutoff from cheap Russian In the final tally, for
gas has slammed European consum- countries outside the
ers and manufacturers, especially in war zone the net out-
Germany, where industrial giants such put effect of both
as Volkswagen AG and Thyssenkrupp AG wars could be
“GDP is not a good measure in countries almost $500 billion by the World Bank. A Russia-controlled Ukraine would
at war,” says Sergei Guriev, dean of Granted, such efforts may have an present Europe with the challenge of
London Business School and former upside. If the EU reaches an agree- absorbing more refugees and defend-
chief economist at the European Bank ment on how to provide for its com- ing against further aggression, at a cost
for Reconstruction and Development. mon defense, the enhanced unity and many times that of defending Ukraine
“Producing tanks to get burned up in security could make it a more attractive alone. Moscow could also wreak havoc
Ukraine doesn’t improve quality of life.” destination for much-needed private by exporting weaponry—empowering,
Also, output doesn’t come close to investment. “I could even imagine some for example, the Houthi militia in Yemen
capturing the whole economic picture. to shut down access to the Suez Canal, a
The return of war to Europe and the MORE TANKS, FEWER CARS key maritime trade route.
Middle East will have long-term effects Stock price If China were emboldened to invade
on the finances of the governments that Volkswagen Rheinmetall AG Taiwan, the disruption to the global
buy the materiel and pay the soldiers. €600 economy would be much greater. The
So much for the “peace dividend,” the US might be compelled to bolster its
idea that the fall of the Soviet Union Russia military to respond to multiple threats
invades
would usher in a more harmonious era Ukraine
at once—a costly proposition at a time
in which governments could spend less 300 when the government’s debts are already
on their militaries and more on lower- growing at an unsustainable pace.
ing taxes, expanding social benefits and If those are the hazards of a bad
other nice things. peace, a continuation of these conflicts
“Russia has built up enormous capac- 0 presents its own risks. In addition to the
ity in making weapons. It would be naive 12/2021 11/2024 ever-increasing human toll, the wars are
to think they won’t keep using those dangerous generators of radical uncer-
capabilities,” says Jonathan Federle, a tainty. The speed with which Islamist
research fellow at the Kiel Institute. “This kind of defense dividend,” Federle says. rebels have overrun Syria illustrates
presents a persistent security threat.” Much, however, depends on Trump. the potential for the unexpected. The
The European Union in particular will If he strikes deals that achieve indepen- longer the fighting goes on, the greater
have to ramp up spending to strengthen dence for Ukraine and some semblance the chances that some extreme event—
its militaries and its capacity to produce of peace for Palestinians, he could say, Russia hitting the wrong part of a
armaments—something EU leaders have enhance global security. If his nego- Ukrainian nuclear facility, or the Middle
set as a top priority for 2025. Bloomberg tiating approach amounts to accom- East war expanding to threaten global
Intelligence estimates that by 2034 the modating Russian President Vladimir oil supplies—will freak markets out to the
necessary spending could add as much Putin’s designs on Ukraine or Israel’s point that it affects the real economy. In
as $2.8 trillion to the sovereign debts permanent occupation of Gaza and such a scenario, few countries would
of European NATO members—further annexation of the West Bank, then the escape the repercussions.
stretching already precarious finances result could be fragile and costly. “How “I don’t think that in the 21st century
and limiting their ability to respond the conflicts end matters,” Guriev says. you can find a democratic politician or
to other economic shocks. Then there “If anyone sees the outcome as good for corporate CEO who thinks, ‘Oh, these
are the potential costs of rebuilding the aggressors, that increases the risk of wars are good for me,’ ” Guriev says.
Ukraine, most recently estimated at further aggression.” “Everybody wants them to end.” <BW>

◼ HOT SEAT: KRISTI NOEM

NOMINEE, SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY

A few people have been tapped to help President- to Texas in 2021 to help secure the plans in the most aggressive way possible.
elect Donald Trump enact his sweeping campaign southern border. Critics blasted the During the president-elect’s first term, those
promise to deport millions of migrants, but Kristi move as a publicity stunt—some tasked with implementing his vision didn’t
Noem, the proposed head of the Department found it doubly inappropriate because have a long shelf life. John Kelly lasted
of Homeland Security, will be at the center of it was funded by a private donation. seven months as secretary of homeland
the effort, which will touch multiple agencies. A Noem will have plenty of security before becoming White House
former member of the House of Representatives opportunities to find more controversy chief of staff, then fell out with Trump. The
and the current governor of South Dakota, Noem if the Senate confirms her. next in line for the job, Kirstjen Nielsen, also
has proved her MAGA bona fides. In addition Immigration is arguably Trump’s exited prematurely. Whether or not she
to taking on a variety of culture war issues, she top priority, and she will face succeeds, Noem is bound to have a
deployed members of her state’s National Guard pressure to carry out his long year. <BW> �Reyhan Harmanci

January 2025 The Year Ahead 35

 $44 Trillion
Risk Degrading
Our Earth

Land Restoration Takes Without well-implemented and impactful environment. This initiative requires
COP16 Spotlight solutions, the world faces significant broad participation to succeed. “All
risks, including increased migration and the stakeholders need to be engaged
“We want all of life’s conveniences, food insecurity, and devastating effects and positively react,” said Faqeeha.
but we don’t want to know about on livelihoods and the global economy.
the environmental cost of providing Funding, policy and partnerships
them. The facts are overwhelming,
but they cannot be overlooked.” According to the UN Environment
These are the words of Dr. Osama Programme (UNEP), combined
Ibrahim Faqeeha, Deputy Minister funding from both public and private
of Environment of Saudi Arabia, sources to address climate change
speaking to Bloomberg ahead of totals approximately $200 billion
the UNCCD COP16, a landmark per year. However, only $35 billion is
environmental conference that took allocated to land restoration projects.
place in Riyadh in early December. UNEP estimates that $200 billion
annually is needed to reach land
The issue at the heart of the degradation neutrality (LDN) by 2030.
event? Land degradation—a global
issue that puts half the world’s
GDP—$44 trillion—at risk. “We need to engage with financial
leaders to say: Every dollar invested
The United Nations Convention to in land restoration and sustainable
Combat Desertification event brought management returns between
together thousands of global leaders $7 and $30. We need to highlight
across the public and private sectors to these examples and inspire long-
raise awareness and drive urgent action term thinking,” said Faqeeha.
on land degradation and restoration. Ecosystem restoration and the
Middle Eastern Green Initiative
Land degradation: A global alarm Land degradation and restoration are
As part of the United Nations on the global agenda at DAVOS 2025,
“The challenge with land degradation Decade on Ecosystem Restoration where leaders are expected to build on
is that we are not exposed to its impact (2021–2030), global leaders have discussions and plans from COP16.
in our daily lives,” said Faqeeha. But its committed to restoring 1.5 billion
impact is reaching all corners of the hectares of land by 2030. “We need to mobilize global resources
world. It is estimated that 40% of the to address these targets, and we
planet’s soil quality is already in poor The Middle Eastern Green Initiative, led need to act now,” said Faqeeha.
condition—and an alarming 100 million by Saudi Arabia, is one of the world’s
acres of land is further degraded every leading reforestation efforts. The
year. The socioeconomic impact of initiative brings the public and private
land degradation directly or indirectly sectors together with the aim to plant 50
affects 3.2 billion people—around billion trees and rehabilitate 200 million Sponsored by

40% of the global population. hectares across the region’s dry desert
 ◼ HOME PRICES KEEP FALLING

NO EASY FIX FOR IN ZHENGZHOU, REVEALING

THE LIMITS OF STATE
INTERVENTION

CHINA’S HOUSING
CRISIS

▲ A SUBURBAN HOUSING PROJECT IN ZHENGZHOU

◼ BY BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK

As President Xi Jinping tries to defuse a of China keep falling. A recent visit by hoarding cash. Without stability in the
property slump that represents the great- Bloomberg Businessweek to the city revealed property market, the country is at risk of
est threat to China’s economy, rescue evidence of the state intervention—cranes a prolonged economic stagnation similar
efforts in a city that presaged the crisis whirring again along the skyline thanks to Japan’s “lost decade” in the 1990s. Even
are failing to spur a rebound. Zhengzhou, to government loans for long-stalled with government intervention, there may
where Foxconn Technology Group runs developments and people collecting be several more years of housing pain:
the world’s biggest iPhone factory, was keys to move into an affordable housing China’s population is shrinking, consumers
among the first in the nation to see its project—but would-be buyers remained are worried about unemployment, and
housing market crash. Since 2022 the on the sidelines, convinced that prices there are just too many homes.
◼ PHOTOGRAPH BY YUFAN LU FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK

local government has adopted an array of had far from bottomed out. The public Out in the Zhengzhou suburb of Huiji,
measures to revive the market, including housing push, Zhengzhou’s boldest effort, Yoki Ye said she long dreamed of purchasing
loans to developers to complete unfin- isn’t making a dent in the oversupply of a larger apartment for her and her 7-year-
ished projects, offers to buy their surplus homes, because it’s too difficult for the old son but has now shelved that notion. Ye
units and turn them into affordable hous- local government to persuade developers used to own a small rental apartment with
ing, and even payments to residents who to sell apartment complexes at enough of her then-husband, which they sold in 2020
replace outdated homes. a discount to make the economics work. after his pay was slashed during an official
Zhengzhou has tried so many ideas The biggest problem in Zhengzhou crackdown on finance industry wages. The
that officials from other cities have been and across the nation is that families, sale price on the home was about a fifth
9ocking there to study its model. And yet which have in recent years relied on real less than what they could’ve gotten at the
home prices in Zhengzhou and the rest estate for almost 80% of their wealth, are market peak. Ye, now 37 and divorced,

January 2025 The Year Ahead 37

 works part time teaching English and ▼ ZHENGZHOU’S FINANCIAL ISLAND
still owns another rental property, which
covers her expenses, but she keeps a tighter
budget these days. “I used to think home ▼ DEK DEK DEK DEK
DEK TK TK TK TK
prices would never fall,” she said. “The TK
reality has been a slap in the face.”
Beijing has introduced a slew of mea-
sures to support the property market since
2022. It’s made it easier and cheaper for
people to buy homes, while providing
government lending to developers so they
can finish projects, creating what’s known
as the white list. None of this has solved
the crisis. After a brief recovery in October,
residential sales fell again in November.
National used-home prices have declined
for 39 straight months through October,
to a level about 30% below the July 2021
peak; Zhengzhou’s market has followed to sell, while Bloomberg Intelligence says expectations outran reality. From 2010 to
a similar trend. Fitch Ratings Inc. expects it would cost 11 trillion yuan ($1.5 trillion) 2020, Zhengzhou’s population grew 4fj%,
a 5% decline in new-home prices in 2025. to complete the presold units. to 12.fj million, while the total urban area
Developers are still strapped for More fiscal stimulus and reform mea- more than doubled. The city was never
financing—all but a few non-state-owned sures to tackle the housing downturn are able to attract as many new residents as

◼ PHOTOGRAPHS BY YUFAN LU FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK (2) ◼ ILLUSTRATION BY FROMM STUDIO ◼ DATA: NATIONAL BUREAU OF STATISTICS OF CHINA, BLOOMBERG CALCULATIONS
companies have defaulted since 2021—and needed, particularly with the likelihood officials had hoped.
the protracted property downturn has of increased US tariffs to be imposed by Much of the construction was tied to a
spread to the nation’s $fj0 trillion financial incoming President Donald Trump, says vast factory complex developed around
system, hurting state-owned banks as their Duncan Wrigley, chief China economist Foxconn and a manufacturing facility built
bad loans creep up and profitability wanes. at Pantheon Macroeconomics. by the electric-car maker BYD Co. City
China’s housing ministry, the Zhengzhou The housing slump is partly Xi’s own officials piggybacked on the investments
local government and the city’s pub-
lic housing operator didn’t respond to “I USED TO THINK HOME PRICES
Businessweek’s questions about state WOULD NEVER FALL. THE REALITY
intervention in the property market and
its impact. HAS BEEN A SLAP IN THE FACE”
The country’s glut of unsold new homes doing. His clampdown on the property with countless new residential communities
runs into the tens of millions, and a vast market, which accounted for almost a and a $5 billion business district, known as
number of units that were presold but never quarter of the economy at its height, Financial Island. Zhengzhou officials hold
built exacerbates the problem. Landing on starved debt-laden developers of financing. out hope that improved roads, revamped
definitive estimates for either is impossi- Covid-19 lockdowns were another blow airports and photogenic architectural
ble because of the methodology used by to the industry, and a liquidity scare showpieces will bring in more opportu-
the official statistics bureau. Bloomberg in August 2021 by China Evergrande nity seekers and tourism. Yet, outside the
Economics estimates that the surplus of Group, then the world’s most indebted bustling city center, towers stand silently
unsold homes would take over five years real estate developer, triggered further above broad boulevards devoid of cars and
regulatory tightening and marked the people. Of the seven housing development
TUMBLING PROPERTY SALES beginning of the downturn. (By the end sales offices Businessweek visited, most
Value of property sales in China, in yuan of 2021, Evergrande was in default.) were empty. In one, run by the distressed
Zhengzhou, located in the central Yellow developer Country Garden Holdings Co.,
15t River Valley, is the capital of Henan, which a handful of customers were milling about
was once among the nation’s poorest beneath giant signs assuring them that the
10 provinces. After the arrival of the elec- projects were on the government white
tronics factories, manufacturing overtook list. State-owned builders were offering
5 farming as the local career of choice. Henan discounts for October purchases of as
achieved incredible growth as a result. much as $20,000 on the total price of a
0 It now has an economy worth $800 bil- home. China Overseas Land & Investment
2003 2024 lion, nearly the size of Switzerland’s. But Ltd., once the nation’s most valuable

38 The Year Ahead

 ▼ APARTMENT BLOCKS UNDER CONSTRUCTION to sell them at steep discounts. On top of
that, governments need access to cheap
financing to make money off projects that
offer low rental yields. For local state-owned
companies to be incentivized to scale up
their purchases of inventory, analysts at
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. have estimated
that a discount of 30% may be needed,
while Huatai Securities Co. analysts have
suggested that markdowns of more than
50% may be required.
At a suburban development called
Creekside Cilla, about 20 miles southeast
of the city center, construction recently
restarted after a two-year lull. The local
government facilitated a loan to help the
state-owned developers complete these
homes, says a person familiar with the
publicly listed builder, was offering newly unsold units from developers and converted matter who asked not to be identified
constructed apartments for less than older them into affordable housing over the last discussing private terms. It also agreed to
units nearby. two years or so. The government hasn’t purchase most of the project’s unsold units
Wang Wu, a 41-year-old cab driver, said how much money it put into the effort, and turn them into affordable housing. On
got in on the activity in 2018, buying a but the financial news outlet Caixin Media a recent visit, billboards outside Creekside
three-bedroom apartment in Zhengzhou reported the figure to be 30 billion yuan. Cilla advertised plans for a convenience
with a down payment of just 5,000 yuan. About three-quarters of the funding for the store, a fruit shop, an internet cafe and
“I missed the first property boom, because Zhengzhou program comes from commer- two subway stations. There was no sign of
I was a kid back then. I missed the second, cial bank loans, according to a state-backed any of that, and the showroom no longer
because I had no money,” he said from magazine, and the interest rate was only existed. The surrounding neighborhood
behind the wheel of an electric taxi made 3%. Still, there’s a consensus emerging was largely deserted. A plot of land across
in China. “When the third one came, I among analysts that the affordable-housing the street, cleared for high-rises, had sat
acted without thinking.” He paid off the model won’t have much of an impact on dormant for the last two years, so locals
down payment over two years, he said, but the oversupply of unsold homes, primarily planted a vegetable garden in the dirt. A
the market had already started to crumble because it’s hard to make projects finan- homeowner who asked not to be identi-
by then. The weak economy means fewer cially attractive for local governments. It’s fied to protect his safety lamented that
people are taking taxis, and he’s struggling difficult for officials to find entire apartment the value of his property was now half of
to cover the mortgage. blocks of small units suitable for affordable what it had been when he bought it. And
Zhengzhou has purchased some 111,000 housing and then persuade developers the unit hasn’t even been built. <BW>

◼ HOT SEAT: GAUTAM ADANI

CHAIRMAN AND FOUNDER, ADANI ENTERPRISES LTD.

On Nov. 21, US prosecutors accused Gautam has called the allegations “baseless” and, within 2023 he bounced back from an attack by short
Adani, one of his nephews and a few aides of weeks of the charges, said it may resurrect the seller Hindenburg Research, whose allegations
promising more than $250 million in bribes to scrapped green bond. The renewables unit plans of wide-ranging corporate fraud—which Adani
win solar energy contracts in India while lying to to raise as much as $500 million by February Group denied—knocked more than $150 billion of
US investors about their anti-bribery policies to via banks or a private placement in the offshore market value off his companies at one point.
cover it up. Within a week, $34 billion of market market. Other units may tap India’s bond market. To continue their case, US prosecutors
value was erased from Adani’s sprawling network Adani, 62, who rose from being a would have to navigate extradition from India,
of businesses, Kenya canceled $2.6 billion diamond trader in Mumbai in the 1980s a complicated geopolitical process, and the
of infrastructure projects Adani Group was to becoming Asia’s second-richest incoming Trump administration would have to
seeking to oversee, and the conglomerate person, has already shown a knack for decide how vigorously to pursue the matter.
halted plans for a $600 million green bond. surviving crises. He was kidnapped Adani is popular at home, where he’s seen as
The charges are likely to continue to for ransom in 1998, and then in 2008 a national champion and a close ally of Indian
make it difficult for Adani Group—which runs he was among the hostages at Prime Minister Narendra Modi. If Donald Trump
solar farms, ports, power plants, news Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Palace hotel wants India in his corner as he seeks to curb
channels and more—to win contracts and during the terrorist attacks that China’s influence, he’ll have to carefully thread
secure financing in 2025. The company killed more than 160 people. In this needle. <BW> �P R Sanjai

January 2025 The Year Ahead 39

BIGGER AI MODELS,
BIGGER AI PROBLEMS
◼ BY RACHEL METZ

40 The Year Ahead

◼ OPENAI AND ITS RIVALS ARE The two years since OpenAI supercharged and about the goal these companies are
RACING TO OVERCOME NEW HURDLES the generative AI era with the introduc- aggressively pursuing—so-called artificial
THAT ARE EMERGING AS THE MOST tion of ChatGPT have passed in a blur of general intelligence, or AGI, which could
ADVANCED AI MODELS GROW TO technological one-upmanship. OpenAI match or best humans on a wide range
GARGANTUAN SIZE and its primary competitors, Anthropic, of tasks. The chief executives of OpenAI
Google and Meta, have released a flurry and Anthropic have previously said that
of cutting-edge artificial intelligence AGI may be only several years away,
models, each more skillful than the last. and both have dismissed any sugges-
It’s now Silicon Valley gospel that more tion that they’re hitting a wall. Other
computing power, more data and larger industry leaders, though, strike a more
models will lead to such fundamental humble tone. “I think the progress is
improvements in AI that the technology going to get harder,” Google CEO Sundar
will transform entire industries within Pichai said during an interview at the
the next few years. New York Times’ DealBook Summit in
And yet, threats to the pace of devel- early December. Looking to 2025, he
opment began emerging even before said, “the low-hanging fruit is gone, the
ChatGPT’s second birthday. In 2024, hill is steeper.”
OpenAI and two other leading AI com- In an industry that prides itself on
panies hit stumbling blocks. At OpenAI innovation, companies are looking for
and Google, some software failed to live different ways to push AI models for-
up to internal expectations, while the ward. Efforts underway include getting
timetable of a long-awaited model from computers to mimic how humans mull
Anthropic, a competitor built by former over a problem to better solve it, build-
OpenAI employees, slipped after it had ing models that are really good at certain
already been announced. If progress in kinds of tasks and training artificial intel-
generative AI slows in some durable way, ligence with data generated by AI itself.
it will bring into question whether the OpenAI, in particular, has been an
technology can ever achieve the more early proponent of AI that can perform
expansive promises the industry’s top humanlike reasoning to take on more
innovators have made for it. Identifying complex queries and improve over time,
ways to propel the AI boom into its particularly when it comes to questions
next stage will be the field’s primary related to math, science and coding. In
challenge in 2025. September the company unveiled an
The companies are facing several early version of a model called o1 that
hurdles. It’s become harder to find new does this by spending more time com-
sources of high-quality, human-made puting an answer before responding to
training data to build more advanced a user’s question. OpenAI announced
AI systems. In addition, even modest an improved version of that model in
improvements in AI performance may December, which CEO Sam Altman
not be enough to justify the tremen- referred to on social media as “the smart-
dous costs associated with creating and est model in the world.”
operating new models. Dario Amodei, The company is so confident about o1
Anthropic’s chief executive officer, has that it’s begun offering a $200 monthly
said it costs about $100 million to train a subscription that includes, among other
bleeding-edge model, and he expects that features, access to a version of the model
amount to hit $100 billion in the coming that can use even more computing power
years. OpenAI Chief Financial Officer to answer questions.
Sarah Friar says that it would be fair to Several other companies, including
say the company’s next cutting-edge Google and software maker Databricks,
model will cost billions to develop, are working on their own versions of
and that there’s still a need for “bigger this approach, which is often referred
and bigger models that are more and to as test-time or inference-time com-
more expensive.” pute. Jonathan Frankle, Databricks’
These issues raise doubts about the chief AI scientist, says he expects to see
billions of dollars already invested in AI the technique become much more

The Year Ahead 41

 widespread in the industry. In addition questions and the answers to fine-tune working on self-driving car technology,
to providing better answers, he says, it their own system. For some reason, this for instance, have long relied upon sim-
could improve the economics of building technique improved Tulu 3’s math capa- ulated driving data. “In the tech stack of
AI models by repositioning some costs bilities. “We don’t know why it works AI, data is as important as algorithms,”
from prerelease development to times fully,” Lambert says, “and that’s the excit- Li says. “Synthetic data has a huge role
when the models are already in use and ing side of synthetic data.” to play.”
thus generating revenue. Large language models—the kind of The problems of scaling up enormous
Technological rumination doesn’t AI software that powers ChatGPT—are general-purpose models are particularly
solve the issue of AI’s ever-growing hun- meant to replicate the words humans relevant if the goal is to work toward AGI.
ger for data. Companies are increasingly use to communicate, so simply training But historically, AI has instead been
turning to synthetic data, which can take an AI system on the content it produces designed to focus on a single task, and
many forms, including that of computer- won’t lead to improvements, according Databricks’ Frankle says there’s plenty
generated text meant to mimic content to Frankle. Lambert says it’s important of room to innovate there. Overall, he’s
created by real people. Nathan Lambert, to filter AI-generated data to avoid repe- optimistic. He likens what’s happen-
a research scientist at the Allen Institute tition and verify that it’s accurate. Some ing in the AI industry now to what’s
for AI, says that when developing a model researchers have also raised concerns happened in the evolution of the chip
called Tulu 3, he and his colleagues that indiscriminately using such data for industry, where chip developers would
prompted an AI model to produce ques- training could hamper a model’s perfor- reach what looked like a hard limit, then
tions based on certain personas. They’d mance (a consequence they referred to come up with different innovations—
ask it, for instance, to pretend to be an as “model collapse”). multicore processors, co-processors,
astronaut and devise a math problem Fei-Fei Li, co-director of Stanford parallel processing—to keep improving
specific to that occupation, to which it University’s Institute for Human- the technology.
would produce a question about how far Centered AI and a co-founder of the “Looking back at our semiconductor
the moon will be from the sun at a certain AI startup World Labs, expects AI days,” he says, “you go from one inno-
time of day. They’d feed the questions companies to rely increasingly on syn- vation to the next and just keep trying to
back into the model, then use both the thetic data. She pointed out that those push forward.” <BW> �With Shirin Ghaffary

◼ EARLY ADOPTERS ARE FOND OF

THE CHATBOTS AI THAT RESPONDS TO QUERIES

WITH BRIEF ANSWERS RATHER THAN
A LIST OF LINKS. THE INTERNET

COME FOR SEARCH MAY NEVER BE THE SAME

◼ BY SHIRIN GHAFFARY

Planning a camping trip, Matthew

Berman remembered hearing that pitch-
ing your tent on top of your car instead
of on the ground was a good way to
avoid animal encounters. It was the kind
◼ PREVIOUS AND THIS SPREAD: ILLUSTRATION BY MASHA TITOVA

of claim Berman formerly assessed by

typing into Google’s search engine. Now
he turns to a chatbot called Perplexity.
Berman likes that Perplexity, which
markets itself as an “AI-powered answer
engine,” gives him concise responses to
his questions instead of a list of links
(though the answers do come with cita-
tions linking to relevant sources).
“It’s really just about the time invest-
ment,” says Berman, who founded

42 The Year Ahead

 ADVE RTI S E M E NT

INVESTING IN
INNOVATION

Jenny Johnson
President and Chief Executive Officer
Franklin Templeton

Over 75 years ago, Franklin Templeton was one of and Chief Executive Officer, Jenny Johnson. “We’ve
the first innovators to democratize the investment needed some unique types of financing structures
space, providing everyday investors with access to to be able to customize our solutions, and Wells
the market through mutual funds. Today, Franklin Fargo has been really unique in being able to build
Templeton is leveraging innovations in digital ledger those for us.”
technology and blockchain, democratizing private Jon Weiss, Co-CEO of Wells Fargo Corporate &
markets and alternatives and helping people in Investment Banking, feels that the best innovation is
over 160 countries achieve the most important done arm in arm with clients like Franklin Templeton.
milestones of their lives. “When a key solution is required, we have enough
“We’re invested in those areas of disruption for the knowledge and trust in each other that we can
next generation,” says Franklin Templeton President develop that solution together.”

bloomberg.com/thenexthorizon Corporate &

©2025 Wells Fargo & Company. Investment Banking
 a tech startup called Sonar to help
businesses manage their text messages,
◼ HOT SEAT: SUNDAR PICHAI
and now makes videos and writes a
CEO OF ALPHABET
newsletter about artificial intelligence.
He estimates that AI search tools
For the people running Google Search, a major search engine and brought down the cost of
have led him to reduce his searching task of the new year will be trying to keep delivering AI-generated responses to users.
on Google by more than 90%. “You ahead of a growing pack of startups. If that The success of Google Cloud, which is finally
wasn’t a tall enough order for Sundar Pichai, turning a profit after years of investment, has
can put a bunch of time into a search there’s also the worry of regulators who would appeased Wall Street in recent quarters. But
on Google, clicking through links, and like to lop off a big piece of his tech investors remain concerned that Google may
giant’s empire. not stay at the center of digital life.
it’s frustrating when you don’t get what The debut of OpenAI’s ChatGPT Alphabet’s antitrust worries will
you want right away,” he says. “Whereas in late 2022 led to the rise of a new come sharply into focus in 2025. In
class of artificial intelligence models 2024 a US judge found it holds an illegal
the percentage of time where you get that can answer users’ questions monopoly in search, and the government
exactly what you want the first time in a conversational fashion—and is seeking to force the company to part
kicked off a sprint in Silicon Valley to with Google Chrome, its web browser.
with a Perplexity or ChatGPT is very, redefine search. Startups including That penalty would surely sting Pichai,
very high.” Perplexity, Kagi and You.com are who made his name by building the
trying to beat Google with small product. The company also awaits
When it came to his camping trip, teams focused on reinventing the verdict of another antitrust
Berman decided the tent-on-top-of- internet search. case that takes aim at its online
OpenAI, meanwhile, is adding advertising business.
car idea wasn’t worth the hassle, even more search features to ChatGPT. The inevitable wave of appeals
if it did provide some added security Google’s hold on the market coming from Alphabet’s army of lawyers
remains tight, but, for the first will likely forestall any remedies the
from predators. time in recent memory, it seems to courts order up. But if the industry’s
The number of people turning to AI be loosening. past antitrust battles are any indication,
Pichai and his team have the real price may be the distraction
chatbots instead of traditional search woven AI into their own they cause. <BW> �Julia Love
engines when seeking bear-avoidance
tips or other information is still fairly
small. Perplexity said in March that A major question is how Google its AI assistant. When she used the tool
it had 15 million users, while Google adjusts. The company is integrating to ask about her sister’s back pain, a
counts them in the billions. But early its own AI answers into search with a reassuring voice with a British accent
adopters often anticipate which tech feature called AI Overviews; it says gave a few potential causes before sug-
habits will become mainstream, and users have been more satisfied with gesting she get her medical advice from
they can shape that behavior by set- the results that include the Overviews a human professional.
ting an example for other consumers than those that don’t. Google Chief “It was very empathetic, speak-
and helping determine how compa- Executive Officer Sundar Pichai said ing back and asking questions to go to
nies design their products. That helps in October that Overviews is reaching the next level that a traditional search
explain why the two largest search 1 billion users per month and is in the engine would not,” she says.
engine operators, Alphabet Inc.’s Google process of expanding to more than a When Shomair tried asking ChatGPT
and Microsoft Corp., are making AI a hundred countries. for hiking recommendations in Palo
more prominent part of their products. Still, Google finds itself in a tricky Alto, California, however, the app gener-
The stakes for the internet are high. spot. While startups are starting from ated a map that was obviously incorrect,
Searching for information on Google is scratch, the company has to consider the kind of thing that could have been a
one of the most common things peo- how adding AI features could affect serious problem had she not spotted the
ple do online, and many websites and its enormously lucrative search opera- issue before embarking. Avid AI search-
businesses are built around catering to tions. It’s also facing this novel threat to ers are aware that chatbots tend to pro-
that behavior. Some chatbots have ads, its core business just as US prosecutors duce incorrect answers, a phenomenon
and OpenAI Inc. is considering adding are asking for new restrictions on how known as hallucinating, and say they
them to ChatGPT in the future. But it’s Google approaches AI, a threat the com- cross-reference important results with
◼ ILLUSTRATION FROM TOP: FROMM STUDIO, MOJO WANG

unclear what role advertising would play pany says could chill its investment in Google or other sources.
in an AI-era internet. One possibility is the technology. “I treat it kind of like what an intern
that a large proportion of people begin For people dropping search for would produce and then scrutinize a
paying to search the web. Hundreds of chatbots, the appeal can sometimes bit,” says John Bailey, a nonresident
thousands of people subscribe to use be more about the experience than senior fellow at the American Enterprise
the Perplexity Pro chatbot. And OpenAI the actual answers. Rebecca Shomair, Institute, a think tank in Washington.
offers a ChatGPT Plus subscription, head of communications for Cisco People can find bad information on
which also includes search features. Systems Inc.’s AI incubator, Outshift, Google, too. But many internet users
Both companies charge $20 a month for likes using OpenAI’s voice mode, which are more accustomed to assessing
their service. lets users engage in a conversation with the credibility of a website than of a

44 The Year Ahead

confident-sounding chatbot. Although four decades, has sold 10 million fewer characters, a man and woman inspired
Perplexity and OpenAI address this by units than GTA 5. So expectations for the by the criminal duo Bonnie and Clyde,
presenting links to their sources, it’s not next one are, of course, high. and that Rockstar is asking its writers to
a consistent practice among AI apps. Development of GTA 6 began a decade be less crude toward transgender people
And it’s not clear there’s a solution to ago but started in earnest only after and other minorities, the frequent targets
the broader issue of chatbot hallucina- Rockstar’s last major release, 2018’s Red of throwaway gags in previous versions.
tions. Early adopters may be patient Dead Redemption II. That project pushed GTA 6 has already missed multi-
enough to use a service that occasionally the development team to the brink, ple deadlines, a common practice at
spits out a bad answer, even if they’re requiring late hours and creating a cul- Rockstar, but Take-Two says it’s now on
paying for it. But that may not be true ture of tension and aggression. Seeking track. Sales of the game, though likely
for less adventurous internet users, and to improve its workplace culture, the to be astronomical, won’t tell the whole
Google’s price is hard to beat. <BW> company ousted several executives and story. The title will feature a significant
promised a more reasonable schedule. online mode, selling in-game content
But a massive hack in 2022 complicated designed to generate revenue for years
matters, leading Rockstar to clamp down into the future. That’s how Take-Two kept

THE BIGGEST on remote work and direct employees

to return to the office five days a week,
GTA 5 going for more than a decade.
Anticipation is so high that some

VIDEO GAME rankling staff.

Rockstar, a subsidiary of Take-Two
competing game publishers are waiting
as long as possible to commit to their

OF THE Interactive Software Inc., has revealed

little about GTA 6, other than a fall 2025
release dates for the fall, according to
people familiar with their deliberations

DECADE release date. Since the announcement of

a teaser trailer for the game in late 2023,
who asked not to be identified because
they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
shares of the parent company have risen The publishers want to see whether GTA 6
more than 30%. The trailer, which has will make its deadline or slip into 2026,
◼ GTA6 IS ALMOST HERE—AND topped 200 million views on YouTube, these people say, and they’re determined
THAT POSSIBILITY IS ROCKING shows the game is set in a fictional ver- to keep their own games far, far away. <BW>
THE INDUSTRY sion of Miami. Bloomberg News
has reported that GTA 6 will
◼ BY JASON SCHREIER star a pair of playable

Grand Theft Auto VI isn’t just going to

be the biggest video game of 2025. It
will almost certainly be the biggest
game of the decade—and possibly
the most lucrative entertainment
product of all time.
Just look at its predecessor:
Grand Theft Auto V has sold a
staggering 205 million units.
Since its release, the fran-
chise has generated about
$9 billion in revenue for its
developer, Rockstar Games,
according to an estimate by
TweakTown, a trade publica-
tion. That’s more than the box-
office receipts for the three
highest-grossing movies com-
bined and makes it the No. 2
bestselling game ever, after
Microsoft Corp.’s Minecraft. For
further perspective, the entire
Final Fantasy series, with doz-
ens of games spanning almost

January 2025 The Year Ahead 45

● A Walk With ● By Anna Peele

◼ THE HGTV HOSTS HELPED BRING

ABOUT A NEW GENRE OF REALITY TV
AND BUILT A BUSINESS EMPIRE
ALONG THE WAY. HERE’S HOW THEY
SEE THE ECONOMY AFFECTING HOME
RENOVATION IN 2025

THE PROPERTY

◼ PHOTOGRAPH BY MAGGIE SHANNON FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK

BROTHERS
▲ JONATHAN AND
DREW SCOTT

46 The Year Ahead

“I’m not trash-talking designers, but The Scotts, who grew up in British in going beyond conventional spinoffs,
there are some people out there that all Columbia, first dabbled in real estate intrigued by innovations like “dimen-
they want is a certain look. They’ll force when they were 18, rehabbing a building sional lumber,” a process by which, they
it on everybody,” says Drew Scott, half and then leasing it to other university stu- explain, wood is made as strong as steel
of the duo that essentially initiated the dents. In 2008, when Property Brothers’ and light as balsa. They’re raising money
booming era of home-renovation enter- eventual production company Cineflix for their Healthy Home Innovation Fund,
tainment. Drew, who’s energetically affa- discussed doing a real estate show hosted in which they plan to invest in tech start-
ble, Canadian and clearly OK with a little by Drew, an aspiring actor at the time, ups that make homes safer and more
trash-talking, won’t name names, but the Jonathan says his brother initially told affordable, such as a panelized housing
oblique snub could certainly apply to him, “I don’t want to be a host. I want to company that allows homes to be assem-
those other home-reno-tainment moguls be an action superstar.” bled in pieces like Legos rather than built
(ahem, Magnolia Network’s Chip and But after only two years on the air, the from scratch. Jonathan sits on the board
Joanna Gaines) who’ve practically over- show rocketed to HGTV’s No. 1 series, and of the nonprofit Rewiring America, and
hauled entire towns in farmhouse chic. the 6-foot-4 brothers realized there might the brothers have worked closely with the
Drew and his twin brother, Jonathan, be a bigger commercial opportunity. They Department of Energy on the electrifica-
tend to be less dogmatic. They’re in wanted to get into the product business tion of homes—an important step in the
their sprawling Los Angeles warehouse and in 2018 pushed for complete control. transition away from fossil fuels—which
where they store the furniture and decor “It got a little contentious for a little while,” they believe is inevitable. “When they
they’ve used to stage almost 600 home says Jonathan, especially when he and first said that we’re putting seat belts in
reveals on their dozens of HGTV shows— Drew realized their contracts stipulated cars people complained—‘How dare peo-
most notably, the network’s crown jewel, that they could walk away with everything ple try and control us?’ Now we’re like,
Property Brothers, on which real estate but the Property Brothers name. The two ‘Well, of course you have seat belts in
agent Drew finds homes to rehab and parties eventually came to terms that gave cars. It’s safer,’ ” Jonathan says. “It’s just a
contractor Jonathan oversees the reno- the Scotts all of the show’s intellectual matter of people don’t like change.”
vations. Millions of people have binged property, while Cineflix distributes the The brothers had been enthused about
all 14 seasons (the show ended in 2019) program and retains part of the royalties. Kamala Harris’ plan to build 3 million
and its three spinoffs, with fans includ- We leave the warehouse and stroll homes if she’d been elected president.
ing Michelle Obama, Serena Williams and through the industrial Huntington Now they’re nervous about the poten-
Cher—the latter two even DM’d the Scotts Park neighborhood. The brothers tial knock-on effects of the Trump tariffs.
to express their admiration. credit Jonathan’s fiancée, actress Zooey “Jonathan and I love the idea of domestic-
Most of the mirrors, throw pillows, Deschanel, with finding the warehouse in made products,” Drew says. But, says
lamps and other Pinterest-primed the perfect area, even if some less-than- Jonathan—who heads product for Scott
accent pieces are products from Scott lovely smells occasionally waft by. “Zooey Brothers Global—because tariffs would
Living and Drew & Jonathan Home, two is the greatest unlicensed Realtor I’ve ever affect the cost of foreign-produced build-
ing materials from steel to lumber, as well
“WE’VE MADE MONEY IN EVERY KIND as many of the items in Scott Living, “there
is a balance we need to strike. Blanket tar-
OF MARKET POSSIBLE: UP MARKETS, iffs are not good for any economy.”
DOWN MARKETS, BUYER’S, SELLER’S No matter what happens in 2025, the
brothers are ready to flex. “We’ve made
MARKETS—IT DOESN’T MATTER” money in every kind of market possible,”
arms of the home goods brand that has met,” he says. “Oh, my God, it should be Drew says. “Up markets, down markets,
made $2.8 billion since it spun out of their her other career,” says Drew, an actual buyer’s, seller’s markets—it doesn’t mat-
reality-TV empire. They represent just a real estate agent and the head of TV pro- ter.” But for non-Property Brothers, Drew
couple of the businesses in their umbrella duction for Scott Brothers Entertainment. cautions that this isn’t the time to start
company, Scott Brothers Global, which The studio has produced 33 shows, includ- flipping houses. High interest rates and
spans TV production, book publishing, ing The Nate & Jeremiah Home Project with material costs mean many homeowners
a real estate portfolio and a new venture Nate Berkus and Trixie Motel, which fol- are staying put and holding off on renova-
capital arm. “They’re the best 40 jobs in lows drag queen Trixie Mattel’s hotel reno tions that would require them to take out a
the world,” says Jonathan in a faux-perky in Palm Springs, California. Then there are home equity line of credit. Which may be
salesman’s voice, only slightly exagger- the shows they host, including Celebrity why the Scotts’ yet-to-be-announced show
ating the number of projects he and his IOU (celebs give back in the form of a reno) in the works will focus less on aspirational
brother juggle. “We naturally divide and and Brother vs. Brother (you guessed it: a house-porn and more on modest cosmetic
conquer everything. It’s almost like hav- twin house-flipping competition). changes. “Full-scale renovations,” Drew
ing this perpetual motion machine.” These days the Scotts are interested says, “are not realistic for everyone.” <BW>

January 2025 The Year Ahead 47

 ◼ RESULTS FROM DOZENS OF TRIALS

A SMORGASBORD ARE DUE IN 2025 AS DRUGMAKERS

SEEK TO CREATE MEDICINES THAT
SPUR GREATER WEIGHT LOSS, CAN

OF OBESITY DRUGS BE TAKEN LESS OFTEN OR CAUSE

FEWER SIDE EFFECTS

◼ BY NAOMI KRESGE

Until now, just two companies have Given the 1 billion-plus people with developing so rapidly, she’s eager to see
dominated the obesity-treatment mar- obesity worldwide, Novo says there’s the range of diseases beyond weight and
ket: Denmark’s Novo Nordisk A/S and ample room for the competition. “This diabetes that the new drugs might treat.
its US rival Eli Lilly & Co. Ozempic and is not one big homogeneous market,” “It’s so difficult to predict,” Knudsen
Wegovy, made by Novo, are on track says Chief Financial Officer Karsten says. “What really excites me is more
to become the world’s bestselling drug Munk Knudsen. Patients need “dif- to take many things forward and figure
franchise in 2025, and Zepbound and ferent products for different motiva- out which ones are the best.” <BW> —With
Mounjaro, made by Lilly, are growing tions and different complications.” Madison Muller
fast. But the year will also start to show Dan Skovronsky, chief scientific officer
how soon the weight-loss duopoly will at Lilly, says teams at various compa-
face serious challengers. nies working to “out- innovate each ◼ HOT SEAT: URSULA
Results from dozens of midstage other” will push everyone to improve VON DER LEYEN
patient trials of medications for obesity their offerings. EC PRESIDENT
and related diseases are due in 2025, The bar is high for the new medi-
according to researcher Airfinity Ltd. cines, as became clear when Amgen Inc. With the pandemic, Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine and the ensuing energy crisis,
The slew of data, from both upstarts in November released trial results for its European Commission President Ursula
and industry heavyweights, will help MariTide. The drug can be administered von der Leyen has had a lot to grapple with.
As she enters her second term, her position
determine the options available in com- with a single monthly injection, versus appears even more daunting.
ing years. Drugmakers are aiming to weekly for current shots, and people Strained relations with China risk
sparking a trade war. The return of Donald
offer medicines that can be taken less who took it lost a fifth of their body Trump to the White House threatens to
frequently, spur greater weight loss or weight in a year. But investors found fracture ties with the European Union’s
closest ally, particularly in supporting
cause fewer side effects. the results too similar to what’s available Kyiv. The automotive sector—the engine
now, and Amgen’s shares plunged. “It of the region’s most powerful economy,
Germany—is stalling. And political instability
THICKENING COMPETITION seems like folks are demanding some- in Berlin and Paris augurs a further rise of
Obesity drugs approved in the US thing greater than Eli Lilly or Novo,” the far right. “There is no doubt that we face
12 the greatest risk to the global order in the
says Kazi Helal, an analyst with research postwar era,” she said at Davos in 2024.
Projections company PitchBook. The former German defense minister
has tried mightily over the past five years to
The leaders are doing their best to hold that order together. Her proposal for
stay ahead. Retatrutide, Lilly’s next- the long-term budget, expected midyear, will
6 serve as a barometer of the EU’s ambitions
generation shot, showed an average for restoring its global standing.
Zepbound 24% weight reduction after 48 weeks of The good news is that von der Leyen’s
Wegovy first term illustrates the bloc’s unofficial
treatment in a midstage study released motto, “Europe
in 2023. And Novo says its CagriSema only advances in
0 crisis.” In 2020,
might help patients shed a quarter of EU leaders came
Q1 2021 Q4 2024 Q4 2027 their weight. together and approved
an €800 billion
While many coming compounds
◼ ILLUSTRATION BY FROMM STUDIO ◼ DATA: AIRFINITY

($846 billion)
Despite opposition to such medi- work similarly to what’s already on the Covid-19 recovery
fund financed by
cations by Donald Trump’s nominee market, technologies on the horizon joint borrowing.
for secretary of health and human are far more exciting, says Novo scien- The hope now is that
the EU will pool more
services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., tific adviser Lotte Bjerre Knudsen. She money for defense and
Airfinity says as many as a dozen new championed early versions of the drugs lower barriers to help
European companies
obesity drugs might appear by 2027. three decades ago, eventually figuring better compete with
The market by then could approach out how to make a compound that mim- the US and China. <BW>
�Jorge Valero
$50 billion annually, according to ics a gut hormone and stays active long
Bloomberg Intelligence. enough to have an effect. With the field

48 The Year Ahead Bloomberg Businessweek

 ◼ THE “EXPERIENCE 15% from a year earlier on all tickets,
LIVE EVENTS ECONOMY” IS SEEING
DOUBLE-DIGIT GROWTH AS
including Live Nation events, and up 23%
on concerts alone.
COME BACK FROM CONSUMERS SHELL OUT FOR
PREMIUM TICKETS
After overcoming the darkest days of
Covid-19, Live Nation took another hit
THE DEAD from the Taylor Swift ticketing fiasco of
2022, when frustrated fans were unable
to buy tickets to her Eras Tour through
Ticketmaster. That led to an outcry over
high concert prices and a lawsuit filed
in May by the US Department of Justice,
along with 30 state and district attorneys
general, that seeks to break up Live Nation
on charges that it’s monopolized its indus-
try. But in the days after Donald Trump
won the presidency, the company’s stock
jumped on the expectation that the new
administration will take a more lenient
antitrust approach.
Broadway is one part of the industry
not breaking box-office records, with
ticket sales still below pre-pandemic
levels. One theory to explain this is that
senior citizens, who make up a sizable
portion of the audience, are hesitant to
return to large group settings. Another
▲ THE HOT TODDIES JAZZ BAND
is that remote workers in the suburbs
◼ BY PAUL KEEGAN are less willing to buy tickets because
now they have to venture all the way into
The Hot Toddies Jazz Band is ripping seeing robust growth as people shift Manhattan; only 14% of theatergoers came
through a set of standards to a packed more of their spending to in-person from New York City suburbs during the
house at the nightclub Somewhere encounters in the so-called experience 2022-23 season, according to the Broadway
Nowhere on a cold, gray night in economy. And they’re shelling out League, the lowest number on record.
Manhattan. There’s barely room to move, extra for premium packages to make The increased digitization of modern
but a clutch of devoted swing dancers has concertgoing more memorable, includ- life appears to be helping live entertain-
carved out a section off to one side of the ing seats with a better view or elegant ment, ironically. Streaming services and
stage. As the trombonist and clarinetist suites with luxury food and beverages. social media apps allow listeners to dis-
trade hot licks, a bald man wearing spats Cirque du Soleil, after emerging from cover music from all over the world, lead-
pulls a woman in a backless dress into an pandemic-induced bankruptcy in late ing them to buy concert tickets.
exuberant Lindy Hop. 2020, is back to its pre-Covid numbers City Winery, a New York-based chain
“It’s crazy like this every Wednesday for ticket sales and revenue, the company with 14 venues in nine cities that are
night,” Patrick Soluri shouts over the says. It’s rolling out new daredevil shows part music club, part winery, offers wine
din between sets. Soluri is the producer in Honolulu and Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico. made on-site, food and concerts by art-
of this gig through his one-man com- Sphere, the multisensory entertainment ists such as Los Lobos and Madeleine
pany, Prohibition Productions. (He’s venue that opened in Las Vegas in 2023, Peyroux. For 2025, Michael Dorf, the
also the drummer.) Revenue from his has generated so much excitement that its founder and chief executive officer,
Jazz Age-themed events has more than owner, Sphere Entertainment Co., is plan- has plans to build venues in Detroit
doubled since 2019, and he plans to ning a second one in Abu Dhabi. and Columbus, Ohio, and expects rev-
expand beyond New York City in 2025. As of early November, industry leader enue to rise 15% to 20%. Technological
From obscure bands in small ven- Live Nation Entertainment Inc. had advances such as artificial intelligence,
◼ PHOTO: NINA GALICHEVA

ues like this to Coldplay selling out sold more than 20 million tickets via its great at capturing sight and sound, pose
90,000 seats at London’s Wembley Ticketmaster subsidiary for Live Nation no threat, Dorf says: “When it comes to
Stadium for 10 dates next summer, 2025 concerts in 2025, representing double- the other senses—taste and smell and
is shaping up to be a spectacular year digit growth from the same point in 2023. feel—AI has not figured out any kind of
for live entertainment. The industry is Ticketmaster’s sales in October were up algorithm for that. Thank God.” <BW>

January 2025 The Year Ahead 49

 ◼ COMMERCIAL REAL

KNOW YOUR OFFICE ESTATE HAS BEEN IN

A FUNK, AND 2025
WON’T OFFER MUCH
RELIEF

SPACE JARGON
◼ BY PATRICK CLARK AND NEIL CALLANAN

Mortgages on most office buildings, shopping malls and apartment

complexes require an outsize payment when the loan comes due,
typically after five to 10 years. But the rapid runup in interest
rates in 2022 made refinancing untenable, because many buildings
didn’t generate enough rent given the new borrowing costs. Higher
rates have translated into lower property values, with US offices
and apartment buildings down more than 20% since July 2022. The
closest thing to good news is that banks weren’t particularly
eager to call in their mortgages, because that would force them PAYMENT-IN-KIND
If you examine the changes being made to loans
to recognize losses and write off loans. Instead, they resorted these days, it’s clear lenders know losses are on
to evolving (and often rhyming) tactics intended to make it the way. Payment-in-kind is a form of financial
engineering where borrowers stop making monthly
through to better times. Here’s a quick guide. payments, adding to what they must pony up when
the loan matures.

DELAY AND PRAY A/B

EXTEND AND PRETEND A snarkier take on the same idea. Desperation Some lenders are splitting up their loans: There’s
A popular tactic in the 2008 global financial crisis. is kicking in, and vulture investors hoping to buy a safer A segment, with a lower interest rate,
Everyone agrees values are down, but they act as distressed assets for pennies on the dollar start that gets paid back first. The riskier B portion,
though they’re not. Rather than require borrowers circling—and deriding what lenders insist on telling by contrast, offers a higher rate but has a lower
to refinance maturing loans, lenders simply give the public. Conventional wisdom is that there won’t chance of repayment.
them more time to come up with the money. Extend be as much distress as there was in the wake of the
long enough, the theory goes, and maybe property global financial crisis. That doesn’t mean the vultures
values will recover. can’t hope. ◼ ILLUSTRATIONS BY BORIS PRAMATAROV

AMEND AND EXTEND SURVIVE TILL ’25 MATURITY WALL

Lenders are less desperate this time around, and A popular mantra in recent years because the Shifting the problems into the future adds to
they’re driving a slightly harder bargain. Rather industry has anticipated falling mortgage rates what’s known as a maturity wall: a pile of loans all
than hand out extensions for free, banks force and revived demand. Although central banks have coming due at once and in need of new financing,
borrowers to fork over cash or agree to stricter loan started easing interest rates, the cost of borrowing which risks gumming up the whole system. If a
covenants. The end result is similar: Repayments hasn’t declined as much as many had hoped. bunch of borrowers default in unison, banks won’t
get pushed out. So … how about “Get a fix in ’26”? have sufficient capital to absorb the losses. That
threatens a wave of fire sales, driving prices down
even further. <BW>

50 The Year Ahead

 ◼ NONBANK LENDERS ARE MAKING IT EASY FOR
PRIVATE CREDIT EYES ORDINARY PEOPLE TO BUY THEIR PRODUCTS

MAIN STREET
◼ BY DENITSA TSEKOVA

All it took for Jess Dato Paliogiannis to trading in December, and Apollo Global Marc Rowan has argued that banks carry
become an investor in the esoteric world Management Inc. and State Street Global more debt than private credit firms, so
of private credit was a few taps on her Advisors Ltd. are hoping for a green light removing loans from the banking system
mobile phone. The 30-year-old New from the US Securities and Exchange lowers its overall leverage.
Yorker, an operations consultant to start- Commission in 2025 for their own ETF The private credit craze dates to the
ups, used the Titan app to put $2,000 into that would invest in private credit. aftermath of the global financial crisis of
a fund managed by the global investing The prospect of an ensuing wave of 2008, when banks pulled back from risky
giant Carlyle Group Inc. “It was exciting retail investment has consumer advo- loans and lenders outside the regulated
to invest in something that traditionally cates warning that private credit is too financial system stepped in. Since 2015
was not available to retail investors,” says risky for retail investors. These calls the market has roughly tripled in size, to
Dato Paliogiannis, who recently sold echo regulators’ wider concerns about $1.6 trillion, growing to encompass tra-
the position, scoring a 37% gain over the lack of transparency in private ditional direct lending to smaller com-
two years, after fees. Now she’s on the loan valuations, which they say could panies, buyout financing, and real estate
lookout for easier ways to access private and infrastructure debt. Market research
credit on other platforms. firm Cerulli Associates estimates that
Dato Paliogiannis is just the kind of retail’s contribution to the asset class will
person the industry is trying to woo. climb to 23%, from 13% now, in the next
Private lenders have spent the past dozen three years.
years minting billionaires by usurping Mobile apps make it easier to invest,
traditional Wall Street banks and pack- but the fees for private credit can turn
aging their risky corporate loans into people off. For interval funds they average
products that have become staples of around 2.5%, among the highest charged
insurers and pension funds. But with to individual investors for any product,
interest from large institutions tapering compared with 0.6% for the average ETF,
off, they’re going after Main Street. “We according to Morningstar Inc. A private
are probably in the second or the third credit ETF that allows investors to take
▲ DATO PALIOGIANNIS
inning in the expansion of these private out their money on any trading day would
credit products in the broader, mass- jeopardize broader financial stability. open the asset class to even more peo-
affluent market,” says Shane Clifford, The problem, the watchdogs say, is ple. State Street and Apollo have offered
head of global wealth at Carlyle. “There’s that the debt underlying the private credit glimpses into how they could make that
still significant upside to go from here.” products isn’t widely traded, and the possible in their filing to the SEC: Apollo
So far, retail investors are jumping in funds get to decide what their loans are would provide daily liquidity by offering
mainly through interval funds, which get worth, which could mask signs of distress to buy back the investments, though that
their name from allowing people to take that public markets would expose. Also, could come with limits.
◼ PHOTOGRAPH BY DONNA ALBERICO FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK

their money out only after set periods, the borrowers behind the loans aren’t The idea of an ETF is intriguing to
making them semi-liquid. Interval funds held to the same reporting requirements Sam Slaughter, 62, who’s put $250,000, a
have ballooned to oversee $85 billion of as listed companies. With interval funds, little less than a 10th of his nest egg, into
assets, up from about $25 billion four the period an investor has to wait to pull private credit funds. He started investing
years ago; a record 43 new funds were money out could stretch for months. The three years ago, when his adviser recom-
registered in 2024. money could end up trapped if a fund’s mended the Blackstone Private Credit
The direct lenders’ ambitions are loans go bad and the net asset value sud- Fund, or BCRED. “After fees, the rates of
much bigger, however: They want to denly plummets, causing the fund man- return have been very good,” he says. He’s
offer a way for anyone with a Charles ager to close it for redemptions. not worried about the risks: “I particularly
Schwab or Robinhood account to get Direct lenders argue that they have feel comfortable because Blackstone is a
involved in private credit through the expertise to ensure the products good outlet. If they started to feel that
exchange-traded funds. Two ETFs they sell are sound. And of the risk to things were not going well, they would get
with exposure to private credit began broader financial stability, Apollo CEO us out.” <BW> �With Vildana Hajric

52 The Year Ahead

 As we look to the year ahead, we are
grateful for our Annual Disaster Giving
Program and Disaster Responder
members, whose incredible generosity
fuels our continuous response to disasters
of all sizes — from hurricanes to home
fires — providing hope when help can’t wait.

ANNUAL DISASTER GIVING PROGRAM MEMBERS

D I SASTE R R E S PON D E R PROG RAM M E M B E R S

7-Eleven Cares CarMax Duke Energy The Labcorp Northrop Grumman Santander Bank and
Foundation Canadian Erie Insurance Charitable Foundation Foundation Santander Consumer
Adobe Foundation National Railway Lenovo Northwestern Mutual USA Foundation Inc.
Equitable
The AES Corporation CDW LKQ Novartis US Foundation Security Finance’s
Fifth Third Foundation Lending Hand Foundation
Albemarle Corporation Charles Schwab FirstEnergy Corporation Macy’s, Inc. Old Dominion Freight Line
Foundation ServiceNow
American Tire Distributors Harbor Freight Tools Major League Baseball Pacific Life Foundation
Cisco and Southwest Airlines
American Water Foundation, LLC Marathon Petroleum Prudential
Charitable Foundation Cisco Foundation Hewlett Packard Stanley Black & Decker
Corporation Raymond James
Ameriprise Financial CNA Insurance Enterprise Foundation Tata Consultancy
Martin Marietta RBC Foundation USA
Assurant The Coca-Cola HP Foundation Services
Foundation Masco Corporation Reckitt U-Haul International
AvalonBay International Paper
Communities, Inc. The Deluxe Foundation Mattress Firm Reliance, Inc. Ulta Beauty
Invitation Homes
Avangrid Foundation The DICK’S Foundation McKesson Foundation Reynolds American Inc. Charitable Foundation
Keurig Dr Pepper
Barclays Discover MetLife Foundation RTX US Foods
Kimberly-Clark
Bath & Body Works Dollar General Corporation Neiman Marcus Group Ryder System, Inc. Yum! Brands
Big 5 Sporting Goods Dollar Tree and L’Oréal NextEra Energy, Inc. Salesforce Zurich
Build-A-Bear Foundation Family Dollar Norfolk Southern

Support Disaster Relief today at redcross.org

All corporate service marks used with permission. 484601-02 12/24
 ◼ ADIRA PUTRI, ◼ NAT TADJUDIN, ◼ SOPHIA INGRAM,
JAKARTA ATLANTA DENTON, TEXAS

◼ What’s the last big purchase you made? ◼ What are you most looking forward to ◼ What are you most looking forward to
Nothing, as I am still a student. in 2025? in 2025?
Having my frontal lobe developed! Also Moving out of my outdated apartment and into
◼ What are you looking forward to most accelerating my career. a newer building.
in 2025?
Working at a full-time job. ◼ What do older people not understand about ◼ What worries you?
your generation? That I’ve been spending money
◼ What do you think older That we are actually frivolously, and I will be in a
people don’t understand hardworking given our bad spot if an emergency
about your generation? circumstances. happens, or I won’t be able to
They might not fully afford the cost of living when
understand how much ◼ What five words sum the Trump administration
our generation’s world up 2025 for you? enacts the tariffs they
revolves around Change, resilience, promised.
rapid technological innovation,
change and constant challenges
connectivity. and hope.

◼ THE 21ST CENTURY IS HAVING

A MILESTONE BIRTHDAY. WE ASKED

QUARTER-LIFE PEOPLE ALSO TURNING 25 ABOUT

THEIR HOPES AND FEARS FOR THE
NEW YEAR

CRISIS?
◼ INTERVIEWS BY REYHAN HARMANCI ◼ EDITED FOR CLARITY AND LENGTH

◼ PABLO TORNE PANO, ◼ JADE WALTERS, ◼ GIGI BAO,

LOS ANGELES CHICAGO OXNARD, CALIFORNIA

◼ What’s the last big purchase you made? ◼ What’s the last big purchase you made? ◼ What’s the last big purchase you made?
A moped ($2,200). A solo birthday trip to Cancún at an all- A car ($28,000).
inclusive resort. I spent around $2,700, and it
◼ What’s the next big purchase you hope was worth every single penny. It was my first ◼ What’s the next big purchase you hope
to make? time traveling solo internationally, to make?
A business or investment property. and I left feeling so brave I really want a Dyson V15 vacuum.
and rejuvenated.
◼ What are you worried about? ◼ What do you think older people don’t
Not being retired by 45. ◼ What are you worried about? understand about your generation?
Despite being successful Back at home in Hong Kong, the older people
◼ What do you think older in my career, I worry about sometimes do not understand
people don’t understand the longevity of it. that studying hard is not
about your generation? the only way out. I do
How lonely it is for ◼ What five words sum up agree that studying is
the people that want 2025 for you? essential for getting
to work hard and You are worth the bet. a professional job,
complain little. but so many strict
◼ PHOTOS: COURTESY SUBJECTS (6)

parents solely focus

on academics without
caring for their
kids’ mental
health.

54 The Year Ahead

 COMPANIES TO WATCH
� Analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence—who track some 2,000 companies in All figures compiled or
calculated based on the
industries ranging from apparel and autos to finance and food—have identified most recent company
50 worth watching carefully in the year ahead. The analysis combines possible reports and Bloomberg
consensus estimates.
catalysts for change such as new leadership, asset sales or acquisitions, and Market capitalization
plans for new products and services. When building the list, BI focused on figure as of Dec. 1, 2024.
the potential effects of policies of the incoming US administration, ongoing
geopolitical conflicts, and rapid changes that include the rise of artificial
intelligence and electric vehicles. �Tim Craighead

ADECCO The recruiter has seen earnings drop for the past three years as clients took
Market cap ($b) 4.5 in fewer temporary workers and low staff turnover kept a lid on replacement
Top executive Denis Machuel hiring. Election clarity, lower inflation and falling interest rates should help boost
Legal name Adecco Group AG confidence and increase staffing demand, pointing to a return to earnings growth
2025 estimated revenue change +2% for Adecco, which generates 75% of its revenue from placing temporary workers.
2025 estimated sales ($b) 25 �Stuart Gordon

ADVANCED INFO SERVICE The Thai telecommunications carrier’s 2025 profit should surprise on
Market cap ($b) 24 the upside as mobile users move to higher-priced packages and the
◼ ILLUSTRATION BY BRYSON LEE

Top executive Somchai Lertsutiwong company cuts unprofitable low-end plans. Those changes could reverse a
Legal name Advanced Info Service Pcl three-year slide in average revenue generated per user, and income from
2025 estimated revenue change +3% roaming charges is likely to jump with expected growth in Thai tourism.
2025 estimated sales ($b) 6.3 �Chris Muckensturm

January 2025 50 Companies to Watch 57

AIRBUS The European aerospace bellwether aims to boost profits and cash flow in 2025
Market cap ($b) 120 with increased production of the top-selling A320. The company’s drive for
Top executive Guillaume Faury higher volume will be a litmus test for a supply chain that has struggled to return
Legal name Airbus SE to pre-pandemic levels of output. The difficulties at rival Boeing offer Airbus a
2025 estimated revenue change +10% chance to tighten its ties to key suppliers, which could help reinforce its market-
2025 estimated sales ($b) 80 share lead. �George Ferguson

ASTRAZENECA A slew of late-stage data points is due in 2025 from clinical

Market cap ($b) 210 trials for new cancer and respiratory treatments, which will
Top executive Pascal Soriot focus attention on the drugmaker’s industry-leading sales
Legal name AstraZeneca Plc growth potential. A possible slowing of AstraZeneca’s China
2025 estimated revenue change +8% business, caused by both the weakening economy and an
2025 estimated sales ($b) 57 investigation into medical-insurance fraud by its former
China head, may contribute to conservative management
guidance for 2025-26. Still, midteens earnings growth looks
achievable given the company’s global exposure and pipeline
of new drugs. �John Murphy

BANK OZK With the Federal Reserve easing rates, the Arkansas bank faces
Market cap ($b) 5.6 declining margins and slower loan growth. Bank OZK’s portfolio
Top executive George Gleason has more floating-rate loans (which will reprice lower with any
Legal name Bank OZK rate cuts) than many of its peers, and its costs are likely to be
2025 estimated revenue change 0% stickier because it relies on fixed-rate certificates of deposit to
2025 estimated sales ($b) 1.7 fund its balance sheet. �Herman Chan

BROADCOM Providing a unique combination of advanced semiconductors and infrastructure

Market cap ($b) 777 software, the chipmaker is positioned for accelerated growth through 2025.
Top executive Hock Tan Broadcom is among the leading suppliers of semiconductors used in advanced
Legal name Broadcom Inc. networks that connect artificial intelligence computers and data centers, and it has
2025 estimated revenue change +16% a growing business selling custom AI chips to Google and Meta Platforms Inc. Its
2025 estimated sales ($b) 62 purchase last year of VMware significantly expanded its software business, which
now accounts for 40% of total revenue. �Kunjan Sobhani

CADENCE DESIGN Sales at the provider of software and hardware used by chipmakers to create
Market cap ($b) 85 and analyze semiconductors are poised to climb as the company closes more
Top executive Anirudh Devgan deals for higher-priced artificial-intelligence-enabled tools. Its next-generation
Legal name Cadence Design Systems Inc. offerings help design innovative products such as high-bandwidth memory and
2025 estimated revenue change +13% three-dimensional chips. Cadence sells its current lineup to 19 of the 20 largest
2025 estimated sales ($b) 5.3 semiconductor companies, and since it began rolling out its latest tools in
2024, it’s gotten early orders from major players like Nvidia Corp. and Samsung
Electronics Co. �Niraj Patel

CHINA HONGQIAO Costs of alumina, the primary feedstock for aluminum, should fall
with new supplies coming online. China’s economic stimulus and
◼ ILLUSTRATIONS BY BRYSON LEE

Market cap ($b) 14

Top executive Zhang Bo green infrastructure push will also support demand for the relatively
Legal name China Hongqiao Group Ltd. easily recycled metal. And Hongqiao is also diversifying with a
2025 estimated revenue change +3% project in Guinea that contains the world’s largest and highest-
2025 estimated sales ($b) 21 grade reserves of iron ore. �Michelle Leung

58 50 Companies to Watch Bloomberg Businessweek

CITIC SECURITIES Revenue at China’s largest broker is poised to benefit from Beijing’s push to
Market cap ($b) 57 boost stock market liquidity, and it could be among the two or three firms
Top executive Zhang Youjun prioritized by regulators to expand overseas. Citic Securities’ Hong Kong unit,
Legal name Citic Securities Co. CLSA, is positioned for accelerating demand in offshore wealth-management
2025 estimated revenue change +14% products through several regulator-approved systems. It’s also poised for a
2025 estimated sales ($b) 10 pickup in initial public offerings on the Hong Kong exchange. �Sharnie Wong

COLGATE Hitting management’s growth guidance looks increasingly

Market cap ($b) 78 challenging for the maker of toothpaste and other consumer
Top executive Noel Wallace products. In early 2024, Colgate posted strong results, but a sharp
Legal name Colgate-Palmolive Co. slowdown in third-quarter sales for its North America business
2025 estimated revenue change +3% bodes poorly for 2025. For now, this downward trend offsets the
2025 estimated sales ($b) 21 long-term expansion opportunity in its Hill’s premium pet food,
which the company says has reached just 5% of its target market
in the US. �Diana Gomes

EMERSON ELECTRIC Completing the proposed takeover of Aspen Tech—Emerson currently owns
Market cap ($b) 76 57%—will strengthen the industrial automation company’s software offerings
Top executive Lal Karsanbhai and allow it to reduce costs. Management’s guidance for total sales growth
Legal name Emerson Electric Co. of 3% to 5% for 2025 also looks too conservative, with upside coming from
2025 estimated revenue change +5% accelerating US spending on factories and infrastructure projects. Emerson’s
2025 estimated sales ($b) 18 potential sale of its tools business could support larger stock repurchases as
well. �Karen Ubelhart and Mustafa Okur

ESSEX PROPERTY The California REIT’s apartment properties are poised to produce
Market cap ($b) 20 stronger rental growth, leading to higher revenue than analysts
Top executive Angela Kleiman and investors expect. Essex’s West Coast markets, which
Legal name Essex Property Trust Inc. continue to benefit from tight housing supply and solid demand,
2025 estimated revenue change +4% should outperform Sun Belt growth through 2025.
2025 estimated sales ($b) 1.8 �Jeff Langbaum

ESTÉE LAUDER The skin-care company’s plan to rekindle profitability

Market cap ($b) 26 is running into delays. If new CEO Stéphane de La
Top executive Stéphane de La Faverie Faverie, who moves into the corner office in January,
Legal name Estée Lauder Cos. decides to take more aggressive action, restructuring
2025 estimated revenue change +5% costs could exceed the $500 million to $700 million
2025 estimated sales ($b) 15 announced last February. A lack of a competitive
edge from subsidiary brands such as Mac and Too
Faced and an outsize dependence on troubled Asian
duty-free shops for its Estée Lauder and La Mer lines
will keep a lid on sales for 2025. �Deborah Aitken

FOX Even as streaming threatens broadcast TV, Fox is poised to hit

Market cap ($b) 20 $3.5 billion in operating profit for the year ending in June 2025. A
Top executive Lachlan Murdoch potent mix of news and live sports channels keeps the company
Legal name Fox Corp. entrenched in legacy TV’s sweet spot, with record spending on
2025 estimated revenue change +3% political ads, Super Bowl promotions and robust ratings at Fox
2025 estimated sales ($b) 15 News playing to its advantage. �Geetha Ranganathan

January 2025 50 Companies to Watch 59

HSBC If HSBC’s new CEO successfully implements a planned streamlining effort, 2026
Market cap ($b) 167 pretax profit could be about $2.4 billion higher than expected, with estimates
Top executive Georges Elhedery rising through 2025. While the market appears focused on risks related to China’s
Legal name HSBC Holdings Plc slowing economy, the bank has taken provisions against property losses, and
2025 estimated revenue change -2% there’s room for it to aggressively cut costs. Revenue at its asset-management unit
2025 estimated sales ($b) 65 is also benefiting from growing wealth in Asia. �Tomasz Noetzel

IMAX The entertainment technology company, known for its gargantuan screens, is
Market cap ($b) 1.3 likely to buck an uncertain outlook for traditional box-office demand based on
Top executive Rich Gelfond soft consumer spending. Imax is positioned to see profit growth of about 16%
Legal name Imax Corp. annually through 2026, driven by share gains in both mature
2025 estimated revenue change +10% and emerging markets. Theater operators including AMC
2025 estimated sales ($b) 416 Entertainment Holdings Inc. and Wanda Film Holding Co.
are installing its systems, and directors such as James
Cameron are using its technology to produce their films.
�Kevin Near

INSULET The medical device marker’s US approval for the Omnipod 5—the first wearable
Market cap ($b) 19 automated insulin delivery system—should propel sales growth by almost
Top executive Jim Hollingshead 20% in 2025 after a strong start in 2024. Insulet’s technology should help
Legal name Insulet Corp. support market-share gains in the treatment of people with Type 1 diabetes,
2025 estimated revenue change +2.4% as it becomes the standard of care. The expected additional approval for the
2025 estimated sales ($b) 18 Omnipod 5 to support Type 2 patients should further bolster the company’s
revenue. �Matt Henriksson

ITV With lackluster demand for both content and TV advertising, the operating profit of
Market cap ($b) 3.3 the independent UK broadcaster risks falling short of market expectations in 2025.
Top executive Carolyn McCall Estimates predicting a rebound for ITV’s studio arm—which accounts for about half
Legal name ITV Plc of its top-line growth—seem to ignore these challenges. And a temporary ad-sales
2025 estimated revenue change -2% boost from the broadcasting of European Championship soccer games last summer
2025 estimated sales ($b) 4.4 creates a high bar for growth comparisons in 2025. �Tom Ward

KLA As semiconductor foundries take on advanced chips such as the

Market cap ($b) 89 high-bandwidth memory needed for high-performance artificial
Top executive Rick Wallace intelligence servers, sales of KLA’s tools for inspecting and
Legal name KLA Corp. measuring them for consistency and defects are poised to surge.
2025 estimated revenue change +11% The company is the market leader in such equipment, which
2025 estimated sales ($b) 12 chipmakers need to ensure quality and keep production flowing
smoothly. �Masahiro Wakasugi

KOTAK MAHINDRA BANK With a central bank ban on it opening new credit card and
Market cap ($b) 41 online accounts, the Indian bank’s profit targets look difficult
Top executive Ashok Vaswani to meet. Kotak Mahindra, with its relatively small branch
◼ ILLUSTRATIONS BY BRYSON LEE

Legal name Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd. network, is more reliant on digital banking than its peers.
2025 estimated revenue change -11% That puts its growth in jeopardy, even as it seeks to
2025 estimated sales ($b) 7.5 bolster its technology systems and compliance following
early 2024 digital outages that kept customers from
accessing accounts. �Sarah Jane Mahmud

60 50 Companies to Watch Bloomberg Businessweek

MICRON TECHNOLOGY The year looks promising for the chipmaker as demand for its high-bandwidth
Market cap ($b) 109 memory chips accelerates and sales of other AI-related products keep growing.
Top executive Sanjay Mehrotra In addition, as rival makers of memory limit production of lower-bandwidth
Legal name Micron Technology Inc. products, supplies are likely to be constrained, lifting chip prices and supporting
2025 estimated revenue change +42% Micron’s profit margins in this segment as
2025 estimated sales ($b) 39 well. �Jake Silverman

NINTENDO The successor to the Switch

Market cap ($b) 77 console isn’t expected in the
Top executive Shuntaro Furukawa fiscal year ending in March,
Legal name Nintendo Co. and the delayed rollout
2025 estimated revenue change +27% could weaken results.
2025 estimated sales ($b) 11 Heavier operating
costs before the new
gadget’s debut add to
profit risks as Nintendo’s
now-outdated consoles weigh
on hardware and software sales.
�Nathan Naidu

NORDEA The Scandinavian bank’s €250 million ($264 million) share buyback announced
Market cap ($b) 39 last quarter should be seen as just a start, with such purchases and dividends
Top executive Frank Vang-Jensen combined to likely top €1 billion in coming years—far exceeding market
Legal name Nordea Bank Abp expectations. Nordea’s profitable Nordic commercial and consumer businesses,
2025 estimated revenue change -2% strong asset quality and the buffer it’s created against bad loans all support the
2025 estimated sales ($b) 12 surprising returns to shareholders. �Mar’Yana Vartsaba

NORFOLK SOUTHERN After suffering a difficult two years—a devastating derailment, a contentious proxy
Market cap ($b) 62 battle and the termination of its CEO—the railroad can expect better prospects
Top executive Mark George in 2025. A refocus on operating a safer and more efficient network, along with
Legal name Norfolk Southern Corp. a recovering trucking market that helps its intermodal business, bodes well for
2025 estimated revenue change +4% Norfolk Southern’s volumes and profit margins. �Lee Klaskow
2025 estimated sales ($b) 13

OKTA The continued threat of hacking has set the security software
Market cap ($b) 14 provider up for a sales resurgence in 2025, despite suffering some
Top executive Todd McKinnon debilitating breaches itself in 2023. Okta’s customer retention
Legal name Okta Inc. rates are stabilizing, and the company is adding new clients.
2025 estimated revenue change +9% Identity security (where Okta is a leader) is also poised to grow,
2025 estimated sales ($b) 2.8 given the vast numbers of compromised passwords still in use.
�Mandeep Singh

OMV An improving political situation in Libya, which accounts for about 10% of the
Market cap ($b) 13 Austrian company’s capacity, should boost OMV’s oil production. And the
Top executive Alfred Stern profitability of its chemical business is recovering from 2023’s losses. These
Legal name OMV AG factors put OMV on track to beat earnings estimates in 2025 while sustaining
2025 estimated revenue change -6% its strong balance sheet and hefty dividend payout. �Salih Yilmaz
2025 estimated sales ($b) 35

January 2025 50 Companies to Watch 61

PALANTIR While the software company has benefited from sessions aimed at giving
Market cap ($b) 151 clients a better understanding of how artificial intelligence can help their
Top executive Alex Karp businesses, the market’s revenue expectations appear overly optimistic.
Legal name Palantir Technologies Inc. Palantir’s customer base remains relatively small, and it’s behind rivals such
2025 estimated revenue change +25% as OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta Platforms and Google in deploying its own large
2025 estimated sales ($b) 3.5 language model. �Mandeep Singh

PAYPAL New partnerships with Adyen and Amazon Prime as well as

Market cap ($b) 87 efforts to monetize undertapped assets like Venmo’s and Paypal’s
Top executive Alex Chriss services for small and medium-size businesses should support
Legal name PayPal Holdings Inc. surprisingly strong revenue growth and operating margins. About
2025 estimated revenue change +6% $6 billion in share buybacks will further boost earnings per share.
2025 estimated sales ($b) 33 �Diksha Gera

PERSIMMON The UK builder is on track to complete at least 12,000 homes in 2025, versus
Market cap ($b) 5.1 market expectations of 11,500. Improving demand, lower mortgage rates,
Top executive Dean Finch a wealth of new developments and a relaxation of government planning
Legal name Persimmon Plc constraints augur greater building volumes and pretax profits that exceed
2025 estimated revenue change +10% expectations. �Iwona Honenko
2025 estimated sales ($b) 4

PORSCHE The German automaker is raising prices—the average

Market cap ($b) 57 sticker on a 911 has jumped almost a third since
Top executive Oliver Blume 2019—and its super-wealthy clients don’t seem to
Legal name Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG mind. This will help lift operating margins to about 18%
2025 estimated revenue change +5% in 2025-26, narrowing the gap with industry leader
2025 estimated sales ($b) 43 Ferrari SpA and its 28% margins. Porsche’s five
new models during 2024-25, including a 911
hybrid and refreshed versions of the Panamera
and Cayenne, will help further boost volumes
and prices. And flagging interest in less-
profitable electric vehicles should also enhance
profitability. �Michael Dean

RÉMY COINTREAU The French booze maker has been suffering as high interest rates make it too
Market cap ($b) 3.1 costly for wholesalers to hold inventories of pricey spirits such as cognac.
Top executive Éric Vallat Tariffs as high as 39% on brandy and cognac sales to China announced
Legal name Rémy Cointreau in October add to the pain. But with interest rates falling and consumer
2025 estimated revenue change +2% confidence stabilizing, a US sales rebound should be in the cards for 2025.
2025 estimated sales ($b) 1.1 �Duncan Fox

RWE The German utility is on track to beat profit estimates as power

Market cap ($b) 25 prices stabilize and it expands solar and wind capacity. RWE’s
2023 acquisition of Con Edison Clean Energy has positioned it for
◼ ILLUSTRATIONS BY BRYSON LEE

Top executive Markus Krebber

Legal name RWE AG accelerated expansion in the US, where it’s poised to jump to the
2025 estimated revenue change -3% No. 2 spot in renewable energy capacity by 2027. Rising demand
2025 estimated sales ($b) 26 for green power tied to artificial intelligence also points toward
faster growth. �Patricio Alvarez

62 50 Companies to Watch Bloomberg Businessweek

SHANGHAI AIRPORT Despite Beijing’s efforts to goose the economy, Shanghai
Market cap ($b) 12 Airport’s profits are set to disappoint. While passenger
Top executive Zhang Yongdong traffic has recovered to pre-Covid levels and is likely
Legal name Shanghai International Airport Co. to climb, rental revenue from concourse shops, which
2025 estimated revenue change +12% is linked to retail sales, is falling short. During the
2025 estimated sales ($b) 1.9 pandemic, consumers in China pivoted away from airport
purchases and toward buying online and at local stores.
�Denise Wong

SIBANYE STILLWATER As Americans and Europeans cool on electric vehicles, combustion-engine and
Market cap ($b) 2.9 hybrid cars are accounting for a greater share of purchases, driving demand for
Top executive Neal Froneman platinum needed in their construction. That offers the prospect of higher earnings
Legal name Sibanye Stillwater Ltd. in 2025 for miner Sibanye Stillwater after three straight years of declines. The
2025 estimated revenue change +4% South African company could also see higher prices for palladium if additional
2025 estimated sales ($b) 6.3 sanctions are imposed on Russia, a major supplier of the metal. And with a quarter
of the company’s revenue coming from gold mining, recent record prices offer an
additional cushion. �Emmanuel Munjeri

SIGNIFY Homebuyers are usually keen to make the house their own, which
Market cap ($b) 2.9 often means switching out the light fixtures. That’s why the world’s
Top executive Eric Rondolat largest lighting company can expect to see demand for its products
Legal name Signify NV strengthen, as falling interest rates in the US and Europe make
2025 estimated revenue change +2% mortgages more affordable, spurring property transactions. Signify
2025 estimated sales ($b) 6.6 is also proactively cutting costs of more than €200 million annually,
helping to boost profit margins. �Bhawin Thakker

SLB After a stretch of soft oil and gas prices, energy investors are understandably
Market cap ($b) 62 fixated on data showing fewer drilling rigs being used for exploration, but
Top executive Olivier Le Peuch expectations appear too pessimistic for the global oilfield services leader.
Legal name Schlumberger NV About 30% of SLB’s business is centered on helping producers boost output
2025 estimated revenue change +5% from existing sites, and when the company closes its acquisition of production-
2025 estimated sales ($b) 38 chemicals maker ChampionX in early 2025, these businesses will approach
40% of revenue. �Scott Levine

SUBSEA 7 Growth in offshore energy projects augurs increased revenue and

Market cap ($b) 4.9 profit margins for the marine construction company. Strong
Top executive John Evans orders for conventional oil and gas installations have been
Legal name Subsea 7 SA complemented by rising interest in offshore wind farms. The
2025 estimated revenue change +6% increased demand means Subsea 7 will likely benefit from
2025 estimated sales ($b) 7.2 higher-margin contracts across many regions. �Will Hares

SUN HUNG KAI The Hong Kong developer is poised for a rebound in revenue and
Market cap ($b) 29 earnings after suffering through a depressed housing market over
Top executive Raymond Kwok Ping-luen the past two years. Falling interest rates will likely speed up sales
Legal name Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd. of completed homes, and contracts for unbuilt properties could be
2025 estimated revenue change +2% more than 20% above their targets. An economic stimulus package
2025 estimated sales ($b) 11 from China has boosted interest from mainland buyers for new
projects on Hong Kong Island and in Kowloon. �Patrick Wong

January 2025 50 Companies to Watch 63

TAPESTRY The leather-goods maker is strengthening the lineup at its leading label, Coach,
Market cap ($b) 14 whose sales have managed to beat a recent slowdown in the purchase of
Top executive Joanne Crevoiserat midlevel luxury goods. With North America accounting for about two-thirds of
Legal name Tapestry Inc. those sales, a pickup in US consumer sentiment could lift its Kate Spade brand
2025 estimated revenue change +3% as well. After agreeing to terminate a merger with Capri Holdings Ltd., owner of
2025 estimated sales ($b) 6.9 the struggling Michael Kors label, Tapestry has the financial firepower to look for
other deals and increase its share buybacks. �Deborah Aitken

TELADOC The virtual health-care provider is trying to heal itself after high marketing costs
Market cap ($b) 1.9 at its BetterHelp mental health unit sparked a significant disappointment in mid-
Top executive Chuck Divita 2024. With new CEO Chuck Divita, who took over in June, Teladoc is pursuing
Legal name Teladoc Health Inc. international expansion and a deeper integration into insurance plans. But those
2025 estimated revenue change -1% efforts are moving ahead slowly, making the market’s expectations for the first
2025 estimated sales ($b) 2.5 half of 2025 appear overly optimistic. �Jonathan Palmer

TESLA The electric-vehicle maker plans to introduce a slew of fresh

Market cap ($b) 1146 models in 2025, which will help expand its reach to new buyers,
Top executive Elon Musk boost profits and showcase advancements in its artificial
Legal name Tesla Inc. intelligence and self-driving tech. Early in the year, Tesla is due
2025 estimated revenue change +17% to roll out a lower-priced car, followed by a major refresh for its
2025 estimated sales ($b) 117 bestselling Model Y. �Steve Man

THAI BEVERAGE The maker of Chang beer and a slew of whiskey and rum brands is
Market cap ($b) 11 in the midst of a restructuring that will increase its nonalcoholic-
Top executive Thapana Sirivadhanabhakdi beverage offerings and offload a stake in a property company.
Legal name Thai Beverage Pcl These actions should boost earnings growth in 2025 more than
2025 estimated revenue change -10% the market expects, and a planned initial public offering of its
2025 estimated sales ($b) 8.7 beer operations should provide more visibility for this key
business. �Lisa Lee

TOKYO ELECTRIC POWER The electric utility’s profit margin is poised to widen as the Japanese
Market cap ($b) 74 government encourages nuclear energy—a big shift from the hiatus following
Top executive Yoshimitsu Kobayashi the partial meltdown of the Fukushima facility in 2011. Nuclear energy is Japan’s
Legal name Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings cheapest source of power, but almost half of Tepco’s capacity has been out of
2025 estimated revenue change 0% commission. Restarting plants should boost earnings
2025 estimated sales ($b) 46 expectations. �Kelvin Ng

UPS The shipping company is poised for profit growth

Market cap ($b) 114 in the mid- to high teens in 2025 and
Top executive Carol Tomé beyond, thanks to productivity and
Legal name United Parcel Service Inc. restructuring programs. UPS divested
2025 estimated revenue change +4% its freight brokerage unit in September,
2025 estimated sales ($b) 95 and targeted price increases are
fattening margins as freight demand
◼ ILLUSTRATIONS BY BRYSON LEE

improves. The ramp-up of its air cargo

contract with the US Postal Service, which
began in 2024, will also add to UPS’s core
parcel business. �Lee Klaskow

64 50 Companies to Watch Bloomberg Businessweek

VALE There are three reasons investors can expect a bright 2025 for the world’s No. 2
Market cap ($b) 44 iron ore producer. The most important: China’s recently announced economic
Top executive Gustavo Pimenta stimulus plans. A global recovery in steel mill margins should also give Vale’s
Legal name Vale SA higher-grade iron ore products a boost, and the company expects two new iron
2025 estimated revenue change +2% ore projects to be commissioned by mid-2025. �Grant Spoore
2025 estimated sales ($b) 38

VAT GROUP The Swiss equipment maker’s high-performance valves are used to create
Market cap ($b) 12 vacuums that are critical in chip manufacturing. Consensus
Top executive Urs Gantner profit estimates look too low given accelerated spending
Legal name VAT Group AG growth in leading-edge semiconductor facilities
2025 estimated revenue change +27% around the world along with China’s investment in
2025 estimated sales ($b) 1.4 older-generation chips as it contends with US trade
restrictions. �Omid Vaziri

VODACOM As South Africa’s political turmoil

Market cap ($b) 12 eases and the new coalition
Top executive Shameel Joosub government hits its stride, economic
Legal name Vodacom Group Ltd. sentiment is improving. That
2025 estimated revenue change +6% makes current 2025 profit estimates
2025 estimated sales ($b) 8.7 for the country’s largest
telecommunications operator look
conservative. Vodacom’s revenue growth
and profit margins should improve as
unemployment falls and electric outages
subside, boosting demand for
its services. �John Davies

WASTE MANAGEMENT The top US garbage hauler’s $7 billion acquisition of Stericycle in 2024 looks
Market cap ($b) 90 challenging for the year ahead, given the medical-waste disposal company’s
Top executive James Fish Jr. history of earnings disappointments and restructurings. And with little overlap
Legal name Waste Management Holdings Inc. with WM’s core trash and landfill business, cost synergies will be limited. The
2025 estimated revenue change +11% purchase price will push WM’s debt burden well above historical norms, adding
2025 estimated sales ($b) 24 balance sheet risks. �Scott Levine

WILMAR As China’s population ages, consumption of cooking oil there is headed for a
Market cap ($b) 15 fall, presenting a long-term growth challenge to the Singapore-based palm oil
Top executive Kuok Khoon Hong producer. People tend to cook with less oil after age 40, now the median age
Legal name Wilmar International Ltd. in the world’s second-most populous country, where Wilmar has a 38% market
2025 estimated revenue change +4% share of branded cooking oil and gets about half its sales. �Alvin Tai
2025 estimated sales ($b) 71

WORKDAY The software provider could see a notable boost in the number
Market cap ($b) 67 of new contracts in the second half of 2025, driven by midsize
Top executive Carl Eschenbach businesses buoyed by lower interest rates. A revival in bookings
Legal name Workday Inc. for Workday’s offerings should help it bring revenue growth back
2025 estimated revenue change +13% up to the high teens, allaying concerns that emerged among
2025 estimated sales ($b) 9.4 investors over the past two years. �Anurag Rana

January 2025 50 Companies to Watch 65

 A single cell.

◼ PHOTO: ◼ DATA:

66 Bloomberg Businessweek
 A global business
worth billions.

A trade that can

bring rewards—
or human costs that
cannot be measured.
◼ PHOTO: ◼ DATA:

The Egg

January 2025 67
 The human egg is a precious resource, exchanged in markets open, gray or
black. To tell its story, we follow a teenage girl in India, lured into selling her eggs;
a model in Argentina whose genetic makeup is prized; a mother in Greece, told by
police that her eggs were stolen; and two “egg girls” from Taiwan who have put
themselves at risk to earn money in the US.

By Natalie Obiko Pearson, Jessica Brice, Susan Berfield, Vernon Silver,

Kanoko Matsuyama, Cindy Wang, Sinduja Rangarajan and Fani Nikiforaki
Illustrations by Magali Cazo

1. DON’T TELL YOUR MOTHER THE TEEN persuaded her to sell her eggs. Seema had her pose for a photo
She wakes early, then waits, quietly, for her mother to leave for a fake ID. Seema drilled her on the story she had to tell: wed­
for work. The nurse in the gleaming glass building in Varanasi, ded, with two children. On the raft of forms for the clinic, Seema
India, had told her to arrive by 7 a.m., so she doesn’t have much had her own husband sign off as the girl’s spouse.
time. Her fingers working quickly, she drapes a sari across her The girl trusted Seema, who’d told her she could earn as
adolescent frame, making her look older and curvier than the much as 15,000 rupees ($177). For a gift of life it’s a paltry sum,
salwar kameez tunics she usually prefers. but for the girl it would be enough to buy what she longed
She’s tired of these trips, but this one, on Oct. 8, 2023, will for—a smartphone. So she heeded Seema’s advice: Don’t tell
be her last. For 10 days she’s been sneaking to an upscale fer­ anyone, not even your mother.
tility clinic to receive injections that trigger her ovaries into The girl comes from a family of sweepers in Varanasi, rele­
mimicking the monthly reproductive cycle that typically read­ gated by caste to cleaning up the detritus of Hinduism’s holiest
ies a single egg for fertilization. In her case, the powerful syn­ city. Her mother is the family’s pillar, working long hours at
thetic hormones were meant to deliver not just one egg, but a a doctor’s office to raise her three daughters. The teen is the
cache to be sold. In the lucrative global market for human ova, middle daughter, the light of the family, chatty with a sharp
that stash is more valuable than anything among her family’s wit. She likes to put on makeup and borrow her sister’s phone
modest possessions. to post videos to Instagram and Snapchat, imagining a future
Today the cache is ready for retrieval. Her ovaries are teem­ beyond her home in a cramped settlement perched precari­
ing with follicles, each swelled to more than half an inch and ously along a railway track.
ready to release a mature egg. The clinic belongs to another world, one with money and
By law, egg donors in India must be at least 23. the hope it can buy. “We will make your dream of building a
But her only piece of identification, a school record from the family come true,” a billboard on the building says. Inside, for
state government, shows her as 13. a shot at getting pregnant, dozens of couples sit ready to part
The truth is, she doesn’t know her age, and neither does with 10, 20 times what donors get paid for their eggs.
her mother. This isn’t particularly unusual at the lower rungs As the girl arrives on this morning, Seema waits with another
of Indian society, where millions of births go unregistered. The woman, named Anita, who hands her a fake government ID
girl is in seventh grade. showing her as 24, according to police records. The women
To get around the law, she must present as a woman. For press a vermilion bindi onto the teen’s forehead, clasp a mangal­
this, she has help. Her grandmother’s neighbor, a woman named sutra wedding necklace around her neck and adjust her sari.
Seema, is a fixer of sorts, an agent, according to police records.
It was Seema, the girl will say, who put all this in motion. Seema The teen in Varanasi was lured into selling her eggs for $180

68 Bloomberg Businessweek
 ◼ APARNA JAYAKUMAR/BLOOMBERG

January 2025
69
 As a finishing touch, they put a toddler in her arms. Seema
ushers the girl into the clinic.
The girl is scared, and no matter what the paperwork says,
there are signs that something’s amiss. There’s the adolescent
plump to her cheeks. She holds one child and claims to have
another at home, but the ultrasounds she’s undergone could
raise the question of whether she has any at all. Then there’s
Seema, who keeps talking over her, prompting the doctor
to order the older woman out of the counseling room. The
doctor wants to talk to the girl alone. Her heartbeat races.
The doctor asks: Why is she selling her eggs? How long has
she been married? How many children does she have? The
toddler squirms in her lap. Fighting waves of panic, she clings
to the story.
She needn’t have worried. Soon she’s whisked into an
operating room and put under anesthesia. When she comes
to, only a nurse is there. The girl asks if it’s OK to leave. The
nurse says yes.
Outside, Seema and Anita are waiting. Anita withdraws
15,000 rupees from a nearby ATM, Seema takes a cut, and
then the girl goes shopping, buying a cheap Oppo smartphone
with the remaining 11,600 rupees.
Her case could have ended there, passing unnoticed like
tens of thousands of egg extractions in India every year. But
in Varanasi’s less fortunate neighborhoods, where there’s lit­
tle space between one small concrete hut and the next and
conversations drift through window openings with no glass,
secrets don’t stay secret for long.
Competition is fierce among agents in Varanasi, and days
after the retrieval, an argument erupts in the street between
Seema and a rival. They bicker loudly over who had first rights
to the girl and who was entitled to the 3,400­rupee commis­
sion. A crowd gathers, and in this crowd, among those listen­
ing, is a member of the girl’s family.

2. AN EXPLOSION OF STARS THE MODEL

On a chilly Thursday in June, Karen Petz takes a black Uber to
a fertility clinic along a busy street in Buenos Aires. She wears
an olive­green granny­knit sweater cropped short on her long
torso. Her belly is swollen. “It’s getting uncomfortable to walk,”
she says. “My ovaries are pushing on my organs.” She presses
four fingers into her lower abdomen and pushes back.
Karen is tall. “In the US, I think you would say 6 feet,” she
says. “A hundred and eighty­three centimeters.” Her eyes are a
watery green, her hair long and blond. Like many tall women,
she hated this trait right up to the point it turned into an asset.
Years back, when she was modeling clothes in Chile, her agency
told clients her look was “aspirational”—as in, she is what other
women aspire to.
The sun isn’t fully up when Karen walks into the WeFIV
clinic. At 31 she’d retired as an egg donor. But a couple in
Mexico had said they were desperate for a donor just like her,
and so Karen agreed to provide her eggs one more time when
her US­based agency asked her to make an exception. In an Karen Petz, in Buenos Aires, was paid $35,000 for a
industry void of broad regulation, one thing doctors generally donation in June

70 Bloomberg Businessweek
 agree on is that no one should donate more than six times. “How many you got over there, Santi?” Basile shouts
Today will be Karen’s seventh. across the lab.
She checks in and is escorted into an elevator, up three Embryologist Santiago Giordana, at the second station,
floors to a private patient suite. She changes into a white checks a petri dish with a cluster of just­visible gray specks in
waffle robe and waits for a nurse to come claim her with a the center. “Seventeen,” he yells back.
wheelchair. Then it’s up another floor to answer a checklist “And that’s why Karen is so popular,” Basile says.
of questions: Have you eaten anything this morning? Have For the next hour or two, these 43 eggs will rest in a culture
you ever had a bad reaction to anesthesia? Are you wearing medium, then get a quick rinse in an enzyme solution that will
contact lenses? eat away their protective cellular covering. Sixteen won’t be
It’s a routine that five to six women take part in daily, always mature enough and will be discarded. The remainder will be
in the morning, six days a week. Most are having their eggs frozen in a process known as vitrification and stored for several
harvested for their own future in vitro fertilization treatments, more weeks, until they’re ready for an intercontinental trip span­
but a growing number are here to help fill the clinic’s egg bank. ning almost 8,000 miles. A Bloomberg Businessweek reporter will
With its large European population, weak currency and lib­ follow them, from operating room to journey’s end.
eral laws around reproductive issues, Argentina has become By the time the 23 eggs reach their destination, they will
an important producer of eggs, for both the domestic market have generated revenue for doctors, agents, airlines, lawyers,
and export. Fees for donors like Karen—college­educated, counselors, couriers, insurers and drug companies. Karen is
good­looking, athletic, charismatic—range from $2,000 to … paid $35,000.
“Well, the sky’s the limit, really,” says Natalia Basile, WeFIV’s
co­owner and chief embryologist. “The most we ever had a 3. TRACKING CODES THE MOTHER
donor ask for was $35,000.” For Maria, it’s already a bad sign that two police officers have
Forty­five minutes after arriving, Karen is rolled into WeFIV’s summoned her to their station. When they say the woman
surgical suite. An operating table with stirrups sits off center. A with them is a psychologist, she braces for the worst.
35­centimeter needle waits atop a steel cart. On the ceiling, an As the four take seats in February, all Maria knows is that
explosion of stars is projected from a light machine tucked in a the matter relates to the birth of her 3­year­old child—the
corner. It’s the last thing she sees before the anesthesia kicks in. happy result of in vitro fertilization.
It’s bustling but quiet as two doctors and three nurses play (“Maria” is a pseudonym. She shared her story but asked
parts performed so often it’s now second nature. On the wall, that we withhold her name.)
a screen displays the transvaginal ultrasound of Karen’s right Four years earlier, Maria had gone to a fertility clinic near her
ovary. After a two­week regimen of hormones, it’s swollen four home on the Greek island of Crete to have eggs retrieved. She
times in size. Beneath the projection of stars, the grainy image wasn’t donating her eggs. As a smoker in her late 30s, she’d have
could be a moonscape pocked with a dozen dark craters. been a poor candidate, if that had been her intention. She just
Each crater is a follicle. WeFIV’s chief physician guides the wanted to have a child. But now these police officers—members
needle through the recesses of Karen’s body, piercing the vagi­ of a national organized­crime unit—are saying she’d been lied to.
nal wall to reach the ovary. One by one, the follicles are drained The clinic staff had told her they’d harvested a half­dozen
of their liquid. Karen snores. The craters disappear from the eggs. But the real number was twice that, the police tell her.
screen. Karen squirms, and a nurse adjusts her back into posi­ The other eggs had been used to create embryos for another
tion. The fluid is deposited into vials. woman. This news devastates Maria. To her it means she might
There’s a nurse whose only job during the procedure is be the mother of another child.
to spirit those vials away to a lab connected to the operating The psychologist is here to help her process the news. For
room. At either end of the lab, an embryologist peers through Maria, questions swirl. How many other children might have
a microscope and sorts eggs from liquid that’s the color of been born of her eggs? One? Three? None? And how was this
watered­down blood. The courier nurse delivers a vial to the allowed to happen?
◼ PHOTOGRAPH BY IRINA WERNING FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK

first station, returns to the operating room to retrieve another, The police are also summoning other women, delivering sim­
then drops it off at the second station. It goes on like this for ilar news. Most, like Maria, live in and around Chania, a seaside
25 minutes. In and out. One and two. Karen’s procedure ends. tourist town that had become an unlikely hub of the global fertil­
The final egg count is still being tallied when another woman ity industry. The Mediterranean Fertility Institute, or MFI, was a
takes her place on the operating table. magnet for aspiring parents from nations with restrictive assisted
“It’s a lot,” Basile says in the lab. “We knew it was going to reproduction laws. To make babies, the clinic needed eggs.
be. You can tell on the ultrasound, but we also knew, based The police, in these visits, want to nail down a key detail
on this patient’s history, what to expect.” from women whose names have shown up in seized records:
Karen is a super­producer, someone whose body reacts so Did they ever give permission to surrender some of their eggs?
strongly to the hormones that it churns out far more than the The officers ask Maria what happened at the clinic in early
typical 15 to 20 eggs. 2020. Maria reconstructs the day her eggs were retrieved, then
The first station’s numbers are in: 26 eggs. asks questions of her own.

January 2025 71
 Yes, the police tell her, clinic records show it actually had
been her eggs and her husband’s sperm that produced her
child. That part had gone normally. Unfortunately, the police
tell her, records indicate her remaining eggs became a “dona­
tion” to another woman—and no, they don’t know if the other
woman had any babies using Maria’s eggs.
Who is this other woman? Maria is led to believe the police
know but can’t say, partly because of a Greek privacy law sur­
rounding egg and sperm donation. But while the police don’t give
a name, they do offer something else. The clinic had assigned
tracking codes to the women passing through. Egg donors
received six­digit codes, IVF patients four­digit codes. Maria
already had her own code. Before she leaves the station, police
give her another, the code for the woman who got her eggs.

4. EGGS: 330. EARNINGS: $160,000 THE EGG GIRLS

She was a young woman in Taiwan—it would have been 2018—a
graduate student on her own, an extroverted, intuitive type on
the Myers­Briggs personality test, a feminist. She liked being The former site of the Mediterranean Fertility Institute, where
independent, but she felt poor. She wanted a job with a high Maria’s eggs were stolen, according to a police investigation
“CP value,” or cost­performance, which is what young women Amber, who lives in Taiwan, donated eggs in the US 11 times,
in Taiwan sometimes say when they consider taking a calculated earning as much as $25,000 at a time

72 Bloomberg Businessweek
 Egg donation is legal in Taiwan, but women are allowed to
do so only once if a baby is born as a result, and they can be
paid only about $3,000. Easy decision for Amber in 2018: “If I’m
going to do the same thing, why don’t I choose the place where
the price is higher?” But everything else that first time made her
nervous. She didn’t know any other egg girls. She hadn’t ever
traveled to the US, and now she’d have to lie to pass through
customs. She had to trust her agent, a Chinese American woman
she’d never met in person whose last name she didn’t know.
Would­be parents tend to want the eggs of someone who’s rel­
atively tall and slim and well­educated, someone who might
resemble the mother, maybe plays the violin or tennis. The speci­
fications can be exacting. Amber submitted photos that made her
look friendly, videos that made her look cute. She took genetic
tests and blood and urine tests, had physical and gynecological
exams, a psychological evaluation. She did all this without telling
her parents. They wouldn’t have approved.
When Amber had to take a car alone from the Los Angeles
airport; when she had to pinch a fold of skin over her left ovary,
take a deep breath and inject the stimulation medication herself;
when she felt bloated and ugly; when she thought of giving up,
she told herself: “I’m here for the money. I can do this thing.”
And when the doctor said he’d extracted 34 eggs, Amber knew
she’d do this thing again. A successful retrieval meant she could
ask for more money next time: “My eggs are like a treasure.”
Over the next six years, Amber learned about the trade—and
the trade­offs. Once someone said to her: “The thing you do is
not about donation. It’s a business. Don’t say it so pretty.” Amber
replied: “‘Yes, I’m doing a business. And so what, right?’ Because
I think about the injection, the egg retrieval, so many incon­
veniences, so much is uncomfortable, and also the pain. Right?”
Amber has learned: Anyone can be an agent. There’s no exam
to pass, no medical experience or legal training required. Many
chance to become happier, better off. She searched online for a agents are former donors. In the US they can operate in the open,
quick way to make money. The first possibility: nightclub escort. even if some Chinese American agents prefer not to. In Taiwan
The second: egg donor. Ten thousand dollars for one cycle in agents exist in a liminal space, prohibited from brokering the
◼ CRETE: HILARY SWIFT/BLOOMBERG. AMBER: PHOTOGRAPH BY AN RONG XU FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK

the US. “Oh,” she thought. “It’s quite big money.” sale of eggs but seemingly able to match a young woman with
Amber—the name she’s chosen for this story—is now 30 years would­be parents, collect a fee and never be named in the con­
old. She’s a translator and a competitive vogue dancer and an tract between them.
“egg girl,” the term Taiwanese use to describe the hundreds, Also: The US industry guideline limiting donors to six cycles
maybe thousands, of women who sell their eggs in the US. The is rarely enforced. There’s no way for a clinic to track retrievals
buyers usually come from China, because it’s illegal to make elsewhere. If a nurse asks how many times Amber has donated,
these kinds of arrangements there. In the middle are recruit­ she always says four. Then the nurse might remind her of the
ers and agents, doctors and nurses. Amber is fine with calling recommendation. “After that, because the clinic also wants to
it a marketplace. She’s gone through 11 cycles in the US, sold make money, they won’t purposely raise this question,” she says.
about 330 eggs, earned $160,000, worked with 4 agents, 4 clin­ She’s learned she has power. That’s why she’s worked with
ics, 2 egg banks and at least 9 Chinese families. different agents. If one can’t find her a match when she’s avail­
She’s in a cafe in Diamond Bar, California, in May, five days able at the fee she desires, she turns to another. “Where the
after her latest retrieval, eating noodles and wearing black money is, that’s where I am,” Amber says, laughing. Her highest
pants, a crop top, frayed jean jacket, orange lipstick. That is, fee: $25,000. The most eggs extracted: 52. Her best investment:
she looks comfortable. She says she feels good. The daily shots crypto, especially Ether. Her worst experience: donation No. 5,
and clinic visits, the enlarged ovaries, swollen feet, sleepiness 44 eggs, $15,000. She was in so much pain after the retrieval that
and anxiety—they’re memories. Thirty­three eggs of hers are in she had trouble lying down to sleep. The danger of that kind
the lab, $16,000 deposited in her bank account. Tonight she’s of pain, or worse, goes up with the number of eggs harvested.
clubbing with friends. More than 15 eggs, and the risk of getting what’s called ovarian

January 2025 73
 hyperstimulation syndrome increases. More than 30, and the reservation. When asked for a local contact, they shouldn’t
risk increases even more. Amber doesn’t worry about that. write the clinic’s address, as did one donor who was turned
Every egg girl coming to the US must contend with another back. But still they might be taken to “the room” for ques­
potential obstacle—Customs and Border Protection. Amber has tioning. “Customs may say: ‘Don’t lie to me anymore. I know
learned how to deal with that, too. The young women arrive you are here to work to make money.’” And then, Amber says,
on travel documents that don’t allow them to work or earn some donors just tell them everything.
money. Immigration officers can turn anyone away if anything Not Amber. She’s been taken to the room twice. The sec­
seems suspicious. The women’s agents coach them on how ond time, an immigration officer scrolled through her phone
to answer likely questions. They tell the women to book the for half an hour, reviewing two years’ worth of bank state­
airplane tickets themselves, delete sensitive emails, remove ments. She told him she was there to visit friends she danced
the WeChat app altogether, wear plain clothes, skip makeup. and competed with. She showed him videos of her vogueing.
They should have a vacation itinerary, sometimes even a hotel He let her go.

5. $35 BILLION AND GROWING

Every 15 seconds or so, a batch of eggs is extracted from a woman somewhere on

the planet.
Most IVF treatments involve women using their own eggs. In at least 6% of cases the eggs
come from donors—the fertility industry’s term—who agree to have their eggs removed,
often in exchange for money. The donors are recruited into a $35 billion­and­growing
global market for assisted reproduction. This market comprises would­be parents, agents,
doctors and clinics—many of the latter backed by Wall Street and private equity.
Globally more than 120,000 embryos were created with donated eggs in 2019, almost
double the number in 2011, according to the International Committee for Monitoring
Assisted Reproductive Technologies. The real number is certainly much higher: Not all
countries reliably monitor this, and the numbers don’t include India. (An analysis of data
from Bharat Serums and Vaccines Ltd., one of India’s largest fertility drugmakers, shows
an estimated 95,000 rounds of IVF using donor eggs occurred in the country just in 2023.)
The demand for eggs extracted from younger women is likely to increase as more older
women try to have children. As women age, the number and quality of their eggs decline.
The egg trade, which operates with minimal regulation across borders, thrives in
open markets, gray markets and black markets. When the rules or circumstances
change in one country—foreigners are banned from using surrogates in India; war shuts
down fertility tourism in Ukraine; Chinese couples are permitted more than one child
but forbidden to buy other women’s eggs—the contours of the business change, too.
Those who want children seek help in Greece instead of India, Argentina instead of
Ukraine, the US, not China.

74 Bloomberg Businessweek
 Egg donors have few advocates and few laws to protect their health or prevent
their exploitation. In the US, the Food and Drug Administration requires that donors
undergo a physical exam, including tests for infectious diseases, and provide their
medical history. Beyond that, clinics are expected to comply with guidelines set by
a fertility industry trade group, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.
The guidelines recommend, among other things, that donors receive mental health
counseling and get their own legal review of all contracts. The ASRM also suggests that
donors undergo only six retrievals. That’s meant to reduce the chance of complications.
The short­term risks of hormonal stimulation range from discomfort to, in rare
cases, death. The long­term risks of repeated egg donation are unknown. That’s not
an accident, says Robert Klitzman, a professor and director of the Master of Science
in Bioethics program at Columbia University. “They are making millions off women
who are making thousands,” he says. “If they did the research, they might find out
there are long­term harms that may decrease the business and the amount of money
they can earn.”

6. YOU SHOULD DO IT THE MODEL about everything from her work as a model, to her business
An old friend of Karen’s, also a model, sold her on the idea. studies, to her German heritage, to the marathon she’d recently
Karen was living in Santiago and working as a research trans­ run. “I really poured my heart into the questionnaire,” she says.
lator. Kenia Iost, who’d recently moved to Mexico, was in town “The idea that people choose me not only because of my looks
for a wedding when they ran into each other. but because of my personality—it really validates me.”
I just got back from Los Angeles, Kenia told Karen, explain­ Karen’s profile went live in February 2019. Within a couple of
ing how she’d been paid $6,000 for her eggs. You should do it. days, Growing Generations got a call. Someone was interested.
Social media is full of ads offering compensation for eggs.
Influencers dance in front of clinics on TikTok or hype egg 7. A SUSPICIOUS SITUATION THE TEEN
donation on Instagram between posts about lip filler and breast The family member who overheard the agents’ argument
implants. But for donors who command the highest prices, tells another relative, who in turn tells another relative. Word
word of mouth is everything. Kenia herself had been scouted reaches the teenage girl’s mother. She discovers the phone her
by a fitness influencer who’d undergone the procedure and got daughter has been hiding and confronts her. The girl comes
a referral fee for every recruit. clean, the truth spilling out.
In January 2019, when Karen was 26, she flew to LA to donate On Oct. 17, 2023, the girl’s mother reports what’s happened
her eggs for the first time. She’d be paid the same as Kenia. She to the police, triggering an investigation. Police soon identify
went to one of the 11 clinics run by Huntington Reproductive the clinic in question: a branch of Nova IVF Fertility, one of
Center, or HRC, among the biggest fertility chains in the US. A India’s largest fertility chains, which has been backed by some
nurse­turned­scout had arranged everything, but on the ride of America’s most powerful financiers.
from the airport, Karen got a text saying the intended parent Nova is owned by Asia Healthcare Holdings, which in turn
had backed out. She had no idea what that meant. Would she is controlled by the American private equity giant TPG Inc.
get paid? Would her hotel reservation be canceled? Hours later Nova’s rise was powered by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and
another text arrived. The retrieval was back on; a couple in venture capital giant New Enterprise Associates, or NEA—part
China would buy the eggs instead. of a flood of investment into India as it emerged as one of the
“It all felt very sloppy,” Karen recalls. “Everything about that world’s largest, fastest­growing and least­regulated markets for
situation was wrong. I know that now, but at the time I had IVF and egg donations.
no idea about anything.” (HRC didn’t respond to requests for Three days after the girl’s mother notifies authorities, police
comment for this story.) and inspectors working for the state’s chief medical officer
When the retrieval at HRC yielded 45 eggs, word somehow arrive at the Nova clinic. Reading the clinic’s file for the girl,
got out. Within a week, a surrogacy and egg donation agency they’re disturbed by what they see.
named Growing Generations reached out, offering at least The girl’s insurance documents carried the details of a
$10,000 per donation if Karen signed with it. different patient. She’d been screened at a lab not registered
Growing Generations, based in LA, asked Karen for childhood with the state. One form said she had one child; another said
photos and her family medical history. The agency wanted to she had two. She’d signed an affidavit written in English, but she
know her professional aspirations, her philosophy on life, how spoke only Hindi. “This is also a suspicious situation,” the con­
she liked to spend her day. Karen wrote almost a dozen pages fidential inspection report, reviewed by Businessweek, noted.

January 2025 75
 The inspectors also question how two doctors at the of a woman cradling a baby hung on a wall. At the staff ’s
clinic were unable to determine whether she’d ever given instruction, Maria had already undergone weeks of tests and
birth. (Cesarean sections leave scars, and vaginal deliveries appointments, some of which puzzled her, including a genetic
typically leave signs, such as scar tissue.) “This situation raises screening for cystic fibrosis. She was going to use her eggs to
doubts on the quality of the entire process,” the report said. attempt a pregnancy, no matter what the lab results were, so
The retrieval of eggs from a minor wouldn’t have been possible why bother? Nevertheless, she was ready for what was now a
without “the active role” of employees and doctors at Nova, familiar retrieval procedure.
according to the report. First came the consent form, which she says she recalls viv­
The following month, police arrest five people: Seema and idly. It included a box to tick if she wanted to share any excess
Anita and three male accomplices. A press release trumpets embryos, which she didn’t mark. The form had nothing on it
the bust of a gang that lured poor women and girls into selling about eggs, she says. (A woman employed by the clinic at the
their eggs. It causes barely a blip of interest—the country’s big­ time as a junior embryologist corroborated Maria’s description
gest English­language daily publishes a brief on page 12—before of MFI’s release forms.)
disappearing from the news cycle. Police refuse to identify the Maria awoke to be told the retrieval was a success. Her eggs
clinic that took a child’s eggs. would be fertilized and the embryos frozen, to be implanted
When making the arrests, police confiscate phones from in a few weeks. On a spring day she returned to the clinic and
three of the suspects. At the all­women police station heading joined an assembly line of women. If she ever unknowingly
the investigation, a sub­inspector opens their WhatsApp mes­ crossed paths with the woman who got her eggs, there’s a
sages and begins scrolling. chance this was the moment.
The IVF patients cycled through in groups of about a half­
8. AN ASSEMBLY LINE OF WOMEN THE MOTHER dozen each. They were implanted, one after another, in a pri­
It was early 2020, the first days of Covid­19, when Maria made vate surgery room, then sent to rest for 15 to 20 minutes in an
the quick drive across Chania to have her eggs retrieved. This
was her third IVF attempt. The first two had failed. But Maria
and her husband felt lucky that right in their town they had a
clinic, operating since 1992, that attracted prospective parents
from all over.
The Mediterranean Fertility Institute’s founder, a Greek
gynecologist, had fashioned himself into a fertility personality—
presenting at conferences and cultivating a following of fam­ “Everyone wants
ilies who posted baby pictures on Facebook. In more recent
years he’d been joined by a Greek embryologist who, as scien­ to make sure
tific director, helped expand the operation. “They were taking
on a lot of cases. A ton,” says Sam Everingham, global director that the donors
of an organization in Australia that advises clients on surrogacy
and egg donation. won’t love
Everingham had seen, personally and professionally, a shift
in the global fertility industry. His family’s own quest for kids
had led him to India, where his two daughters were born in
2011 with the help of two surrogates and a single egg donor—or
so he was told. At the time, India was experiencing a “gold
rush,” he says, as clinics sprouted up, providing inexpensive
fertility services.
But in 2015, India banned surrogacy for foreigners. So did
Thailand. Cambodia soon followed suit.
The year before India closed its market, Greece opened its
up, allowing nonresidents to arrange pregnancies using local
surrogates. Positioning itself as a reproductive tourism destina­
tion, Greece promoted its beaches and relatively inexpensive
IVF treatments. By 2017, more would­be parents from other
countries began using Greek clinics. MFI was “by far the most
popular,” Everingham says. Clients came to Chania not just from
Australia, but from India, Italy and the US, too.
When Maria arrived that day for her retrieval, Covid restric­
tions limited who could be in the waiting room. A drawing

76 Bloomberg Businessweek
adjacent room lined with beds. It was so crowded that when 1cc of salt solution with 75 units of Menopur—a medication
Maria emerged from her procedure there was no bed to spare. derived from the urine of postmenopausal women—finds a spot
So she sat in a chair next to a row of other women, hoping the above the right ovary, pinches the skin. She takes a pen needle
embryo would take hold. with 375 units of Follistim and injects. Same with a 0.5­milliliter
As soon as her group was done, another came in. dose of Ganirelix. Three minutes, she’s done. She’s made a
video of it for her agent, as most Taiwanese egg girls must. Proof
9. TRIGGER SHOT THE EGG GIRLS that they’ve completed the day’s task. Then, dinner.
On May 21—four days before Amber’s egg retrieval, about Brandy loves to eat, but when she’s working—her word—
70 miles to the west—Brandy gives herself the first of at least she’s careful. Lots of protein and fruit and vegetables, milk
20 injections. Two medications stimulate her ovaries to allow and water. Starting a month before the injections, she takes
dozens of eggs to grow; a third prevents her ovaries from calcium, vitamin D, and CoQ10, which she says helps reduce
releasing the eggs until they’re mature enough to be extracted. inflammation in her ovaries and maybe prevents the problems
Brandy, who’s a nurse in Taiwan, has been through this five that can come from hyperstimulation. Five cycles and she’s
times before. She’s 30 years old, confident, almost nonchalant. never had any lingering concerns. “Every time, more than
She asks us to use “Brandy” as her pseudonym. When we ask if 30 eggs,” she says. “The doctors and nurses are very happy.
she might record a few thoughts before the shots or after, she It makes me popular.”
says: “Why? There’s nothing to tell.” This is her third cycle at the HRC clinic in Pasadena. HRC
She’s staying in a room in a home owned by a Chinese opened in Southern California in 1988, seven years after the first
American family in a Chinese American neighborhood in baby was born in the US using in vitro fertilization. Its doctors
Thousand Oaks, California. She shares the refrigerator, where have long been early adopters, quick to seize opportunities.
she keeps her medication next to her bok choy and milk. The They helped women over 50 become pregnant when few others
family doesn’t ask any questions. would. They’ve treated more than one Bravo reality­TV star. Now,
Brandy gives herself the shots sitting in front of a glass desk HRC Fertility Management, which oversees the clinics, is owned
covered with her makeup, hair conditioner and vitamins. Or by one of the biggest Chinese fertility companies, Jinxin Fertility
she gives herself the shots while standing. No big deal. The first Group, which trades on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. About
evening, and each evening for about a week, she gives herself one­third of the cycles HRC performs are for Chinese clients.
two shots. Then, for several days, she adds a third. She mixes Brandy Ubers to the clinic several mornings so a nurse can
adjust the doses of her medications if her eggs are growing too
slowly or her body is reacting badly. The instructions arrive
afterward by email in Mandarin.
The discomfort usually begins during the second week of
injections. By then Brandy is bruised, bloated, tired. She’s
relieved when she’s told to give herself a trigger shot of
the hormone HCG, or human chorionic gonadotropin, on

their eggs Thursday, May 30, at 10 p.m. exactly, and come in the next
morning for a last checkup. Her cycle is almost complete; her

too much, retrieval will be about 36 hours later.

that we
understand
the eggs belong
to the parents now”

January 2025 77
 The clinic is on the ninth floor of an office building, but they aren’t complaining. “It’s something that would
its waiting area lit by chandeliers. We’re supposed to meet otherwise be wasted, so if it’s useful, why not collect it and
Brandy that Friday morning, but she doesn’t show. When we use it,” one of the women says. They don’t know the names of
reach her later, she tells us she’s cranky and just wants to the drugs created from it, fertility medicine of some kind. The
sleep. But she’ll meet us after her retrieval, which is scheduled contributors receive a token of appreciation, some salt, a bag
for 9 a.m. the following day. of laundry detergent. “Turn trash into treasure,” goes a line on
On Saturday at around 10:30 a.m., she emerges from the ele­ the packaging. And: “Let a mom help a future mom.”
vator in a wheelchair, pushed by a nurse. She’s wearing a light,
white minidress and smiling. She just made $18,000. That’s 11. “LIKE SCROLLING ON TINDER” THE MODEL
almost as much as her annual salary in Taiwan. She produced Alice Kempton was 32 and newly married when she and her
29 eggs. She says she’s already feeling better—she’s hungry for husband, Paul, asked a cousin for a favor. Alice had been
dim sum. At the restaurant, over a platter of barbecued meat, born without ovaries. If she wanted kids—and she did—she’d
she says she doesn’t think much about the people who are buy­ need an egg donor. But in her native Australia, donors must
ing her eggs or the kids they might one day have. “I could be be someone you have an established relationship with and
like Confucius with his 72 students,” she says. “But everyone must be motivated only by altruism. I’m ready to help, the
wants to make sure that the donors won’t love their eggs too cousin said.
much, that we understand the eggs belong to the parents now.” She wasn’t the ideal candidate. Donors over 35 are con­
Later, Brandy will report back to her agents. One, in Taipei, sidered geriatric, and the cousin was 36. A woman has up to
is a former model and nightclub promoter who used to recruit 2 million eggs at birth, but by her mid­ to late 30s, fewer than
young women to work in Singaporean bars. Since 2015 he’s 3% remain.
been recruiting them to be egg girls instead and sending them In 2017 a fertility specialist in Melbourne retrieved 20 eggs
to his partner outside Los Angeles. She runs an agency that from the cousin. Fewer than half were turned into embryos
was among the first to connect aspiring parents in China with using Paul’s sperm. Over 18 months, Alice went through seven
American clinics. In China, fertility treatments are available IVF cycles. Two didn’t take, but five did. They all ended in mis­
only for married heterosexual couples, and surrogacy and paid carriage. “It was full­on for a while there—bang, bang, bang,”
egg donation are forbidden. The only way a woman can use Alice recalls. Her longest pregnancy made it to 14 weeks.
someone else’s eggs is if that someone has gone through IVF When they asked the cousin to donate a second time, she
herself and shares her unused eggs. That’s rare. For Brandy’s declined. I can’t go through that again, she told them.
eggs, the would­be parents will pay her agents $10,000. For many Australians, the journey would have ended
Brandy is already considering another retrieval, with a differ­ there. Paul and Alice Kempton instead tapped into a growing
ent agency. She thinks putting herself on the market again might global industry that caters to struggling couples from parts
allow her to earn more. The next time, she’s hoping for $20,000. of the world where egg donation is heavily restricted or cost­
prohibitive. They turned to the US, valuing, in Paul’s words,
10. 300 BUCKETS OF URINE the country’s “transparent capitalism.”
Every morning, starting around 6, older women ride their Paul is a commercial real estate adviser, Alice a veterinarian.
electric tricycles around the village of He, in Hebei province in Whimsical and gregarious, Alice was on Big Brother in her 20s
northeast China. They stop briefly at the homes of other older and has long been an avid runner. With blond hair and blue
women, where waiting at front doors are small buckets of fresh eyes, she wanted an egg donor who looked like her and had a
urine. Not just any urine—it must be urine from women who’ve similar lifestyle.
gone through menopause, because they can produce elevated In the US and elsewhere, donor agencies serve as match­
levels of two important hormones. The collectors check the makers, posting exhaustive online profiles that would­be
quality of the urine with a paper test strip: If the strip remains parents can search. The deep dives into donors’ lives can be
yellow, they’ll pour the urine into jugs. Someone then takes it innocuous: What’s your favorite color? Favorite food? Or at
to be processed by Weichen Biological Products, a privately times intrusive: Do you have a lot of body hair? A history of sex­
owned company about an hour’s drive away. Weichen says ually transmitted diseases? Some agencies hire photographers
it extracts hormones from tons of urine every day for drug­ to portray their egg donors in a soft, maternal way. Others
makers. Eventually those hormones will be the most essential feature photos of women in racy attire.
ingredient in some of the most common fertility drugs used Alice signed up for as many catalogs as she could, paying
to stimulate ovulation. The hormones can be synthesized— annual subscriptions of as much as a couple hundred dollars
demand for the drugs made that a necessity years ago. But the apiece. “Paul would find me up at 3 a.m., just scrolling and
drugs’ development depended on the urine of postmenopausal scrolling,” Alice says. “We’re talking thousands of girls. It was
women, and in some places their manufacture still does. like scrolling on Tinder.”
Five hours, 300 buckets of urine: a good morning for the In February 2019, during one of her late­night hunts, Alice
collectors. Most don’t seem to do this for the money. The spotted a just­uploaded profile in Growing Generations’ cata­
collectors—who also give their own urine—get paid minimally, log. It was the candidate they’d been looking for.

78 Bloomberg Businessweek
 12. IN GLASS

“In vitro” is Latin for “in glass.” In 1978, in England, Louise Joy Brown became the
world’s first IVF baby after being conceived in a petri dish using the egg and sperm of
her biological parents. Her birth touched off a reimagining of how babies could be made.
Next, Australian researchers advanced a solution for women whose eggs weren’t
viable. Using hormones, they prepared the uterus of a 25­year­old woman in prema­
ture menopause for pregnancy, then implanted an embryo created from her hus­
band’s sperm and another woman’s donated egg. In December 1983 the woman gave
birth to the world’s first child conceived with the help of an egg donor.
Around that time, researchers began experimenting with freezing eggs. Success
rates were low. The human egg is 90% water, and when it freezes, ice crystals can
damage the delicate spindle of chromosomes inside. Even as IVF became mainstream,
only a few births using frozen eggs occurred over the next two decades.
By the early 2000s a new technology, known as vitrification, allowed eggs to be
frozen so quickly that the fluid has no time to form crystals and instead turns into a
glasslike solid. In 2012, two of the world’s largest organizations representing fertility
practitioners backed the technique. Vitrification boomed. In the US alone, the number
of fertility procedures using frozen donor eggs or embryos tripled from 2012 to 2021,
to 26,700, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Now eggs can be frozen on one continent, fertilized and implanted on another.

13. 100 RUPEES FOR A FAKE ID THE TEEN the relentless needling begins: “Aur beta, good news kab de rahi
As the police officer scrolls through the WhatsApp messages, ho?” or “Child, when will you bring good news?” Everyone
fake ID after fake ID pops up on the screen. The teenage girl feels entitled to weigh in on an intimately private issue: aunt­
wasn’t an isolated case, and Nova wasn’t the only company ies, cousins, neighbors, shopkeepers, taxi drivers, the watch­
using donors with forged documents. man. Over time, the questions turn into recriminations.
In the world’s most populous nation, demand for eggs is In conservative rural areas, where a woman’s standing is
insatiable. About 1,500 fertility clinics are registered, with already precarious, infertility is the height of shame. Fertility
possibly thousands more in operation. India’s biggest chain, clinics may offer an antidote.
Indira IVF, conducts about 45,000 cycles a year, more than In 2009 a New York­based private equity firm, GTI Group,
half the number for the entire UK, the birthplace of IVF. And started Nova as a hospital chain. NEA invested the next year.
while donated eggs are used in a small percentage of embryo The year after that, Nova entered the fertility sector, opening
transfers worldwide, more than a dozen doctors in India three clinics. In 2012, Nova formed a partnership with a well­
told us that at their clinics it can range from 30% to 50%. known Spanish fertility chain, now called IVIRMA. That same
Cultural demands fuel the business. Indian women face year, Goldman Sachs invested; it would eventually become one
intense pressure to procreate. At a Hindu wedding a priest of the biggest shareholders.
blesses a bride by wishing upon her eight sons. Once married, The investors pushed for expansion. In a few years, five

January 2025 79
 clinics grew to 20. Juan Garcia­Velasco, IVIRMA’s global chief determine the girl was underage, calling that “an impossible
scientific officer, who traveled regularly to India evaluating task.” TPG deferred comment to Nova.
clinical standards, tried to push back, warning that embryol­ “Identification of fake official documents is something
ogists couldn’t be trained fast enough. “The pressure to grow beyond our expertise, and we are unfortunately impacted
was tremendous,” Garcia­Velasco recalls. “We were thinking by this deceitful operation,” Nova said. “In effect, we are a
about the damage to the brand, if anything went wrong.” wronged party here.”
By 2019, Nova was losing money and its partnership with The company sent a follow­up letter to the health ministry
IVIRMA fell apart. Goldman and other investors sold out to the in August urging it to introduce more robust oversight meas­
current owner, the TPG unit. A new chief executive officer cut ures. It didn’t hear back, it said. The ministry didn’t respond to
costs and returned Nova to profitability. The number of Nova multiple requests from Businessweek seeking comment.
clinics tripled in five years, growing to more than 70. Among
them was a clinic built in a five­story commercial building at 14. “SPERM ON THE BARBECUE” THE MODEL
a bustling intersection in Varanasi. “Dear Karen,” the letter began. “This is Alice and Paul
With the increase in clinics came a web of agents, who in Kempton from Melbourne, Australia. We are very honoured
many cases wedged themselves between a rich person’s desper­ that this journey has led us to you.”
ation for a child and a poor woman’s desperation for money. Alice had found the perfect donor. Still, she thought it
Anita told police she’d worked as a cleaner at a fertility was weird not to know the woman who’d contribute half the
clinic and saw that women made “good money” selling their genetic makeup of the children she longed to have. And so in
eggs. So she sold hers. Then she became an agent, persuading her letter, in May 2019, she proposed they meet, something
other women to sell theirs—and taking a cut. Seema likewise donors and recipients rarely do.
went from donor to agent. When Seema recruited the teen and They were both going to be in Portland, Oregon, at ORM
discovered she needed ID, Anita told her not to worry, to just Fertility—Alice, for her IVF treatment, Karen, for her egg
send a photo of the girl. retrieval. Karen’s boyfriend was traveling with her, but she
Anita had a go­to person for fake IDs, a young man who didn’t ask him to join their meeting. She considered what she
worked in a cybercafe, she told police. He’d won Anita’s busi­ did with her eggs to be her decision alone: “It’s an egg, not
ness by underbidding her prior forger. When police interro­ an embryo.”
gated him, he was as forthcoming as Anita, according to police In August, intended parents No. 2525 and egg donor
records. He said Anita paid him 100 rupees ($1.20) for a fake ID No. 331427 met at a local restaurant. Karen and Alice chat­
and 250 rupees for a fake affidavit. He also said she’d initially ted for hours, bonding over their shared interests: mara­
asked him to falsify one or two cards every few days, but that thon running, farm living and—the reason for the restaurant
quickly turned into a torrent—as many as 100 a month. choice—pizza.
In December 2023, a month after the arrests, Nova sent a The Kemptons had to borrow the money to pay for
letter to the national ministry of health, saying it was “deeply everything. They’d paid Growing Generations $17,500 to find
concerned” about the rise of fake IDs in the sale of human them a donor. Karen’s fee was an additional $25,000, plus
eggs. “The exploitation of oocyte donation through fraudulent
identification poses a significant ethical and legal challenge,”
Nova warned, describing the risk as systemic.
The statements from those arrested in the girl’s case indi­
cated that at least a half­dozen agents were part of the same
informal network funneling donors to fertility clinics across
Varanasi. Those clinics, according to their statements, also
included Birla Fertility & IVF, part of the $3 billion Indian
manufacturing conglomerate CK Birla Group, and Indira IVF,
which is controlled by one of Europe’s largest private equity
firms, EQT.
Birla Fertility & IVF didn’t respond to requests for com­
ment. Indira IVF, in an emailed response, said it “has no
involvement in the alleged activities mentioned, nor any con­
nection to the individuals who were arrested.” The company
said it has strict protocols to prevent such fraud. Goldman
Sachs, NEA and EQT declined to comment.
Nova told Businessweek it had cooperated with local
authorities and cut ties with an egg bank whose employee
was among those arrested. It disputed an assertion in the chief Karen provided baby photos for her file—prospective parents
medical officer’s report that doctors should have been able to often want to know what their donor looked like as a child

80 Bloomberg Businessweek
 $15,000 in travel costs. The clinic charged $40,000. Add in The Kemptons had to come up with even more money.
expenses for their own plane tickets, hormones for both Karen Now their debt was approaching a quarter of a million dollars.
and Alice, which ran about $1,000 a month, plus several weeks In December 2019, Karen underwent a second egg harvest
of lodging, food and a car, and their debt exceeded $170,000. for the Kemptons. In any IVF cycle, the math is rarely kind.
Alice was worried. Paul was still recovering from a flu that Thirty­six eggs were retrieved. Nineteen embryos were cre­
had hospitalized him the previous month, with a fever topping ated. Four passed genetic testing. After five miscarriages, Alice
105F. She asked the clinic: Should we freeze all the eggs and prayed that just one of the embryos would make it.
wait for him to get healthy before the sperm collection? They
asked Paul to start taking a male fertility supplement and then, 15. EGG THEFT THE MOTHER
following a sperm analysis, assured the Kemptons everything Imagine you bring a rock embedded with diamonds to a jeweler.
would be fine, Alice says. Scans show an unclear number of gems inside. The jeweler dis­
The retrieval went incredibly well: 51 eggs. Nineteen were appears to his workshop and emerges later with good news:
successfully turned into embryos. 10 diamonds. You’d have to trust that. But maybe the actual
Once created, an embryo is incubated for about five days count was higher.
until it turns into what’s called a blastocyst, with an inner The same is true with an ovary when a patient is under anes­
cell mass that could become a baby and an outer layer that thesia. “When the doctor extracts the eggs, it’s only him,” says
could become the placenta. Then it’s either implanted fresh a Greek law enforcement official. A woman, coming to, is in
or, as in the Kemptons’ case, frozen so genetic testing can no position to question the count. And clinics have sometimes
be performed. taken advantage.
For five days, the Kemptons explored Portland. Then the For three decades, the egg trade has contended with egg theft.
doctor’s assistant called and delivered devastating news: Not And for three decades, different jurisdictions have found their
a single one of the embryos was viable. laws and regulatory practices ill­equipped to handle the threat.
To Alice, the loss felt like a death. She shouted and cried. In 1995 an investigation by the Orange County Register
She spent the next 20 hours on her laptop, reading every med­ revealed that at a fertility clinic at the University of California
ical paper she could find. She came away with one conclusion: at Irvine, eggs were being taken from patients without their
“Of course it was never going to work,” Alice says. “Paul had consent and used to make other women pregnant. The UC
fried those sperm on the barbecue for way too long.” ( John system paid more than $24 million to settle lawsuits filed in
Hesla, medical director of ORM, told us in an interview: “We the aftermath. But at the time, no criminal statute in California
work with compromised sperm all the time. We thought it was covered the clinic’s alleged egg theft. (One reason: There was
a reasonable plan to move forward.”) no saying—definitively—what the eggs were worth.) Afterward
The clinic agreed to do the entire procedure over again for the state passed a law making it illegal to steal human eggs.
free. “All of us, especially me, are extremely disappointed and In Israel, a doctor admitted taking hundreds of eggs from
saddened” with the result, Hesla wrote to the Kemptons, in IVF patients without their consent from 1996 to 1999. The doc­
an email seen by Businessweek. “I have directed the business tor took 232 eggs from one patient alone and diverted them
office to authorize a second IVF cycle with Karen’s eggs to to 33 other women. No law specifically prohibited his actions,
create more embryos without charge to you.” but, in a disciplinary proceeding, his license was suspended
Karen also offered to donate again for free. Unlike Amber and for 2 ½ years. Today he’s the founder of an annual conference:
Brandy, the women from Taiwan, Karen says she doesn’t see this the World Congress on Controversies in Obstetrics, Gynecology
as a marketplace or what she’s doing as a sale: “I don’t sell my and Infertility.
eggs. I’ve never sold my eggs.” She says it’s an opportunity to In Italy, a doctor was arrested in 2016 after a woman told
help. But Growing Generations wouldn’t allow it, the Kemptons police he’d removed her eggs without consent during a proce­
and Karen say. The agency also declined to waive its fee, and dure. He was convicted and received a 6½­year sentence, which,
instead it offered a 20% discount. (For this story, Growing for health reasons, he was allowed to serve under house arrest.
Generations didn’t respond to written requests for comment.) In Crete, regulatory authorities were aware of possible
“The reason for the additional agency fee and contract is problems at the Mediterranean Fertility Institute a year before
because you are cycling Karen for an additional donation, and Maria’s eggs were collected. In 2019 the Hellenic National
every donor is limited to 5­6 donations,” Jessica Junyent, then Authority for Medically Assisted Reproduction, acting upon a
Growing Generations’ vice president for international devel­ complaint, dispatched two doctors and a lawyer to conduct an
opment, and Karen’s point person at the agency, said in an inspection of MFI’s clinic. The inspectors checked files involv­
October 2019 email to Alice. ing the clinic’s surrogacy program, according to Emmanuel
“As a business, we rely on being able to cycle most donors Laskaridis, the lawyer. In the end, he says, “we were sure that
multiple times in order to make financial sense of everything these were not all the files of the clients they had.” The team
◼ COURTESY PELTZ

we do,” Junyent continued. “It doesn’t seem right or fair to say voted 2­1 to suspend MFI’s license for improper recordkeeping.
we should do this for free or hand our donor over to ORM to But the suspension went unenforced, and in the fall of 2020,
bypass Growing Generations.” the Greek parliament abolished the authority. In 2021 the

January 2025 81
 government named a new president to lead a reconstituted financially motivated to file this lawsuit,” Kamakahi told us, in
version of the agency: prominent Athens fertility expert her first time speaking publicly about the case. “It was just that
Nikolaos Vrachnis, the lone inspector who’d voted against sus­ girls were getting the short end of the stick. How come it’s the
pending MFI’s license. women’s job to care?”
MFI stayed open, with more women passing through. In 2016 the case was settled, and, by the end of the year, ASRM
had removed its guidelines on compensation. Egg donors would
16. THE PRICE OF AN EGG THE EGG GIRLS be able to earn as much as an aspiring parent was willing to pay.
Brandy can ask for $20,000 for a retrieval. Amber can make as And aspiring parents in China were willing to pay quite a lot. The
much as $25,000. It’s been possible for young women to sell their government had just ended its one­child policy. Older parents
eggs in the US for decades, but it hasn’t always been this profit­ who wanted a second child, and many others, traveled to the US,
able. For that, the egg girls and thousands of others owe a woman especially to California, where they could take advantage of legal
named Lindsay Kamakahi. protections and services not permitted at home.
In 1984, when few practices in the country offered to help Soon, Amber and Brandy and other egg girls were traveling to
patients use someone else’s eggs, the price—“compensation” is the US, too. Brandy received $11,000 her first time, in 2017. Two
the industry’s preferred term—for a batch of eggs was about $250. years later, Amber earned $17,000 for a cycle: “Market mecha­
By 1987 it was $500. By 1993, about $1,500. For the buyers it was nism,” she says.
still a bargain. Then, in 1999, an ad appeared in the newspapers
of top universities for a 5­foot­10 athletic woman who’d scored at 17. SHE’S JUST RESTING THE TEEN
least 1400 on her SAT. She’d be paid $50,000 for her eggs. Years before the teen in Varanasi was persuaded to sell her
By then, ASRM, the fertility industry trade group, had begun eggs, a woman named Yuma Sherpa moved from Darjeeling
to reckon with this growing market, saying the amount paid to to Delhi.
donors “should not be so excessive as to constitute coercion or Sherpa worked in a garment shop, making little money. In
exploitation.” In 2000 it advised members that compensation late 2013 a woman approached her with an offer. She could sell
shouldn’t be so high as to suggest people are paying for a donor’s her eggs for 25,000 rupees—the kind of money it would take
ethnicity or personality or achievements. To determine a fair months to save and enough to allow her to visit her 3­year­old
payment, the trade group did some strange math. It started with daughter, who lived with relatives in the Himalayan foothills.
what sperm donors earn in an hour, multiplied that by the num­ With Sherpa’s silky hair, fair skin and almond­shaped eyes, her
ber of hours required of egg donors, then added an arbitrary eggs would quickly find a buyer. Without telling her husband,
amount to account for the additional physical and emotional Sanju Rana, Sherpa said yes.
burden. The result: “Sums of $5,000 or more require justifica­ On Jan. 29, 2014, around 4 p.m., Sherpa arrived at an IVF
tion and sums above $10,000 go beyond what is appropriate.” clinic. Some days before, she’d told doctors that the hormone
In 2007, Kamakahi sold some eggs. After college she’d moved injections had caused her discomfort and she wanted to back
to California, where she donated blood and plasma regularly. out. The clinic told her it was too late, she had to move ahead.
She realized people needed eggs, too: “That’s what I have, and Her eggs were harvested in less than 10 minutes.
that’s what you need.” She was matched with a couple who were From the recovery room she phoned Rana, sounding dis­
Asian American academics—she shared the same background. tressed. Come quickly, she told him.
Before she went in for the retrieval, they gave her a gift, a blue When Rana arrived at about 7:15 p.m., Sherpa was unre­
cashmere scarf with a card. She says she also received $6,500, sponsive. She’s just resting, staff told him, according to court
which she thought was fair at the time. She already had two jobs, records. An hour passed. A doctor finally examined her, and
one to support herself, the other to fund travel. The extra money then an ambulance was called. It was now 10 p.m. She was
would make a trip to the Netherlands possible. transported to a hospital, arriving there without a pulse. Shortly
Kamakahi had male friends who’d sold their sperm and so, for after midnight, she was declared dead.
fun, they compared their earnings over the years. It was about An autopsy determined Sherpa had died from ovarian hyper­
the same. Given the ease of donating sperm versus the hard­ stimulation syndrome, or OHSS. Her ovaries had tripled in size.
ship of donating eggs, that didn’t seem fair. By chance, one of Blood and fluids leaked into her abdomen and pooled around
those friends was dating a woman who worked at a law firm her heart and lungs. Such fatalities are avoidable through “judi­
that wanted to challenge ASRM’s donor­compensation limits as cious use” of hormones and careful monitoring of patients, a
price­fixing. Kamakahi looked at how clinics treated sperm dona­ case report later concluded.
tions and bristled: “The guys can do it for the money—and there’s Since the early 2000s, when India became a popular desti­
no cap on how much they can make. The girls must be nurturing. nation for fertility treatments, a pattern had taken hold: a scan­
It’s a ‘donation.’ Just say it’s a transaction.” dal, followed by calls to regulate, followed by nothing. Sherpa’s
She agreed to be the lead plaintiff in a 2011 antitrust case death made headlines, but interest soon waned. The following
alleging that ASRM was keeping prices artificially low and that year, in 2015, the Delhi Medical Council determined that the
clinics were benefiting: a “buyer­side conspiracy,” according doctor who oversaw Sherpa’s retrieval didn’t appear to be neg­
to legal documents. (ASRM declined to comment.) “I wasn’t ligent. The council settled the matter as a “rare complication.”

82 Bloomberg Businessweek
Its sole rebuke was that the clinic—owned by New Life Global The doctor who’d implanted the eggs in the other patients,
Network—had used an agent to find an egg donor. New Life, Neeta Singh, said in a phone interview that she was told by
which offers fertility services on four continents, didn’t respond staff that the patient had given consent. She called it a “small
to requests seeking comment. procedural lapse” for which she’d been unfairly blamed.
Two years later, in 2017, the Delhi Medical Council heard The Delhi Medical Council, citing “the gravity of the lapse,”
another matter. A whistleblower complaint alleged that doctors ordered that Singh be suspended for a month. The National
at the country’s premier public research hospital, the All India Medical Commission overturned the decision and instead let
Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, had extracted 30 eggs her off with a warning. In December 2021, India passed a law
from an IVF patient and, without her consent, given 14 to two to regulate assisted reproductive technology. A key step was
other fertility patients, according to council documents obtained establishing a national board to advise the government on
by Businessweek. It was another case of alleged egg theft. policy and create a code of conduct.
“This is completely unethical,” the complaint alleged. Sitting on that board is Singh.

18. OHSS

Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, or OHSS, is an iatrogenic

disorder—that is, an illness caused by medical treatment itself. The
treatment in this case is the hormones egg donors and IVF patients
take to induce superovulation. A mild case can mean abdominal
pain, nausea and diarrhea. A severe case can lead to blood clots,
In a regular cycle, a woman
releases one egg.
fluid­filled lungs, a twisted ovary that could cut off its own blood
supply. Death from OHSS appears to be rare.
OHSS still isn’t fully understood, and it often goes unreported.
The European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology
says mild OHSS affects as many as 33% of IVF patients. The
American Society for Reproductive Medicine says moderate to
Egg donors take hormonal severe OHSS occurs in 1% to 5% of IVF cycles. In the Australian
medication to induce
superovulation, usually state of Victoria, a strictly monitored market, auditors found that
producing a total of 13 to
25 eggs in both ovaries. clinics had been reporting only a third of OHSS cases that required
overnight hospitalization from 2018 to 2021.
Follow­up care for egg donors is inconsistent, so we don’t know
how often they experience OHSS. Overall, younger women and
those who produce more than 15 eggs a cycle are particularly
vulnerable. That describes many donors—Amber, Brandy and
Producing more than
15 eggs puts women at risk Karen among them. “Some clinics try to get as many eggs as pos­
of developing OHSS. Many sible, especially for their egg banks, by providing higher doses of
donors can produce at least
double that number. medication,” says Diane Tober, a medical anthropologist at the

January 2025 83
 University of Alabama and author of Eggonomics: The Global Market in Human Eggs
and the Donors Who Supply Them.
In the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collects a wealth of data
from fertility clinics and makes public their rates of success—that is, live births. But it
refuses to disclose how frequently IVF patients and donors at each clinic experience
medical complications. Bloomberg has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit
seeking to compel the public­health agency to do so. (The CDC says it doesn’t comment
on pending litigation.)

19. 24 HOURS IN CUSTODY THE MODEL connecting flight, from her boyfriend, from her friend Kenia.
Karen sat in a windowless room of the Miami International There was also a message from Alice Kempton. “Paul and I are
Airport feeling scared and exhausted. She’d been escorted parents,” she said, sharing a photo of a healthy baby boy. They’d
there following a nine­hour flight from Buenos Aires. Her named him Rupert. “We love you,” Alice said. “So much.”
phone and Argentine passport were confiscated. A federal Karen started crying.
immigration agent bombarded her with questions about her “That, for me, was a sign,” Karen says. “It was telling me: What
trip and tourist visa. you are doing is not bad. It allowed for this baby to be born.”
Why are you in the US?
Just visiting. 20. WIRETAPS THE MOTHER
Who are you visiting? Russia’s invasion of Ukraine disrupted the global egg trade,
My boyfriend. imperiling a key supplier. In February 2022, staff at Ukrainian
What’s his address? cryobanks stuffed canisters of frozen genetic material into cars
Karen didn’t know exactly. Somewhere in Atlanta. and sped them across the Polish and Slovakian borders. One
Why is your connecting flight to LA? destination was the MFI clinic in Chania, which announced it
Again, she had no easy answer. would provide safekeeping.
It was October 2020, and Karen was making her fifth trip Despite the Greek regulator’s earlier findings that the clinic
to the US to have her eggs retrieved. She’d last donated seven should shutter, MFI’s profile was only growing, with donors
months earlier, at an HRC in Southern California, when 60 and surrogates coming in, prospective parents coming in, fro­
eggs were retrieved—the most of any of her procedures. zen eggs coming in. (The assisted reproduction authority, in
Now, in the middle of the pandemic, flights into the US response to a request for comment, didn’t directly address why
had been slashed and immigration officials had stepped up its suspension order hadn’t been enforced.)
screening. Officially, they were looking for signs of sickness. That same year, the Greek national police’s organized­crime
But unofficially, the extra scrutiny made it easier to pick apart unit began looking at a property in Chania where the clinic
stories that didn’t add up. And Karen’s wasn’t adding up. housed pregnant surrogates. The police launched an investi­
On previous trips, Karen says, she’d been coached by gation in December 2022, with court permission to tap phones
her agency, Growing Generations, to keep the details vague of clinic staff.
when passing through immigration and to tell anyone who On Feb. 20, 2023, MFI staff put a Bulgarian woman under
asked that she was on vacation. (Growing Generations didn’t anesthesia to retrieve her eggs. She suffered severe convul­
respond when asked about this.) sions, and her oxygen dropped, according to police wiretaps.
Officials searching Karen’s phone found WhatsApp The woman lived, though the extraction was unsuccessful.
exchanges referencing her contract. When confronted, she Police mapped what they said was a criminal network with
confessed. “I finally admitted: ‘OK, yes, I know I said I was on the clinic at its center. In August 2023 they arrested eight MFI
◼ PHOTOGRAPH BY LISA SORGINI FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK

vacation, but that contract is why I’m really here,’” she says. staff members, including the clinic’s founding doctor and its
She spent 24 hours in custody. “What am I doing?” she scientific director. Both remain in jail awaiting possible trial.
recalls thinking. “Is this really so bad that they are going The doctor’s lawyer didn’t respond to a request for comment.
to treat me like a terrorist?” Karen’s entry into the US was The scientific director’s lawyer said in an email that a list of
denied. She had to fly back to Argentina. Karen would eventu­ questions from Businessweek about the police case contained
ally complete the donation in Buenos Aires, and the eggs were inaccuracies but didn’t specify what they were.
shipped to HRC. She developed a mild case of OHSS and had The clinic recruited vulnerable women from Albania,
to rest for several days until the fluid in her ovaries cleared up. Georgia, Moldova, Romania and Ukraine to be egg donors and
Karen didn’t get her phone back until she boarded her surrogates and put them up in more than a dozen houses,
flight home. When the plane touched down, she powered it
up. Her WhatsApp flooded with messages—from the Growing Paul and Alice Kempton with their son, Rupert, at their home in
Generations rep wondering why she hadn’t made her Batesford, Australia

84 Bloomberg Businessweek
January 2025 85
 the police said in a press release. Clinic staff falsified medical
and court records and aided in illegal adoptions. The police
also said that in hundreds of instances the clinic charged
patients for IVF services they never performed, including
“sham” embryo transfers.
Police took control of the clinic, which ceased operating,
and genetic material in frozen storage at MFI was transferred
to Chania General Hospital.
The same month, the Greek press reported that police were
investigating the possibility that Vrachnis—the man who’d
voted against suspending MFI’s license and later became
head of the Greek assisted reproduction authority—had taken
a bribe. The police didn’t arrest or name Vrachnis, but the
government dismissed him within the week. (Vrachnis didn’t
respond to emailed requests for comment for this story.)
The police, now with access to the clinic’s files, continued
investigating. As they sifted through handwritten records, they
spotted a pattern involving IVF patients like Maria. Eggs would
be retrieved from the patient. Some, but not all, would be used
to make embryos for her. On that same day, a different woman
would receive a “donation” of eggs—equivalent to the number
not used for the IVF patient.
The details of this ongoing probe haven’t yet been made
public. But in June, a Crete­based prosecutor prepared remarks
for a closed­door presentation at the European Union Agency
for Criminal Justice Cooperation, at the Hague. Her remarks,
seen by Businessweek, revealed that police had identified as
many as 75 cases of egg theft at MFI. The final count could be
much higher, a Greek judicial source says.

21. “HI, LOVELY” THE MODEL

Karen’s sixth donation took place in late 2021 in Cancún,
Mexico, where she moved to wait out the pandemic. Fifty­eight
eggs were retrieved, and the batch was again shipped to the US.
She’d planned for that donation to be her last, in keeping
with health guidelines. In recent years, Karen had been tran­
sitioning from donor to scout. She joined Kenia and Kenia’s
husband to found a recruiting firm that she says is focused
on donor well­being. They’ll stroll beaches, eyeing runners
and volleyball players while walking right past anyone who’s
smoking or drinking.
“We tell the girls they should talk to their own doctors, and
we really want to make sure they are represented and under­
stand everything involved,” Karen says. “I don’t want anyone
we work with to have a bad experience. I worry about feeling
responsible.” For each completed donation, the firm takes a
20% fee. Karen estimates they’ve recruited about 50 women
so far.
Almost two years after her sixth donation, Karen got a voice
message from Junyent at Growing Generations. Karen was back
in Buenos Aires. She was a few months shy of her 31st birth­
day, past the agency’s internal age limit of 29. Her history of
hyper egg production and past experience with OHSS put her
Maria asked that we not show her, directing the photographer
at greater risk for another bout. She’d already donated almost instead to places that are meaningful to her, such as the
300 eggs in her lifetime. Assumption Cathedral in Chania

86 Bloomberg Businessweek
 In the message, Junyent asked if Karen would consider The warning, the risks, they don’t disturb Amber. She’s
donating once again. She later explained to Karen that Growing gained a few pounds, from all the hormones, she thinks, but
Generations was working on behalf of a same­sex couple in that doesn’t bother her either. With the money she’s made,
Mexico. One partner had a dark complexion and black hair. she traveled this summer to Hong Kong and Tokyo for vogue
The other was Australian—tall, blond, blue eyes. That’s whose dance competitions. By early August she was back home in
phenotype they wanted reflected in the egg donor, but they’d central Taiwan, training to swim in a 3,000­meter race across
rejected every candidate in the Growing Generations catalog. Sun Moon Lake. She’s expecting to travel somewhere afterward
We asked Junyent about this in October. Why did Growing for one, possibly two, retrievals.
Generations ask Karen to donate for a seventh time, counter to Sitting in a cafe, Amber shares some surprising informa­
the policies outlined on the agency’s website? tion: In addition to completing 11 cycles in the US, she’s sold
It didn’t, Junyent said. her eggs four times in China, clandestinely, on the black mar­
“If she did a donation, that is on her, but I did not partici­ ket. She went in 2021, on her own, during the pandemic. She
pate in any donation,” said Junyent, who’s now a senior associ­ stayed in a big city, which she declines to identify, until she
ate at the Los Angeles law firm International Reproductive Law was ready for her retrieval. Then she moved into a hotel out­
Group. “I can assure you that Growing Generations did not do side the city that the agent had booked. She didn’t know the
a donation with Karen this year.” name of any doctor or nurse, or the name of the clinic, or
But Businessweek saw a contract, dated 2024 and drafted even where it was located. Apparently she wasn’t supposed
by Junyent’s law firm, in which the donor is identified with to. Around half past five in the evening, a van with darkened
Karen’s six­digit number. The agency handling the transac­ windows pulled up. She and five other donors were told to turn
tion is identified as Growing Generations. WeFIV, the fertility over their phones and keep quiet. Twenty minutes later they
clinic, confirmed that it worked with Growing Generations on arrived at a four­story residence: living room on the first floor,
the donation, and we also listened to the voice message Karen surgery on the second. Amber says it was well equipped, and
received from Junyent on Aug. 16, 2023, about eight months the doctors seemed well trained. She produced 30 eggs and
before Junyent left the agency. “Hi, lovely,” Junyent says. “Look, was paid $13,000.
I wanted to let you know that I just shared your profile with an She stayed in China for eight months, completing two more
intended parent.” She wraps up the message with, “There is a rounds. She returned in 2023. Same routine. She says it’s easier
possibility that we could have a seventh donation in Argentina.” to get to China but scarier once she’s there. “But I think this is
When we let Junyent know all that, she acknowledged what you have to overcome,” she says. “You can choose not to
Growing Generations’ role in the donation but said she’d left make this money.”
the agency by the time of Karen’s retrieval and hadn’t remem­ After 15 cycles in the US and China, Amber had made
bered the initial conversations. While industry guidelines “typ­ about $213,000.
ically recommend limiting donors to six cycles, it is common
for exceptions to be made,” Junyent said in an email, citing the 23. UNCLAIMED EGGS THE MOTHER
use of “exceptionally healthy donors” as an example. The arrests at the MFI clinic created chaos that rippled
across borders.
22. A VAN WITH DARKENED WINDOWS THE EGG GIRLS Sam Everingham, the Australian consultant with clients
As Amber completed her 11th retrieval in the US in May, who went to MFI, now helped them navigate the aftermath.
another young woman from Taiwan was completing her first. Some prospective parents abandoned their embryos, because
Thirty­two eggs were harvested, and two days afterward, the they’d either given up on IVF or found the bureaucracy daunt­
woman developed ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, her ing, he says. Tracing where eggs came from proved impossi­
doctor in Taichung told us. Fluid had collected in her abdo­ ble. Clients weren’t told who the donors were. Some clients
men and lungs, and she had trouble breathing. She had to be had paid MFI in cash, meaning they lacked paperwork: “They
◼ PHOTOGRAPH BY IOANNA SAKELLARAKI FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK

admitted to an intensive care unit in Los Angeles. Two weeks came away without receipts.”
later, she was able to return home. Her experience was one The tumult reminded Everingham of the fertility industry
reason the health ministry in Taiwan issued a warning in late he’d left behind in India. He and his partner had been told
July about donating eggs in the US. the same donor provided the eggs for their two daughters.

Karen: History of a Donor

45 eggs 51 36 60 43 58 43

Total:
2019 2020 2021 2024 336 eggs
California Oregon Oregon California Argentina Mexico Argentina

January 2025 87
 But over time, they began to have doubts. “I got sick of
wondering,” Everingham says. So in 2523 they had their
daughters’ DNA tested. “It wasn’t a match.”
“That’s happened to a number of us couples that went to
India at the time,” he says. And now he was seeing similar tur­
Would they
moil at MFI. “It sent goosebumps up my spine. It was terrifying
to see that 12 years later the same things are happening, giving
do it again?
vulnerable parents whatever they have on ice.”
In June, at Chania General Hospital, an embryologist
entered a keypad­protected chamber with a climate­control
unit displaying a steady 16C, or 61F. Along the walls were
six metal containers that resembled R2­D2 from Star Wars.
Temperature monitors fitted with wires poked from their tops,
connecting to online alarms. Each contained genetic material
seized from MFI—in all, eggs, embryos and sperm from about
955 people. He ticks off questions that could have been answered by
An embryologist, Margarita Livaniou, was now their care­ now: CCTV footage from the clinic had shown other women
taker. She’d worked at MFI for a decade but hadn’t been impli­ entering that day—had police sought to identify whether any
cated in the criminal case. When this frozen collection was others were minors? Where were the girl’s eggs? By law, clinics
transferred, she came along. When Livaniou unscrewed the are required to maintain such records. The accused told police
top of one droid, mist rolled out. She reached in and retrieved they’d also sent donors to other clinics—had police followed up?
a rod, known as a straw. Attached were vials, each labeled with (One chain of clinics, Indira IVF, said it was never contacted by
a code that we were admonished not to photograph. Were police and learned of the case from Businessweek’s inquiries.)
there eggs on this rod? “I don’t know. Maybe,” Livaniou said. The judge overseeing Anita’s bail hearing questioned why
She took a closer look, then added, “Yes.” the case appeared to gloss over the role of the clinic. “The
The collection’s documentation, frustratingly incomplete, owner of the hospital has never been brought into the picture,”
made a precise census impossible, Livaniou said. About 125 for­ Justice Saurabh Srivastava of the Allahabad high court noted,
eigners had frozen eggs and embryos at MFI, she’d determined. asking if the prosecution had deliberately refrained from
About 45 couples from Italy. Twenty­two from Australia. Some implicating “certain highly influential personalities” to focus
from India, Germany, France. Most of the eggs and embryos on “petty employees.”
remained unclaimed, including many shipped from Ukraine. Reached by Businessweek, Anita’s lawyer declined to com­
ment. Seema’s lawyer, Sanjeev Kumar Chaubey, told us,
24. “SMALL PLAYERS” THE TEEN “There was a big egg donation racket going on in Varanasi.”
Gopal Krishna sits with the police report that details the His client, he said, comes from a poor background and made
Varanasi girl’s case, the pages spread out on his wood­veneer little for her role. “The main culprit is the hospital.”
desk. It’s July. To the untrained eye, the investigation looks like A year on, Krishna wonders if the arrest of “small players,”
it’s pressing ahead, but Krishna, a lawyer who’s representing as he calls them, was all for show.
the family for free, is skeptical. In 2522, a year before the Varanasi teen sold her eggs,
For two decades, Krishna has worked at Guria India, a local another girl, 16 years old, told police she’d been forced to
nonprofit that’s helped rescue sex trafficking victims. sell her eggs eight times over the past three years at private
He taps at a document in the teenage girl’s file: the report hospitals across southern India. The police investigation lan­
sent by the chief medical officer to police. It had been explicit, guished, and the accused were freed on bail. In May, following
saying the incident couldn’t have happened without the questions from Businessweek, the public prosecutor realized
knowledge of Nova employees and doctors. Yet when police that, almost two years on, she still hadn’t received a copy of
filed their initial report a week afterward, they didn’t name the charge sheet from police to take the case forward. She now
the clinic or a single employee among the accused. says she’s planning to take the case to trial.

Amber: History of a Donor

34 eggs 26 29 22 30 About 30 About 30 44

2018 2019 2021 2022

California California California California China China China California

88 Bloomberg Businessweek
 “What other option
do we have?”
one woman
says

25. SIGNED WITH THUMBPRINTS

A thousand miles south of the teen’s home in Varanasi is the city
of Chennai, India’s health­care capital. On its outskirts there’s
a neighborhood where dozens of women have donated eggs.
We interview four, who ask that we meet outside their homes, their thumbprints. They counted the number of bus stops to
away from their husbands. All sold eggs while in their 20s or know where to get off for their injections. One woman says
30s, recruited by agents who supply donors for fertility clinics that after donating, “my entire body was in pain, my stom­
across the city. The women say that an agent, an older woman ach was cramping. It felt like pins and needles in the injected
named Lakshmi, would hover by the communal water tanks area.” Would they do it again? “What other option do we
where women go daily to fill plastic vats. If she heard a woman have?” one woman asks.
speak of financial struggle, she’d say, “I’ll tell you an idea to
make money, will you listen to it?” 26. 8,000 MILES THE MODEL
When we ask why they sold their eggs, one woman says: At the WeFIV fertility clinic in Buenos Aires, a small truck pulls
“If I get money today, we will eat today. That’s all.” Another into the underground garage carrying two 24­pound canisters.
says she was too weak to donate blood, so she donated eggs One is white and looks like a vintage steel milk can. The
instead. They speak of debts, of husbands who are alcoholic other, a light gray, could be some sort of heavy artillery shell.
and abusive, of wanting to set aside money for daughters’ The tanks, known as dry shippers, have crisscrossed the globe
dowries, even though such payments have been illegal since many times over. This morning, a Monday in July, they’ll begin
1961. They speak of wanting to secure a better future for their another journey, the white canister carrying the eggs from
children and of wanting to help other women because the Karen’s seventh donation, the other carrying eggs from a
stigma of infertility spans India’s class divides. They have jobs, donor Karen recruited.
such as cleaning homes, or sewage drains, or silver plates, that Damian Gustavo Torrera hauls the canisters up the stairs
pay $3, maybe $5 a day. For their eggs, they’re paid $300 or to the clinic’s lobby, where he hands them to a lab tech in blue
$350. Unable to read or write, they signed consent forms with scrubs and a floral surgical cap.

29 About 30 About 30 52 36 29 33 Unknown

Total:
About
2023 2024 ?
484
eggs
California California China New York New York New York California China

January 2025 89
 “Twenty minutes,” the tech tells him.
“I’ll be here,” Torrera says.
The tech heads to the clinic’s fifth floor, where Karen’s
27 eggs have been suspended for 32 days in storage tank
No. 1780. The other donor’s are next to it in tank No. 1782.
With two techs working together, it takes only seconds to
move straws holding Karen’s eggs into the dry shipper. The
rest of the 20 minutes is needed to double­ and triple­check
that the right eggs are going to the right place.
Torrera gets the canisters back along with a plastic folder
of paperwork and drives to a warehouse leased by Space
Courier, a logistics company he co­owns.
Torrera, a former bartender, is squat and bald, with a pass­
ing resemblance to Joe Rogan. A few years back he bought a
stake in Space Courier, joining a sprawling logistics network
that makes the growing global egg trade possible. Space
Courier charges $3,000 per export, and lately business has
been good.
The egg is the largest cell in the human body, but it’s far
more fragile than sperm or embryos and extremely vulnerable
during transport. If the dry shipper tips over, the eggs might
be destroyed. If the tank goes through an X­ray machine, the
eggs will be destroyed. Too much jostling, too much heat, too
much time waiting in customs—the list of threats is long.
At the warehouse, in a third­floor walk­up, the docu­
mentation for the two egg shipments is laid out on an old
woodworker’s bench. The paperwork is thin: single­page dec­
larations from Argentina’s health ministry that nothing can
be X­rayed; from WeFIV that nothing is infectious; and from
Space Courier that nothing is explosive. A final page, the ship­
ping waybill, values Karen’s eggs at $135, or $5 apiece. These
are the same eggs for which she was paid $35,000.
The two canisters get put in boxes. The one for Karen’s eggs
is cardboard, about 2 ½ feet tall, with arrows saying which end
is up. Then it’s off to the airport, where the boxes are put on
a dolly and wheeled through the restricted cargo zone. They
sit for hours among huge bags of lithium carbonate. They’re
swiped for explosives, sent down a conveyor, packed into a
scuffed silver container and loaded into the hold of American
Airlines Flight 951. The flight is an overnight: Buenos Aires
to New York.
The next morning the plane touches down at John F.
Kennedy International Airport in Queens, in the middle of a
heat wave. Inside the tanks, the subarctic cold hasn’t changed.
To make sure, Space Courier checks a sensor that monitors the
temperature every second of the trip. US Customs and Border
Protection releases both boxes without a physical inspection,
according to shipping records.
An eight­hour layover. Then the two batches of eggs go
their separate ways. One heads to San Francisco. Karen’s eggs
will go to Los Angeles on American Airlines Flight 300.
The box goes up a conveyor belt, into the cargo hold with
everyone’s luggage.

Karen’s eggs are harvested at the WeFIV clinic in Buenos Aires

90 Bloomberg Businessweek
January 2025
91
◼ ANITA POUCHARD SERRA/BLOOMBERG
 Six hours later, at Los Angeles International Airport, the “Hi,” a Businessweek reporter says to the driver. “This is
box comes down another conveyor belt. It’s lying at an angle. going to sound wild, but I’ve been following this package all
A burly baggage handler yanks it off the belt and chucks it the way from Buenos Aires. Do you know what’s inside?”
into a cargo cart. For an instant it’s airborne. With a thud it “Inside?” he asks. “No one ever tells us what’s inside.”
lands on its side. The holes that serve as handles are torn as “Human eggs,” the reporter says.
the box heads to American Airlines’ warehouse on the edge “No kidding.”
of the airport. It spends the night there among a sea of pallets He stops to consider the box, alone in the vast emptiness
and cardboard boxes behind a chain­link fence. of the truck’s hold. “Maybe I should put it in the front seat,”
The heat is oppressive the following day when a US he says. “You know, with the seatbelt around it?” He ends up
Department of Agriculture agent arrives to investigate a pallet of fitting it snug in a corner of the truck’s bed, then secures it
Carolina Reaper peppers shipped from the Netherlands. A couple with a canvas belt.
hours later an agent from the US Fish and Wildlife Service arrives The truck leaves LAX and joins the crush of cars streaming
to check out a shipment of 36 Styrofoam coolers holding tropical up Interstate 405. It’s a 45­minute drive. Low­rise apartment
saltwater fish from Australia. He looks over the paperwork and buildings and unkempt brush give way to manicured yards
randomly chooses a handful of coolers to open and inspect. and palm trees.
At 12:05 p.m. a yellow moving truck rolls up to collect the The truck pulls up to a fertility clinic in Beverly Hills. A sign
eggs. A cargo handler uses a forklift to transfer the box, now sitting on the front desk inside advertises $500 egg rejuvena­
dented and worn. A delivery driver in a newsboy cap signs tion packages. Around the corner is Rodeo Drive.
for the package—no government inspection needed, no visit Fifty­seven hours and 32 minutes after leaving the clinic in
from the FDA. The agency doesn’t review imports of eggs or Buenos Aires, Karen’s eggs reach their destination. From here
sperm at the time of entry and prioritizes acting “promptly” they may mark a beginning for the couple in Mexico. Karen
to let them reach women who may be undergoing hormonal doesn’t know the couple’s names, and neither do we, so this
treatments, according to a 2017 compliance manual. is where our journey ends.

27. NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE TO TRACE

In much of the world, the cross­border egg trade operates with minimal government
oversight. Businessweek sought data on egg imports and exports in 15 countries,
through records requests, private vendors and research reports. It was difficult to
draw conclusions, beyond this: It’s nearly impossible to trace the flow of frozen eggs
or of the donors themselves.
We found that Japan and Spain don’t reliably track the movement of eggs in or
◼ ANNABELLE CHICH/BLOOMBERG

out. Canada keeps a list of companies registered to import eggs but not how many
shipments they bring in.
In some countries that track shipments, the numbers show growth is booming. In
Italy, imports of eggs nearly tripled over five years, reaching 17,873 shipments in 2021.
In Brazil, imports increased from only 4 in 2016 to 2,668 shipments in 2023.

92 Bloomberg Businessweek
 In the US, the FDA maintains a database where clinics and egg banks are required
to register imports. Only 64 shipments are listed from 2018 to 2024. Of the two ship­
ments we followed from Buenos Aires to California in July, only Karen’s eggs were
registered. The eggs from the donor she recruited were not. When we asked about the
discrepancy, an FDA spokesperson confirmed the entry wasn’t listed in the database
and said the agency would look into it.

28. “I JUST WANT TO KNOW” THE MOTHER He’s already been in touch. He said he’d be taking precautions:
On a recent sunny weekday in Chania, Maria greets a reporter better that donors administer the first week’s hormone shots
at the store where she works in the town’s bustling center. An in Taiwan and travel to China after. Less time on the ground,
icon of the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus hangs on the maybe less risk.
wall. Asked how she’s doing, Maria turns to her computer Amber has other plans for her egg girls. Chinese investors,
screen, opens a web page with Google Translate and types a doctors and patients have already been shifting to Phnom Penh,
word in Greek on the left­hand side. On the right, the result Cambodia. Travel is easier; costs are lower. Surrogacy is prohib­
emerges: “psychologist.” ited, and clinics must get permission to operate, but few other
She’s getting professional help, but her therapist says there laws govern the industry. So it’s a gray area, she says, but she
simply isn’t an entry in the psychology manuals for the trauma can work with that.
of having your eggs stolen. For herself, though, she’s willing to go back to China if the tim­
Maria compares it to kidnapping, like old stories of women ing and the money are right. In October she’s there for retrieval
being told their baby hadn’t survived birth, when actually No. 16. She’d rather we not mention exactly where. She says she
they’d been given away for adoption. “They don’t even have had no trouble, though she doesn’t know how many eggs she
to do that anymore,” she says. “They just take your eggs.” produced. The clinic wouldn’t tell her, and she wasn’t going to
Scenarios rattle around in her imagination. One is: Her ask any questions while in China. She left with about $11,000.
child grows up and falls in love with someone roughly the Amber has earned about $224,000 in all. Some of that has
same age. Maria will wonder: Could they be siblings? Will gone toward her mortgage, tuition to become an English­as­a­
Maria be on constant lookout for a family resemblance? And second­language teacher in the US, travel to dance competitions.
if another child was born from Maria’s egg, what about that After the retrieval, she visited Tokyo and Bangkok. In November
child’s family? “The child’s mine, but it’s not mine,” she says. she told us she had arranged two more, perhaps her last. This
“It’s their child.” spring, Amber will turn 31.
Maria has been thinking about those tracking codes—the Maybe when she’s 34, definitely before she’s 36, Amber hopes
one for her, and the one for the woman who received her to have a child of her own. A year ago, she made a deal with a
eggs. She’s been pondering what to do with them. She hopes New York egg bank. In return for giving the bank half the eggs
police will provide a way for families to connect with each
other—if they want. But if there’s no official route, the women
in possession of those codes could act on their own, perhaps
using social media. It could be as simple as a Facebook group
where mothers post, “Code 1234 seeking Code 6789.”
“I don’t want to take their child away from them,” Maria
says of the family, which she imagines is as far away as North
America or Australia, or as near as her neighborhood in Crete.
“I just want to know.”

29. RETRIEVALS: 16 AND COUNTING THE EGG GIRLS

When we talk with Amber again, in September, she tells us about
her side business as an agent. For every match she makes, the
aspiring parents usually pay her from $2,000 to $5,000. She rep­
resents about 30 donors. She’s sent many of them to China. If
they worry about what might happen there, she promises that
they won’t feel any pain under the anesthesia, that their organs
won’t be cut out.
But now, she says, “they’re cracking down on the business.”
Local news reports confirm this. Her main contact in China Amber shows a video of an injection she gave herself
was arrested, held for four months and released in August. before an egg retrieval

January 2025 93
 retrieved, she was allowed to freeze the rest for herself, for 31. RUPERT AND MATILDA THE MODEL
a decade without charge. It’s a hedge. When the time comes, About an hour southwest of central Melbourne, in a ranch
Amber hopes she can 7nd a tall, Ivy League­educated man, house on 2 ½ acres of land with a chicken coop and playground
Caucasian or Hispanic, to provide sperm. She’s prepared to pay. out back, a new kind of extended family catches up over video­
conference on a Tuesday in September.
30. A LIFE IN RUINS THE TEEN All around are the chaotic markers of a two­toddler home:
In the year since the girl’s eggs were harvested, the phone she’d bibs hanging to dry, toys strewn about, a half­eaten slice of
coveted has turned out to be a curse. apple on the couch. Alice Kempton sits on the white leather
It seems everyone in Varanasi knows she did something illicit sofa with a laptop on her knees, orbited by Rupert and Matilda.
for money. Few understand what it means to sell eggs or how it’s Rupert is 4; Matilda, 1. Alice, who recently turned 41, gave birth
done; her own mother initially conflated it with sex. “My daugh­ to Matilda in 2023 using another one of the four embryos cre­
ter is a virgin,” the mother said in her police complaint. “My ated from Karen’s eggs. She’s already contemplating baby No. 3.
daughter has been sold off for some wrongdoing.” (Paul’s not convinced.)
The girl dropped out of school after seventh grade, unable to Karen smiles on­screen from 7,200 miles away. “You’re both
face the taunts. Neighbors confront her mother in the streets, getting so big.”
blaming her for giving her daughter too much freedom. Whispers “Do you remember who this is, Matilda?” Alice asks. “Do
spread the kind of doubts dreaded by Indian women: Can she you remember what she gave us?”
still have babies? “Daddy, too,” Matilda responds in her toddlerspeak.
The teen sits in a metal chair, wearing a white kurta that “That’s right,” Alice says. “She and Daddy made the embryo
accentuates hips that have just begun to widen with puberty. She that went into Mummy’s tummy.”
was good in school, a quick learner. Her mother is a wonderful It’s not uncommon in Australia for donor­conceived people
cook, but the girl is content making instant Maggi noodles in a to know who gave their biological material so they could be
cup. She has other ambitions. She wants more than the path born. Several of the country’s states have passed legislation
of wife and childbearer. She used to dream of becoming a giving children the right to know their heritage.
beautician. “I want to do something in life,” she says. It’s a culture that Alice and Paul embrace. There’s a world
Now shame gnaws at her. “I feel that no one would even map in a corner where Rupert and Matilda can pinpoint where
want to get married to me,” she says. Her voice falters, and Karen lives and where the Portland clinic is. On a low shelf of
she presses her 7ngers into the corners of her eyes, trying to books, they can pick one of a half­dozen stories explaining
stop the tears. All she’d wanted was a phone. “I am a kid, I what it means to be a donor­conceived person.
have the mind of a child. I didn’t know that it was a huge deal.” It’s the sort of relationship that many children born from
The 7ve arrested have since been freed on bail. Meanwhile, the technology will never experience. That’s especially true
she sits at home, barely going out, toying with the phone as as the industry ships more frozen eggs across borders, many
her window to the world. She asks why “big doctors,” held in sourced from nations without strong right­to­know laws or reli­
such high esteem in Indian society, couldn’t discern a child able recordkeeping. Karen has donated 336 eggs, in 7 retriev­
from an adult. She wonders why she’s the one being blamed. als over 5 years in 3 countries. At least 7ve pregnancies have
Even her own grandfather blames her for bringing shame on resulted. Rupert and Matilda are the only children born of her
the family. eggs she knows.
“I was wronged, too,” she says, her bare feet kicking the About 10 minutes into the video chat, both children start
rail of the chair. “I want people to understand someone’s to lose interest. Rupert runs outside and digs for imaginary
helplessness—to not take advantage of that helplessness.” treasure. Matilda picks daisies.
Her mother says, “Whatever happened to my daughter Alice and Karen are left alone to talk. Alice says she started
should not happen with anyone else.” running again. Karen is training for a trek and asks for tips. The
Some 2,000 years ago, India gave the world one of its ear­ conversation circles back to Matilda. Alice says she’s starting
◼ PHOTOGRAPH BY LISA SORGINI FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK

liest codes of medical ethics in a body of Ayurvedic texts, to see more of Karen in her.
including the Charaka Samhita. They laid down for healers a “We should send new photos to your mum,” Alice says.
core principle: to help all patients of all means. Karen’s phone is 7lled with such photos, which she eagerly
No one told the teen that she was never the patient, that shows off. Sometimes she seems like a proud aunt. Other
she was only a tool in the service of the real patient. She barely times she’s an agent, trying to persuade other young women
grasps that by now her eggs may have been used to create to become egg donors, too. <BW>
children she’ll never know. One side walked away with the gift
of life; the other got a one­time payment. The fertility industry �With Rachel Adams-Heard, Naila Khan, Lucille Liu,
sells this as a win­win. Rarely is it an arrangement between Kendall Taggart, Smitha T.K., Advait Palepu, Vicky Kaiyi Feng,
two equals. Philip Glamann, Sabah Meddings, Angus Whitley and Kurumi Mori
Too late, the girl realizes she gave away far more than
she received. Alice Kempton with her two children, both born from Karen’s eggs

94 Bloomberg Businessweek
 ◼ PHOTO: ◼ DATA:

January 2025
95
 March 4–5, 2025
New York

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 PURSUITS

→ Whether wanderlust compels you to

find a spot before your fellow tourists do or you
enjoy discovering a new side to the tried-and-true,
these incredible destinations are calling

→ Edited by Nikki Ekstein

→ Photograph by Gabriela Herman

◼ PHOTO: ◼ DATA:

↑ Famara Beach in Lanzarote,

one of Spain’s Canary Islands

January 2025 Pursuits 97

 introduction to the largest country in
1 Africa. I’m on the first day of a guided
tour by British adventure outfitter Wild
Piercing trills ring out across Algiers’ Frontiers, which helps me peel back the
Rue Didouche Mourad, and my eyes layers of this Mediterranean mille-feuille,
dart across the ivory Haussmann-style with its alluring strata of Roman ruins,
buildings to trace the source. The famil- whitewashed mosques and Ottoman
iar ululation is a Proustian trigger: If you palaces, not to mention a treasure trove
spend enough time in the Arab world, you of immaculate neoclassical, belle epoque
know this sound—a zaghrouta—means and art deco buildings left over from
a party is unfolding, and I want in. 132 years of French occupation.
Sure enough, a quartet of musicians Algeria certainly has its international
spills out from a salon onto the sidewalk, stars: French soccer legend Zinedine
followed by a chorus of women swathed Zidane, musicians DJ Snake and Cheb
in jewel-toned velvet jackets called Mami, Yves Saint Laurent and Albert
karakous. The singing escalates with Camus were all born here or can trace
high-pitched abandon as a bride emerges family back. But if you don’t know much
and slips into a white SUV. As passersby about the place at all, that may be by
surge into the street, I get sucked into the design. Algeria retreated inward after two
fray, clapping along as the locals pulse especially difficult chapters in its history:
their hips to the beat of the darbuka A brutal eight-year revolution ended
drums. Then, just as spontaneously as French rule in 1962, and a bloody civil
the celebration erupted, it ends. war between the military and Islamist
→ As insular as it is beautiful, I’ve long been obsessed with Algerian groups condemned the 1990s to history as
Africa’s largest nation is music, from the infectious cult hits of the country’s Black Decade. Now Algeria
now welcoming visitors to its
◼ WILL BOWEN

Raï (Algerian folk) king Khaled to con- is stable—and has until recently resisted
uncrowded wonders
temporary hip-hop bangers by Soolking, globalization in part as an effort to pre-
→ By Sarah Khan so it’s fitting that this interlude is my serve its once-threatened identity. “Our

98 Pursuits Bloomberg Businessweek

 ← The oasis town the simple but sufficiently comfortable
of Taghit stands
before the Grand Erg hotels, Wi-Fi is hard to come by.
Occidental sand dunes But here, on a leafy, tourist-free
in western Algeria
boulevard in the center of the capital,
watching women cross the street car-
rying spindly baguettes and vendors
doling out mdhajeb flatbreads under
color ful frescoed ceilings—with the
sounds of French, Arabic and Berber
swirling together into the local Dzirya
dialect—I start to understand a new
definition of luxury. It isn’t shaped by
opulent resorts and eye-watering price
tags but by accessing a rare window
into a culture that’s traditionally been
cloistered away. During my week in the
country, I see more cats than foreigners.
After checking out from Algiers’
Hotel El Aurassi—a tall, white building
with a blocky silhouette and a vast pool
deck—we take a van eastward, passing
the sprawl of the third largest mosque
in the world and winding through
eucalyptus-covered hills before arriving
at Djémila. Once the thriving Roman
colony of Cuicul, the site is now a dizzy-
ing assortment of astonishingly pre-
festivals, our culture is for ourselves,” gross domestic product—25% is oil—with served Roman ruins. Anywhere else in
novelist Hamza Koudri tells me at Dojo, most of its 3 million annual visitors the world, a cache of antiquities at this
a gallery and community space in Algiers’ coming to see family. scale would be a tangle of barriers and
Birkhadem district. “That won’t last Recently, those statistics have started walkways and plaques designed to usher
forever if tourist culture comes.” to change. In 2023 the government hordes of tourists and protect relics, but
I start in the elegant capital of Algiers, introduced a visa-on-arrival program as these are all but deserted save for a group
where the stately French-built National the first step toward building a mean- of teenage boys sharing a cigarette.
Museum of Fine Arts stands in the shadow ingful tourism economy that aims to That night I stay in Constantine, a
of the swooping spire of the Martyrs welcome 12 million annual visitors by city of a half-million people where seven
Memorial, honoring the 1.5 million 2030. With even Saudi Arabia pivoting bridges hang across the wide gorges of
Algerians killed in the war of indepen- from oil toward tourism, Algeria must the Rhumel River like elaborate, sky-
dence. In the historic casbah, which compete with its neighbors, Morocco high tightwires. There, I stumble onto
slinks down a steep slope toward the Bay and Tunisia, for international visitors spontaneous guitar jam sessions and
of Algiers, there are neither tour groups or risk falling behind. come away with a dozen new Raï and
nor beckoning salespeople. When I settle For now, the visa on arrival is only an poplike chaabi tracks for my Spotify
into a rooftop divan at the restaurant Dar option for travelers planning to spend playlist. And in the Sahara, my hair
El Baraka with a bowl of rechta (delicate 70% of their time exploring the desert lashes in the wind against my face as
wisps of pasta served with chicken, hard- vistas in the south. For everyone else, I slice ribbons through the dunes in
boiled egg and cinnamon-laden gravy), Algeria’s visa process remains Byzantine, an exhilarating ride on a four-wheeler.
I’m joined by a lively group of locals and requiring thick sheafs of paperwork Sure, there are fewer working seat belts
a stray turtle meandering underfoot. and some dumb luck. What’s more, for- compared with my dune-bashing experi-
Although the country rewards its vis- eigners are required to travel with tour ences in Dubai and Oman, but my trepi-
itors with spellbinding scenes at every operators and must be accompanied by dation only adds to the exhilaration.
turn, it wasn’t easy to get here. Only a constant retinue of police escorts—for Among my six fellow travelers with
seven countries (largely neighbors) bureaucratic reasons rather than any Wild Frontiers, past passport stamps →
have visa-free access, making it one of real safety concerns. Hip shops selling
For flight and hotel prices for each destination,
the most closed-off nations in the world. pricey ceramics and stylish silk caftans personalized for you with data from Kayak, visit
Tourism represents only 2% of Algeria’s fail to accept credit cards, and outside of bloomberg.com/where-to-go

January 2025 Pursuits 99

← include Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Mali and Sudan. “I like to screenings and late-night domestic flights, for instance. But it
go to places before there’s a Starbucks there,” quips Karen also lets visitors witness a vibrant culture lived with practically
Johnson-Gale, a retiree from Colorado. zero interest in the Western gaze, and where panoramas such
I see where she’s coming from. Visiting a country like as the palm-studded Saharan oases near Timimoun are utterly
Algeria now, before it’s fully primed for the spotlight, is a rare unblemished by tour buses and influencers with billowing
privilege. It comes with its frustrations: Airports are a mad- dresses. With its maze of marble columns, 40,000 zellige tiles
dening obstacle course of redundant passport and luggage and whimsical frescoes of Mecca and Medina, Constantine’s
alluring palace of Ahmed Bey is as worthy of camera-toting
tourist throngs as the mosaic-covered Bahia Palace in
Marrakech. But I get to see it in almost complete privacy.
“I think Algeria is having its moment,” says Marc
Leaderman, product and operations director of Wild
Frontiers, noting that the company has seen a 75% increase
in bookings here from 49 in 2023 to 86 in 2024. “There’s a lot
of talk of overtourism, and people are looking for destinations
that offer them an antidote to that.”
It’s unlikely that Algeria’s extraordinary vast landscapes
will change meaningfully, even if more people come to see
them. But the real endangered travel experience may lie in
quieter moments spent watching quotidian life unfold as it
has for generations. It’s these fleeting scenes that I found
stirred me most.
Take one of the more harrowing travel days I’ve had in
recent memory, a consequence of a missed flight that sent
me hopscotching across the country’s vast desert interior on
my way back to Algiers. As soon as my reassigned flight finally
hit altitude and the seat belt sign went off, a man rose at the
front of the plane and, in a booming voice, spontaneously led
the entire plane full of passengers in a rousing dua (prayer).
As he made throaty entreaties to Allah to keep us safe and

◼ MEMORIAL: DUKAS/UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP/GETTY IMAGES. BRIDGE: ISTOCK/GETTY IMAGES. MUSEUM: SAYED HASSAN/GETTY IMAGES
bless our journey, I joined the passengers chorusing along
with passionate “ameens.” <BW>
↑ The Martyrs
Memorial in Algiers

→ Located in the
northeast, Constantine
is known as the city
of suspended bridges

100 Pursuits Bloomberg Businessweek

 → In places
that also happen
to have fabulous
new hotels
and offer unique
experiences

→ The largest
archaeological
museum is in Egypt

3 4

Fenix, Rotterdam Naoshima New

When it opens on May 16 in a historic Museum of Art, Japan
172,000-square-foot warehouse, Fenix
Japan is full of places for deep
will explore how the world has been
contemplation, and Tadao Ando’s latest
shaped by migration and cross-cultural
project on Naoshima Island, just south
exchange. Exhibitions will pull together
of Okayama in the Seto Inland Sea, will
international art stars William Kentridge,
2 be worth prioritizing. It joins nine oth-
Steve McQueen, Gordon Parks and Alfred
Stieglitz, along with migration-themed ers on the spectacular Benesse Art Site,
The Grand Egyptian artifacts, such as the very first refugee a tiny speck of land that may have more
polka-dotted Yayoi Kusama pumpkins
Museum, Giza, Egypt passports, issued after World War I. The
than it does permanent residents. When
building, once part of the world’s larg-
More than 100,000 artifacts, from the est transit warehouse, will be topped by it opens in the spring, the three-floor
years of pharaonic civilization to mod- a gleaming double-helix staircase and New Museum will feature works from big-
ern times, will be on display at this observation deck dubbed “the Tornado.” name contemporary Asian artists includ-
5.2 million-square-foot edifice, which has From there visitors can see the massive ing Takashi Murakami and Cai Guo-Qiang
been in the works for almost 20 years. harbor, where more than 3 million emi- in a minimalist, pebble-walled building
King Tut’s 5,000-object treasure collec- grants (including Willem de Kooning and designed to blend into the hilly seaside.
tion, including his sarcophagus, will fill Albert Einstein) boarded ships to start From a terrace cafe on the top level,
a single gallery. An opening date has yet a new life somewhere abroad. Over the you’ll be able to watch fishing boats pass
to be set, but tour operator Abercrombie centuries many millions more arrived through a landscape that’s dotted with
& Kent Ltd. has already started snagging there, too, shaping Rotterdam into the fog-shrouded volcanoes.
early access to several exhibition halls culturally diverse city it is today.
now open for previews. WHILE YOU’RE THERE …
WHILE YOU’RE THERE … With all the savings offered by a weak
WHILE YOU’RE THERE … yen, there’s no better time to extend
Stroll around! Rotterdam has long been
Board a luxury sailing cruise: India-based overlooked by tourists in favor of better- your city hop. The heritage-focused
Oberoi Hotels & Resorts is preparing to known Amsterdam and the Hague, an hotel brand Capella is heading to Kyoto
take VIP visitors down the Nile on a pair unfortunate omission given the city has with 92 rooms, an onsen-inspired spa and
of dahabeyas, sailboats traditionally some similarly charming waterways and an enviable location: a short walk from
made for royalty. Each will have space pencil-thin canal houses—all perfect for the Unesco-protected Kiyomizu-dera
for 14 guests in seven river-view cabins— ambling past. Stay at the Mainport Hotel, Temple. A Kengo Kuma-designed outpost
as well as a resident Egyptologist and which wraps a head-to-toe renovation of the Shangri-La hotel chain is also set
a full staff of butlers—plus a pool bar, an and joins Hilton’s Curio Collection this to open in the cultural capital, and Four
interactive kitchen for daytime cooking spring; wide windows in its rooms face Seasons and Waldorf Astoria give a five-
classes and an onboard spa. the vast Maas River. star boost to Osaka. <BW>

January 2025 Pursuits 101

 5

Rome
During the Vatican’s 2025 Jubilee year,
the Pope will open five Holy Doors at
churches including St. Peter’s Basilica as
a symbol of salvation for Catholics around
the world. And the surrounding city will
be exciting and more accessible even
for nonreligious travelers, as $1.7 billion
in citywide infrastructure investments
reach completion. Those funds have gone
toward the renovation of all three foun-
tains in the Piazza Navona, upgrades to
green areas around the Vatican and the
Mausoleum of Hadrian (more commonly
known as Castel Sant'Angelo), and the
christening of the flagship stations for the
$3 billion Metro Line C that runs under
Roman ruins. The Porta Metronia and Fori
Imperiali-Colosseo stops will relieve traffic
and double as archaeological museums,
allowing you to look through glass walls at
ancient history while awaiting your train.
Add to that an enticing array of hotel
openings from Corinthia, Rosewood,
Nobu and Orient Express—plus the
77-room Romeo Roma, one of Zaha
Hadid’s final projects, with multiple pools
and a rooftop lounge in a 16th century
palazzo near Piazza del Popolo.

PAIR IT WITH … UMBRIA

↑ The triumphal Arch
of Constantine, next to You’ll need a little solitude after Rome’s
the Colosseum in Rome Jubilee crowds. So head two hours
north to the Six Senses Antognolla, a
reimagining of the 12th century Castello
di Antognolla, which towers over hills
of olive groves. It will have horseback
riding, cooking classes and 71 rooms
tucked inside.
◼ ROME: FEDERICA VALABREGA. UMBRIA: COURTESY SIX SENSES

The Upper East Side

Manhattan’s most-Botoxed neighborhood
→ Three
has just gotten a lift of its own: The Frick,
intoxicating
urban one of the gems of early 20th century
destinations New York, is reopening again after five
with bucolic years and a head-to-toe makeover, its first
getaway chasers renovation since 1935. As part of the redo,

102 Pursuits Bloomberg Businessweek

the museum is opening its second floor crowd of designers, execs and socialites Street, Gordon Ramsay will spread five
to the public, adding a cafe and restoring at virtually all hours of the day. venues throughout London’s tallest new
the once-lush gardens. office building at 22 Bishopsgate. That
The UES hotel scene, too, is getting an PAIR IT WITH … includes Lucky Cat on the 60th floor,
upgrade: The Surrey, a local staple, has LITCHFIELD COUNTY which, when it opens in February, will
undergone a stately overhaul by high-end be the highest dining room in the city.
This pastoral area of Connecticut, a few Don’t overlook Canary Wharf, a bur-
European brand Corinthia Hotels, cre-
hours north of New York, finds historic geoning food and drink destination on
ating competition for its celeb-packed
farmhouses playing as second homes to the line’s eastern end, where you can
neighbors, the Carlyle and the Mark.
VIPs like the Murdochs and Meryl Streep. sample playful takes on British classics
That’s a lot of fresh energy in a tra-
The Abner and Belden House & Mews, on the water at the 500-seat Roe. (Get
ditionally sleepy neighborhood, and it
the area’s first two super-stylish hotels, the snail vindaloo flatbread and crowd-
doesn’t stop there. Three new restaurants
are opening up the county’s ample lakes pleasing bloomin’ onion.) The just-
are joining the ranks of Manhattan’s most-
difficult-to-book spots: Cafe Commerce and rolling emerald hills to the rest of us. opened Hovarda offers an Aegean menu
is a spinoff of a shuttered West Village starring the roasted lamb dish kleftiko
favorite, with its famous old murals pre- 7 and raki drinks. There’s also new French
served and hanging over the new bar. brasserie Marceline, on a floating pavil-
ion on the Thames, where you can dine
(Expect to see chef Harold Moore’s tow- London on Dover sole grenobloise and mussels
ering coconut cake and a version of his
epic roast chicken.) Chez Fifi, from the Many of London’s most exciting hotel marinière. Like the Elizabeth line, it’s
tradition-minded team that brought us and restaurant openings will have one already bringing the masses.
Sushi Noz—where the omakase costs thing in common: proximity to the
$550—has a similarly reverent take on old- Elizabeth line, which went into service PAIR IT WITH … BATH
school French classics. And Le Veau d’Or, in 2022. Hop off the Underground at Take the tube to Paddington station,
one of the area’s OG celebrity hangouts Bond Street in Mayfair, and you’ll soon where a 90-minute connecting train
from the 1930s, has been given new life by find the city’s newest ultraluxury con- whisks you to the domain of Netflix’s
Lee Hanson and Riad Nasr, the acclaimed tender, the Chancery Rosewood. The Bridgerton. (The historic city features
chefs behind Francophile dining rooms hotel will fill the former US Embassy heavily in the show.) Next year, for local
Le Rock and Frenchette. Even the restau- with 146 spacious rooms and two big-deal hero Jane Austen’s 250th birthday, Bath
rant on the ground floor of the Surrey is restaurants: the first UK location of New will host a series of summer balls, cos-
bringing some heat: Casa Tua is where the York’s celebrity-packed Carbone and the tumed parades and yuletide parties—
who’s who dine in Miami, and the New resurrection of storied London hot spot because nobody celebrates (literary)
York outpost is packed with a glittering Le Caprice. A few stops away at Liverpool royals quite like the Brits. <BW>

← Six Senses
Antognolla, a modern
spa resort in a
medieval Italian castle

January 2025 Pursuits 103

 ➡ The Jameos
del Agua volcanic
caves in Lanzarote,
Canary Islands

Seville
9

Canary
Islands

◼ PHOTOGRAPHS BY GABRIELA HERMAN FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK

→ More to love in a
country that can’t seem
to go out of style

104 Pursuits Bloomberg Businessweek

Perhaps you’ve been hearing about all boutiques tucked along cobbled lanes or would be best to get there before
your friends going to Spain for the past just lie on the beach with a book. everyone else does.
few years. Or you’ve been yourself, The Canaries are much more than a If you have time for only one island,
sipping tempranillo at the tapas counters boozed-up stretch of beaches for British make it Lanzarote, which has recently
in Madrid and basking on the beaches stag parties. They’re a year-round become the first with grade-A resorts.
of Mallorca. Either way, you’ve got the vacation destination of surfable coves, A Grand Hyatt along the sea and a more
Spain bug. So what are the next hot charming medieval villages and ram- secluded Alila (the debut European out-
places to go? bling farmsteads. At the last you’ll find post of the luxury brand) high in the
Historic [[8]] Seville has emerged as treats like fresh flor de las nieves cheese, hilly interior are due in 2025. They’ll join
a rising contender for those who’ve which has a gooey inner core under its the recently opened César Lanzarote, a
loved the country’s other big cities. thick round rind, and fruit-forward, boutique inn with a high-concept design
Long favored by university students minerally malvasia wines. And that’s near the wineries of La Geria, and the
and overlooked by luxury travelers for merely a small selection of the Canaries’ newish Hotel Casa de las Flores in
its lack of a major airport, the capital of vast culinary wealth. the colonial village of Teguise.
Andalusia boasts 300 days of sunshine More tourists are catching on to Make sure to grab a meal at
and a lovely mix of Moorish and baroque these wonders, spurring a boom in Restaurante Palacio Ico to savor local
architecture. This is the birthplace of hotel investment (and unfortunately dishes including cherne fish and
flamenco and home to modern marvels some protests around tourism growth, Canarian black pig. Then hit the waves
such as the Metropol Parasol, a pub- too). With the Canaries projected to at Famara Beach with Lanzasurf, a qual-
lic plaza where you can shop under welcome 17.8 million visitors in 2024— ity outfitter operating along, for now,
umbrella-like structures that resemble up 1.6 million from a year earlier—it blissfully secluded shores. <BW>
Seussian mushrooms.
➡ Metropol Parasol
All this is enticing enough for travelers is known locally as the
on the hunt for character-packed B-side Setas, or mushrooms,
of Seville
destinations instead of overcrowded
tourism hubs. But a pair of stylish bou-
tique hotels—with rates under $200 a
night—are livening up Seville’s hospital-
ity scene, too. Pick the Vincci Selección
Unuk if you’re liable to spend after-
noons on a rooftop deck, surveying
the Gothic spires of the city’s cathe-
drals at eye level. Or book into Ocean
Drive Sevilla, with its Scandinavian-
inspired decor, if you’d rather be at the
doorstep of the city center’s winding
cobblestone streets.
And let’s dispel the airport myth,
while we’re at it: Seville is shockingly
easy to reach, especially since new
railway operator Iryo added train routes
from Barcelona and Madrid in 2023.
It’s only 2 ½ hours from the latter city—
and as little as €20 ($21), which makes
for a more seamless voyage than many
connecting flights.
Speaking of flights, you’d think
the [[9]] Canary Islands would be signifi-
cantly harder to get to, given the Spanish
archipelago is closer to Morocco than
Madrid. But a slew of international car-
riers will take you directly to three of the
largest islands—Tenerife, Gran Canaria
and Lanzarote—where you can hike
through vertiginous landscapes, shop in

January 2025 Pursuits 105

 → A skier at
Portillo in Chile

→ The buzziest
summertime
escapes
increasingly
are those
that won’t leave
you drenched
in sweat

As France, Greece and Italy all experienced record There, the newly opened Maryhill Estate,
10 heat in the summer of 2024, those who typically a renovated baroque castle with 163 floral and
flock to the Mediterranean veered north to Nordic candy-striped rooms on the rocky Øresund Sound,
Europe instead, where they enjoyed cool breezes is grand enough to rival the châteaus of the Loire.
Skåne even in peak beach season. This shift is one of the With its intimate pool club and croquet lawns, it’s
many ways climate change is rewriting travel patterns the first great place to stay in Skåne and raises the
11 in real time, and in 2023 it added some $124 billion bar for Scandinavia as a whole. Use it as a base
to the economies of Norway, Denmark and Sweden. camp for days spent exploring cider factories,
Greenland For 2024, travel agents registered a 47% year-over- cathedrals and palaces—or an excuse to check out
year increase in summertime bookings to the region. the regional capital, Mälmo.
12 These experts have coined the term “coolcations” Big culinary news is also on the way. Chef
for summer trips planned around less-than-sweltering Magnus Nilsson, who made a global reputa-
Portillo temperatures; they can be anything from a temper-
ate coastal escape to a wintry snow retreat. Take
tion with Fäviken Magasinet, his now-shuttered
restaurant at the far northern end of Sweden,
[[10]] Skåne in Sweden, a mere 30-minute drive across will open Pensionat Furuhem this spring in a
the Øresund Bridge from Copenhagen. The county whitewashed building that once was a boarding
is filled with lonely lighthouses, quaint fishing vil- school for women in the town of Båstad. It will
lages and rambling royal gardens—a place to slow be a destination dining experience collectively
◼ RICK SORENSEN

down for walks on long beaches with colorful owned by its cooks and staff, offering traditional
huts and extended fika breaks made up of strong local cuisine, an all-day bakery and a few hotel
coffee and cardamom buns. rooms above.

106 Pursuits Bloomberg Businessweek

 This special spot, like many others, is still
accessible only via boat or helicopter.
If you want to take coolcations to
their extreme, you can head to the
Southern Hemisphere, where boreal
summer is austral ski season. That’s
what Bob Purcell did in 1961, when
he left his life as a New York City busi-
nessman for the much snowier climes
of the Chilean Andes. He took over a
modest resort there, [[12]] Portillo, which
had been created by adventure-seeking
skiers in the 1940s with a lodge built by
the government, and turned it into a
destination as legendary among powder
chasers as the sugar-dusted slopes of
Niseko in Japan. Its 1,235 acres of mostly
advanced-level slopes skirt the edge of a
teal lagoon in the shadow of the Western
Hemisphere’s highest peak—a combi-
nation of spectacular conditions and
eye-popping landscapes.
But what makes the place unique is
how little it’s evolved. In an industry
dominated by global resort behemoths,
Portillo remains defiantly independent.
There’s no resort town, tubing or sleigh
rides. Instead, every amenity you need—
whether cinema, disco or piano bar—is
contained in a single six-story, lemon-
yellow ski-in, ski-out hotel. Visitors sign
up for either a full-week or half-week stay
and eat their four daily meals (including
Chilean tea time) at assigned seats in
If that coolcation isn’t cold enough, cities of Ilulissat and Qaqortoq by 2026, Portillo’s wood-paneled ballroom, chat-
you can of course turn the temperature reducing reliance on the cruise ports. ting with fellow travelers as if they were
down further: Think giant icebergs, miles All this airport expansion has on a cruise. With a maximum occupancy
of tundra and spectacularly long days prompted tour operators such as Black of 450 guests, though, it means wide-
thanks to the midnight sun. The mythi- Tomato to introduce trips highlighting open, uncrowded terrain when you leave
cal frozen landscapes of [[11]] Greenland culture and nature in Greenland’s under- the “ship”—there’s no such thing as a lift
have typically been accessible only to the-radar destinations. Forage for mush- line on this mountain.
travelers who come on cruise ships and rooms, wild berries and other ingredients So why prioritize it now, if it’s been
disembark for a mere handful of hours. with a chef in Saqqaq; swim through this way for decades? For its 75th anni-
In 2023, 74 cruise ships visited Greenland icebergs in specially designed dry suits; versary, the Purcell family is bringing
on a total of 183 voyages—a 64% increase or catch Arctic char the local way (with in a few (temporary) bells and whistles.
over 2022 alone. (Even within eyeshot your hands) in the Amitsuarsuk Fjord. There will be mountaintop dinners led
of the fjords, you can still expect T-shirt Then challenge yourself with a hike to by Chilean winemakers and adventures
weather through June, July and August.) the second-largest ice sheet in the world, such as guided star walks and cold
Exploring deeper into the terrain is in Kangerlussuaq. plunges available only this season. It’s
getting easier. In late November the first Many of Black Tomato’s itineraries also easier to arrive, with Santiago’s
international airport opened in the send guests to Kiattua, a secluded camp new $990 million international airport
capital city of Nuuk near the territory’s near Nuuk with eco-conscious glamp- terminal only two hours away. Bookend
southwest coast, bringing five weekly ing tents, a hot tub and close-up views the trip at Debaines, a 50-key property
flights from Copenhagen. Two more of the region’s fjords. Don’t expect it to opened in December next to the capital’s
airports are expected in the southern be mobbed by the masses anytime soon. neoclassical opera house. <BW>

January 2025 Pursuits 107

 → In Le Canon, a
village on eastern Cap
Ferret, family-owned
cabanas sell shellfish
plucked from the bay

→ Four
alternatives to
popular standbys

◼ CAP FERRET: KAREL BALAS. ANTIPAROS: COURTESY THE ROOSTER

108 Pursuits Bloomberg Businessweek

 13 14

If you like Saint-Tropez, If you like Santorini,

try Cap Ferret try Paros and Antiparos
The new balm for French jet-setters who’ve grown weary The Cyclades are no strangers to mass tourism, but there’s so
of Saint-Tropez’s billionaire bling is Cap Ferret. Not to be much more to the islands than the sunsets on Santorini and club
confused with Cap Ferrat, which lies a few towns farther beats on Mykonos. Beyond them are dozens of other islets dotted
up the tony Riviera, this boho-chic paradise is on a spit of with dramatic rocky coastlines, blue-and-white stucco towns and
land dotted with fresh oyster stands, giant sand dunes and miles of pebbly beaches.
wooden cabanas (plus luxury homes, natch) that separates Emerging as the Aegean’s rising stars are Paros and its smaller
the Atlantic from Arcachon Bay. It’s like workaday Montauk, neighbor, Antiparos, two bougainvillea-covered oases separated
New York, a decade ago. by a five-minute ferry. They’re popular with a well-heeled crowd
Stay at La Co(o)rniche or Ha(a)ïtza, two newish inns across that’s keen to visit villages such as stone-walled Parikia or to
the bay that blend Tudor timber with Cape Cod sensibilities drench themselves in tanning oil along the deep azure sea. In
for a more elegant effect than their overstylized names. Both the town of Naousa, the nightlife is every bit as vibrant as in
are owned by the Techoueyres family, who will open a third Mykonos—but without the sky-high prices.
property in the area in 2725. It’s no wonder the hotel scene has had a glow-up. In the past
Going with a group? This is an equally good spot to rent a year, the intimate Andronis Minois on Paros has added 44 rooms
private villa, such as those from Iconic House, a newish com- with secluded terraces only 577 feet from the water’s edge. It’s a
pany with a quickly growing portfolio of high-end homes in perfect plan B if you’re unable to snag one of 17 glamorous rooms
the region. at Rooster Antiparos, the pioneering property on the island’s
Even Bordeaux—the nearest big city, only 47 miles inland— undeveloped western shore. Go to this island duo now, and you’ll
is reinvigorating its image to go beyond its world-class wine see some of their most staggering sights in relative solitude: Our
industry. This emerging “petit Paris” sports a Mondrian hotel favorites include a 5,777-year-old theater and what might be the
designed by Philippe Starck set amid the hipster hangouts of most ancient cave in Greece, around 45 million years old and
the Chartrons neighborhood. And just outside of town, carved considered by some a passageway to the underworld.
between the area’s fabled wineries, is the brand-new Cabot It’s unlikely to stay quiet for long. A $45 million revamp
Bordeaux, an offshoot of the beloved Canadian golf resort with of Paros’ airport is underway, and by summer 2726, a longer
79 mod rooms and a hyperlocal wine cellar. runway will receive direct international flights for the first time. →
→ The Rooster’s
modern Mediterranean
restaurant sources
ingredients from its
own farm on Antiparos

January 2025 Pursuits 109

 15 16

If you like the Maldives, If you like Nashville,

try Seychelles try Lexington, Kentucky
Being 1,000 miles from the mainland—Kenya’s eastern coast—has Horse races, elaborate hats and bourbon trails: Tradition-filled
helped the 115 islands of Seychelles remain an exclusive and Lexington will celebrate its 250th anniversary in June, offering
rarefied escape, with luxury hotels and prices to match. That’s a chance to see the Southern belle in rapid evolution.
not simply a by-product of its remote geography; it’s mandated: The city will soon cut the ribbon on a $35.5 million, 22-mile-
Legislation has long limited hotel development to very low- long paved pedestrian and biking trail system connecting some
density projects, making the openings of LVMH’s Cheval Blanc of its most appealing neighborhoods—including the aptly named
Seychelles and a Waldorf Astoria an exciting new reason to visit. Distillery District and the restaurant-packed Downtown—to the
For its 52 villas on the main island of Mahé, the French waterfront of the scenic Kentucky River.
company tapped architect Jean-Michel Gathy to build glassy Four newly updated African American Heritage walking
structures with the high-pitched rooflines common to Seychellois tours offer highlights of the city’s past, including little-known
Creole design. Inside are intricately woven wall hangings by Joël stories of Black horse jockeys and the historic alleyways
Andrianomearisoa of nearby Madagascar. Guests can access a that enslaved people and domestic servants took to get to
Guerlain spa and five restaurants—several facing a shoreline piled and from work unnoticed. Fresh Bourbon, one of the state’s
with granite boulders that look like beached whales. Waldorf first Black-owned distilleries, added mixology classes and
Astoria’s 50-villa retreat on the tiny, gardenia-strewn private whiskey tastings with food pairings. And i In June, a 10-day
island of Platte—a sanctuary for hawksbill sea turtles—is acces- SoulFeast Week will showcase Black-owned restaurants with
sible only by a 25-minute plane ride. It’s a place for kitesurfing, hip-hop brunches and farm-to-table dinners at Coleman Crest,
fly-fishing, scuba diving and guided reef walks. Kentucky’s first Black-owned organic farm.
And then there’s Frégate Island, which many locals consid- And look out, Nashville. Lexington is gaining cred for its
ered Seychelles’ first luxury resort when it made its debut in flourishing music scene, which is now easier to tap into. The
1999. It reopens in the back half of 2025 after a three-year closure. Manchester, the city’s first boutique hotel, is blocks away from
Its 17 already-spacious villas will have been expanded, with the Manchester Music Hall and the Burl, where Bayker Blankenship
addition of floor-to-ceiling windows, solar-power hookups and and other emerging country stars are set to play in 2025. And in
new furnishings. Just as important is what remains unchanged: May, during the famed Kentucky Derby, it’s worth betting Taylor
protected habitats for the critically endangered species that live Swift will make an appearance at Churchill Downs in nearby
on the resort’s 750-acre grounds, including the magpie robin, Louisville, 90 minutes away: Her boyfriend Travis Kelce’s race-

◼ LEXINGTON: PHOTOGRAPH BY NATOSHA VIA FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK. PRÍNCIPE: MIGUEL MADEIRA/HBD PRÍNCIPE GROUP
Frégate beetle and giant Aldabra tortoise. horse is expected to compete. Its name? Swift Delivery. <BW>

→ Carson’s
Food & Drink, near
Thoroughbred Park
downtown, is a
Lexington mainstay for
steaks and pub grub

110 Pursuits Bloomberg Businessweek

 → By It’s “the Galápagos of Africa, but
Nikki Ekstein with rainforests instead of desert,”
Shuttleworth says. “There are these
really ugly fish that walk on land—I mean,
literally, fish that walk on land! When
you see them, it’s like you’ve been trans-
ported back about 500 million years.”
Fifteen years later, the 51-year-old
billionaire has expanded what was sup-
posed to be just a personal vacation
property—a dilapidated, abandoned
resort built in the 1980s by an eccentric
fisherman—into a collection of four hotels
scattered across the island. The effort
has so far cost him about 250 million, a
number that will climb as he gradually
morphs each one into a true five-star
eco-resort. First up is the low-slung
→ A radical Bom Bom, which reopened in September
new approach with 18 beach bungalows.
to conservation Putting Príncipe on the global eco-
is about to tourism map is only one prong of
be piloted in Shuttleworth’s conservation aspirations.
São Tomé and Far more wide-reaching and ambitious is
Príncipe, the his plan to have every local—not just the
“Galápagos naturalist guides at his resorts—invested
of Africa”
in and benefiting from the protection of
the island’s natural resources.
“In terms of GDP, Príncipe may be
one of the poorest places on Earth,”
Shuttleworth says. “But there’s a differ-
ence between poverty and indignity,
and this is a very proud, dignified and
healthy place.” Much of the island’s pop-
ulation depends on subsistence fishing
and farming, plus cocoa exports, a ves-
tige of Portuguese plantations. Joint oil
ventures with Nigeria are an emerging
➡ Bom Bom economic driver.
beach resort on
Príncipe island “As I fell in love with Príncipe, I also
started to realize, ‘OK, there are hard
developed the Linux-based operating problems here,’ ” he says. Shortly after
17 system Ubuntu. “I was spending nights he bought his first property, Shuttleworth
on Google Maps looking for islands along heard murmurs of plans to raze rainforest
Príncipe the way where I could be a vegetable and to build a palm oil plantation. Even
not feel bad about it,” he says. tourism risked destabilizing Príncipe’s
Before Mark Shuttleworth became the That’s how he found Príncipe, where uniqueness as the local economy grew.
driving hospitality force in São Tomé jungles crash into pearlescent beaches The traditional model of conservation—
and Príncipe, a nation of two volcanic dotted with Jurassic-looking palms and buying up tracts of land to set aside as
islands off Africa’s western equatorial vistas are interrupted by little more reserves where hunting, logging and most
coast, he was merely looking for a place than the odd thatched roof and emerald farming would be illegal—wasn’t going to
to get away. Living in London and with hills. The seas hover around 80F (27C), cut it. On a tiny 55-square-mile island, that
family in Cape Town, he has long had and Technicolor reefs host vast troves approach would mean taking away the
a stressful life as chief executive officer of rare creatures endemic to the Gulf 8,500 inhabitants’ resources and agency
of Canonical Ltd., the company that of Guinea. in choosing their own path to growth. →

January 2025 Pursuits 111

← So Shuttleworth came up with a universal basic income or pay incentives dividends. “If you bugger up the land, the
radical alternative, honed over a decade for ecosystem-supporting businesses. number goes down. And we’re not doing
of discussion with both the government “This is no different than paying farm- that as a policing effort. Wanna cut down
and political opposition leaders. When ers to have beavers on their land so that a tree? Cut down a tree. If you don’t like
he pilots it in 2025, the Natural Dividend their dams will prevent regional flood- my offer, it’s your land.”
will be a quarterly sum, at first paid out ing when it rains like crazy. That person Shuttleworth understands the inher-
of his own pocket, for all Príncipeans, who’s cutting down two hectares of forest ent ick factor in this techno-utopian
with the precise amount fluctuating to farm peppers? I need to make them a ideal: “Some people would say, ‘Well,
according to how carefully they main- better offer. I need to say, ‘Look, imagine that’s a whole new level of surveillance.’
tain the unique ecological value of their that the trees and the birds and the bees And I would say, ‘Well, we now have a
surroundings. By involving the entire and the butterflies would pay you rent.’ ” whole new level of interaction between
island’s population, the odds of large- For now, Shuttleworth is working nature and humans.’ ”
scale success could increase. with the government to create a base- His pitch to tourists is simpler. “The
“People have an absolute right to line against which to measure a local’s way that the jungle just abuts the beach
food and shelter and development and impact. “We’ve been taking a real-time is such a Robinson Crusoe experience,” he
so on,” Shuttleworth says. “But every- census, surveying the island with drones says. “But there are no spiders or snakes,
body should also have a stake in the eco- and taking stock of the ecosystem,” he and if you’re coming from most of Europe,
systems, whether they’re an employee says, explaining how high-resolution there’s no jet lag,” he says with an earnest
of mine or not.” He equates it to a images will get updated weekly and affect laugh. “It’s tropical Africa for sissies.” <BW>

→ From private
island fantasies
to White
Lotus-inspired
escapades

◼ ANTIGUA: COURTESY ANTIGUA & BARBUDA TOURISM AUTHORITY. JAIPUR: COURTESY RAFFLES HOTELS & RESORTS

18

Antigua and Barbuda

↑ The pool at Curtain
Designated by the United Nations as the fastest-growing
Bluff in Antigua economy among the Caribbean islands in 2024, Antigua and

112 Pursuits Bloomberg Businessweek

 ← The library-like
Writer’s Bar at the
Raffles Jaipur

Barbuda are enjoying tremendous investment—$13billion in new royal patrons, the 26-year-old Maharaja Padmanabh Singh and
hotels will have opened here from 2023 to 2025. Of the 1,000-plus his sister Princess Gauravi Kumari, are perpetuating the Pink
rooms included in that figure, 12 are particularly eye-catching: City’s legacy of beauty for the next generation.
Antigua’s first overwater bungalows, found at adults-only, all- In November the maharaja unveiled the Jaipur Centre for
inclusive3Royalton Chic. Each has its own plunge pool, overwater Art, showcasing international and Indian contemporary artists;
hammock and glass floor panel that lets you spy on kaleidoscopic then in December he opened a fine-dining restaurant in a palace
fish from the edge of your bed. On Barbuda, there’s also the 36- courtyard called Sarvato. The princess’ new jewel-toned con-
room Nobu Hotel, which Robert De Niro is opening in November cept shop, Palace Atelier, is like a shoppable museum. It features
on the secluded and lush Princess Diana3Beach. locally made home goods, designer saris and fine3jewelry.
All this amped-up competition has inspired the twin-island Even the city’s latest hotels take their design cues from age-old
nation’s longtime standard-setters to raise their game. Oetker artisanal craftsmanship. The perpetually booked, five-room Johri
Collection’s Jumby Bay, for instance, has added butler service has added three more suites, each themed around a precious
and a private-island beach club called the Hut, where multi- stone. And the elegant 50-room Raffles Jaipur, modeled after a
course, large-format meals can be shared on tables in the sand. zenana, or women’s palace, opened last summer with a dreamy
And Carlisle Bay Antigua is rolling out $1003million in phased rooftop pool flanked by chhatri, open-air pavilions displaying
upgrades through 2026, including ocean suites by British- typical Mughal architecture.
Nigerian designer Miminat3Shodeinde.
Don’t expect the momentum to slow down anytime soon. 20
Rosewood, One&Only and a resort from Egyptian billionaire
Naguib Sawiris are all also on the way—giving Antigua and
Barbuda as much luxury cred as Anguilla and St. Bart’s in the San Diego
years ahead. The key difference? You can fly here directly from
Although it’s long been defined by Top Gun and top surfers,
most major East Coast airports, in about four hours or less.
San Diego is evolving into a bona fide arts destination, too. The
$1253million renovation of the San Diego Symphony’s Jacobs
19 Music Center, which wrapped in September, is a perfect com-
plement to its reimagined outdoor venue, an elegant waterfront
Jaipur structure aptly named the Rady Shell. And Selldorf Architects’
$1053million expansion of the city’s Museum of Contemporary Art
In the early 1700s, Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II brought skilled marries new galleries with giant windows and epic Pacific vistas.
craftsmen from around his kingdom to fill the new capital of Landmark hotels are meeting the moment with overdue
Rajasthan with intricate temples and sandstone palaces. Now, its upgrades, including the 938-room Hotel del Coronado, →

January 2025 Pursuits 113

← whose red Victorian turrets are a San Diego signature. The
hotel’s half-billion-dollar makeover, which wraps in April, will 22
add a vibrant new look, 75 seaside villas and a Nobu restaurant.
Estancia La Jolla Hotel & Spa’s own transformation has brought
a contemporary ranch style to its tired rooms and polished up its
Costa Palmas, Mexico
10-acre property, a former equestrian estate. And early in 2025, Almost 4 million tourists arrived at the San José del Cabo
CH Projects, which already whipped the Lafayette Hotel into a airport in 2023, most of them heading to the 20-mile stretch
fantasy of wild mismatched patterns, will reveal its reimagina- of posh resorts along the Los Cabos Corridor. But roughly
tion of a broken-down beach motel, the 31-room Baby Grand. It’s 60 miles away on the East Cape of the peninsula, a more
almost enough to overshadow the arrival of two giant pandas at exclusive alternative is emerging in Costa Palmas. The
the San Diego Zoo—but not quite. 1,500-acre private beachfront community was first put on
the map by Four Seasons in 2019 with a meandering complex
21 of white-on-white villas and an acclaimed golf course designed
by Robert Trent Jones II.
Colombian Amazon Now come several more options, including an Aman resort
called Amanvari, where Athens-based Elastic Architects has
Deep in southeastern Colombia, near Amacayacu National Park, designed boxy bungalows with retractable glass walls and
the new Nomad Lodge beckons adventurous travelers with an stairs plunging into the sea. The interiors at the forthcoming
ambitious ecotourism project that eases access to the pristine Casa Blake, whose residences can be rented by vacationers,
jungle and supports the 22 Indigenous Aticoya communities that are by maximalist Martin Brudnizki of London. And Brudnizki,
live there. Only eight guests at a time can sleep in its solar-pow- who plays masterfully with colors, textures and florals, was
ered bungalows, which have canopied terraces that jut straight also tapped to create an enchanting nightclub at the Four
into the landscape. They’ll wake at dawn to canoe through Seasons, where painted alebrijes—mythical folk art creatures—
sunken forests teeming with pink dolphins, laze on hammocks climb the hot pink walls. The lineup of chefs descending on
during the hottest hours of the day, then reemerge at dusk to Costa Palmas includes Ludo Lefebvre and Nancy Silverton,
scan the canopy for snoozing sloths. both from Los Angeles, and there’s an outpost of global Greek
Getting here is an adventure in itself, beginning with a two- favorite Estiatorio Milos as well.
hour flight from Bogotá to Leticia, followed by a two-hour boat There’s the Costa Palmas Foundation, too; it appeals to
ride up the Amazon. As the first of 10 planned Nomad Lodges in travelers’ desire to leave a positive impact. Funded by the
South America whose business model shares revenue with local resorts, it organizes beach cleanups, sea turtle release parties,
communities, it reflects a broader trend that helps travelers toy drives and other volunteer opportunities to connect guests
(delicately) tap into the world’s final frontiers. and residents with nearby villages.
→ Sunken seating
and a water feature
in the lobby at Four
Seasons Los Cabos at
Costa Palmas

◼ FOUR SEASONS: COURTESY COSTA PALMAS. CAVIAR: COURTESY SOMNI RESTAURANT

114 Pursuits Bloomberg Businessweek

 ← Dashi meringue
with smoked butter and
23 Astrea caviar at Somni
in Los Angeles

Los Angeles
At a time when fine dining has been
declared dead, Tinseltown is making it
legitimately exciting again. Foremost in
the city is Somni, where chef Aitor Zabala
makes 20 courses seem to fly by with his
super-modernist $495 Spanish menu—the
caviar service includes meringue blinis
with smoked butter cream.
By the time 2025 rings in, Alinea alum
Dave Beran—who trained Jeremy Allen
White to act like a chef in The Bear—will
have opened Seline in Santa Monica. His
$295 parade of 15 to 18 modern SoCal
courses will be served from an open
kitchen that flows directly into the dining
room. The first US location of the famed
Tokyo sushi spot Udatsu is now open
in a former recording studio on Sunset
Dusit Thani Bangkok, which reopened in new luxury resorts accessible mainly by
Boulevard; its modern $225 omakase is
September after a $1.8 billion reconstruc- tiny turboprop planes.
served to only eight lucky diners at a time.
tion with modern interiors by Hong Kong Next year’s most anticipated arrival
Of course you’ll need to sleep it all off.
design legend André Fu Studio. is Montage Cay, a 58-acre private-island
For that, there’s the Regent Santa Monica
But the glitziest new arrival isn’t a residential resort in the Abacos chain.
Beach, with 167 breezy rooms and suites
hotel—and it’s free to explore. Opened in Built at an estimated cost of $68 million,
that evoke a yacht. And, yes, breakfast is
October, the $8.9 billion One Bangkok sky- it will have 50 suites, a 47-slip deep-water
an event here, too, courtesy of spots from
scraper super-development rises out over marina and seven private beaches upon
both Michael Mina and Ayesha Curry.
Lumpini Park with three interconnected completion in late 2025—along with the
shopping malls, a mile-long loop lined detailed, highly personal service that
24 with more than 250 restaurants and pub- makes Montage hotels such reliable hits.
lic art pieces by the likes of Anish Kapoor The forthcoming Banyan Tree Bimini,
Bangkok and Tony Cragg. Add an extension of the with its Maldives-esque overwater bunga-
city’s metro and cleanups of the water- lows, won’t be done until 2026. But some
How do you go from backpacker haven ways that snake through the city, and features will be ready imminently, includ-
to crazy-rich oasis in a decade? Look no there’s plenty of reason for Hollywood’s ing an outpost of St. Barts’ famous Bonito.
further than Bangkok, where the upcom- cast of bratty holidaymakers to consider All this builds on recent momentum
ing season of The White Lotus will provide a return trip. making the Out Islands increasingly worth
ample proof of the city’s dizzying ascent. the trek. On Eleuthera, the Potlatch Club,
Take the Mandarin Oriental, whose a 1960s icon, was revamped in 2024 to
$90 million renovation will feature in
25
have 11 fashionable rooms. As for how
the show; it’s Thailand’s original grande to get there? Semiprivate jet company
dame, now with a crystal-clad lobby and Out Islands, Tradewind Aviation LLC has added direct
two river-facing pools.
In the ritzy Phloen Chit district, Aman
Bahamas service from South Florida to North
Eleuthera, and American Airlines has
will soon make its highly anticipated Of the Bahamas’ 700 islands, only about added new flights to Nassau from Chicago
city debut with the Jean-Michel Gathy- 80 are inhabited—and only one of them, and Dallas-Fort Worth. <BW>
designed Aman Nai Lert Bangkok, and New Providence, has the urbanity
Six Senses Forestias will put the little- (and enormous cruise port) of Nassau. Reported by Jackie Caradonio, Sara
visited Bang Kaeo suburb on the map Besides that and Grand Bahama, you Clemence, Nikki Ekstein, Lebawit Lily
with a wellness-focused members club have what’s known as the Out Islands, Girma, Mark Johanson, Sarah Khan, Kate
tucked into the woods 10 miles east of home to pristine beaches, untouched Krader, Jen Murphy, Brandon Presser, Sarah
the central business district. There’s also mangrove-laden keys and now a host of Rappaport, Chris Schalkx and James Tarmy

January 2025 Pursuits 115

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Sticker Shock ● By Kid Beyond

Each item below is one of the most—if not the most—expensive of its kind ever sold. You may not have bought the
goods yourself, but we bet you can figure out how much they sold for. Each price corresponds to an item with the
same symbol. Some items have more than one symbol, so you’ll need to use your keen sense of whether a sculpture
is more expensive than a pair of shoes to make a match. Check page 10 to see if you’re right!

CATEGORIES: Arts Business Celebs Sports Vehicles Wearables

A. $186 billion E. $765 million I. $141 million M. $15 million

B. $26 billion F. $550 million J. $71 million N. $10 million
C. $6 billion G. $450 million K. $31 million O. $5 million
D. $800 million H. $142 million L. $28 million

Yacht
Dilbar,
the world’s
Painting Shirt largest yacht
Leonardo Michael
da Vinci’s Jordan’s Athlete
Salvator 1998 NBA Juan Soto’s
Mundi Finals jersey Watch 15-year contract
Patek Philippe
stainless steel
Grandmaster
Chime

Car
Shoes
1955 Mercedes-Benz
Ruby slippers
300 SLR Uhlenhaut
from The
Wizard of Oz

Body of U.S.A. CPPAP NUMBER 0414N68830

Sports team work
Merger
Washington The
AOL’s purchase
Commanders rights to
of Time Warner
all of Bruce
Springsteen’s
songs and
Dress recordings
Marilyn
IPO Monroe’s
Sculpture Saudi Aramco, “Happy Jewel
Alberto the world’s Birthday, License plate The Pink Star,
Giacometti’s largest Mr. President” Dubai a 59-carat
Man Pointing oil company dress “P7” plate pink diamond

◼ PHOTOS: AOL (1). ALAMY (1). CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LTD. (1). GETTY IMAGES (11). REUTERS (1)

116 Exit Strategy Bloomberg Businessweek

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