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Sonida Senior Living (SNDA) was trading higher as Baird Equity Research raised its recommendation on the stock to Buy equivalent.
Shares were 1.19% higher at $38.33 Friday afternoon.
“We believe SNDA is well-positioned to benefit from the highly favorable senior
The Pound is slipping(Image: Cristian Blázquez Martínez via Getty Images)
Experts have urged Brits to buy holiday cash now as the Pound is expected to weaken over this week’s market chaos with a warning that “it’ll hit wallets immediately”. Bond yields have risen sharply, increasing the cost of government borrowing and renewing concerns about whether Britain’s growing public-debt burden is sustainable.
Although higher yields can sometimes support a currency by offering investors better returns, Sterling has weakened as markets focus instead on inflation, rising debt costs and the Government’s limited financial room ahead of the Budget. The Bank of England is expected to hold interest rates at 3.75% this month, leaving it caught between supporting economic growth and preventing higher energy and import costs from fuelling another wave of inflation.
For households, a weaker Pound could mean more expensive holidays, fuel, food and other imported goods. Rising gilt yields can also push up swap rates, placing further pressure on fixed mortgage pricing just as many borrowers prepare to refinance.
Dave Huggett, founder of Lucid Foreign Exchange, said there was no need to be patient when buying your holiday cash.
He added: “Higher gilt yields and worries about debt sustainability tend to weigh on the Pound. Not always straight away and not always by much, but it’s one more thing dragging on sentiment. When investors get nervous about a country’s finances, they usually want more reward to hold that currency, or they just move their money elsewhere.
“So what do you do? Buy it all now, or hold in the hope of a recovery. The answer to that always lies in the need, not the want. If you’re buying currency to go on holiday, you basically get what you’re given. ‘Getting it right’ on a few thousand Pounds still doesn’t really move the dial. But if the numbers are bigger, and the situation can afford a bit more patience, then zooming out and looking at the situation objectively often pays.”
Iain Thompson, director of Evolve Finance, said everything was affected by a weaker Pound.
He added: “A sliding Pound is a quiet inflation tax on everyday households. When the Bank of England holds interest rates down while government borrowing costs climb, currency markets lose confidence, causing Sterling to steadily weaken against the Dollar and Euro. For the average person, this isn’t just an abstract financial chart – it’ll hit wallets immediately.
“A weaker Pound means everything the UK imports, from petrol to supermarket groceries, becomes instantly more expensive, keeping domestic inflation sticky. Holidaymakers will feel the sting the fastest at the exchange bureau. If you have a trip planned over the coming months, waiting and hoping for a sudden Sterling recovery is a high-risk gamble.
“While predicting currency is never guaranteed, the downward pressure is real. If your holiday budget is tight, locking in half of your travel cash now protects you from worst-case rate drops, ensuring a sudden currency dip won’t derail your family holiday budget before you even pack your bags.”
Tony Redondo, founder of Newquay-based Cosmos Currency Exchange, said the Bank of England was between a rock and a hard place.
He added: “Rising UK gilt yields are a double-edged sword for the Pound. At first, they boost Sterling’s appeal, a fatter carry-trade return over rival currencies. But soon markets ask why yields are climbing: borrowing costs rising as investors fret over debt sustainability, with the UK’s debt pile racing toward £3 trillion.
“That leaves the Bank of England boxed in; raise rates to choke off the inflationary wave from Brent crude above $95 or hold rates down to protect growth. My money’s on Sterling grinding lower, toward $1.30 and €1.13 ahead of the 28 October Budget, as fiscal deficits erode investor confidence.
“For consumers, a weaker Pound means pricier holidays abroad and imported inflation with higher supermarket bills, fuel costs, and goods prices. Elevated yields also lift swap rates, pushing fixed mortgage pricing higher. Anyone with confirmed overseas costs should buy currency in tranches now, hedging against further falls without gambling on timing.”
Prem Raja, head of trading floor at Currencies 4 You, said people could save as much as €230.
He added: “The rise in gilt yields is not automatically good news for Sterling. UK 10-year borrowing costs reached 5.29%, their highest since 2007, but the Pound still fell below $1.35. Investors appear more concerned about inflation, debt costs and the Government’s limited room ahead of the October Budget than attracted by higher yields.
“The Bank of England is expected to hold rates at 3.75% this month. If markets scale back expectations of a later rise, Sterling could lose another 1-2% over the coming months. GBP/EUR is around €1.16-€1.17, but €1.15 is realistic if fiscal concerns grow. GBP/USD could retest $1.33-$1.34, although US developments matter too.
“Travellers would notice that: a 2% fall means roughly €230 less when exchanging £10,000. I would not tell everyone to buy everything now, but anyone with a confirmed Euro or Dollar requirement should consider securing part of it and staggering the balance. That limits the risk of further weakness without committing everything at one rate.”
Anita Wright, chartered financial planner at Ribble Wealth Management, said a weaker Pound arrived in people’s shopping baskets within weeks, not months.
She added: “Everyone will watch the Pound against the Dollar and Euro. That’s the wrong yardstick. Those currencies are run by governments with the same problem so the Pound can look stable at the bureau de change while quietly losing purchasing power where it matters the supermarket, the petrol station, the energy bill.
“The real test of a currency is what it buys at home, and on that measure Sterling has been slipping for some time. What’s actually going on is this. The BoE holds bank rate down while the gilt market demands 5% and more. That gap gets filled by the Bank buying gilts, which is printing money by another name.
“More Pounds chasing the same goods. Diesel is already tightening and Britain imports most of its energy and much of its food, so a weaker Pound arrives in your shopping basket within weeks, not months. On holiday money swapping Pounds for Euros just moves you from one leaking boat to another.”
Samuel Mather-Holgate, managing director and IFA at Swindon-based Mather and Murray Financial, said there was no point waiting for the Pound to get stronger.
He added: “Sterling is not staring at an instant cliff edge, but the warning lights are flashing. With 10-year gilt yields around levels last seen in 2008 and the Pound slipping below $1.35, markets are telling Britain the free lunch is over. Higher borrowing costs squeeze the Treasury, unsettle mortgage markets and make imported goods, fuel and holidays more expensive if the Pound weakens further.
“For families, this is felt at the airport exchange desk, in supermarket prices and in the next remortgage quote. I would not tell people to gamble on currencies, but anyone with a known Euro or Dollar cost in the next few months may prefer certainty over trying to outguess a very twitchy market. Waiting for a stronger Pound is starting to look like a heroic assumption.”
Nouran Moustafa, practice principal and IFA at Roxton Wealth, said the weak Pound could be seen in airports.
She added: “The Pound is being squeezed from both sides. UK borrowing costs are rising, but markets still expect the Bank of England to hold Bank Rate at 3.75% this month. Sterling has already slipped to around $1.35 and €1.16. For households, this becomes painfully real at the airport.
“A weaker Pound means your hotel, meals and spending money abroad quietly become more expensive without the price tag changing. But I would not tell somebody to panic-buy thousands of Euros today based on a currency forecast. Nobody can reliably call Sterling over the next few weeks.
“If you know you need €2,000 or $3,000 for a trip, buying it in stages is far more sensible than gambling your entire holiday budget on one exchange-rate prediction. The bigger warning is this: when markets lose confidence in government finances, ordinary people eventually feel it. The bond market may look boring. Its consequences absolutely are not.”
You can take the stress out of packing with this method (Stock Image)(Image: BjelicaS via Getty Images)
A woman shared how she spent £6.50 to ditch over 2kg from her suitcase thanks to a sneaky life hack she now uses on every flight because it really works.
There’s nothing worse than rocking up to the airport and being told your luggage is overweight and having to pay for the extra kilograms, as they really do not come cheap. It can get your holiday off to a grim start, and could make you feel the opposite of relaxed, which is how you want to feel when you’re about to explore another country. Plus, the last thing you want to do is ditch your hair masks, body creams, and toner pads at the airport because they weigh a lot.
That’s why Poppy Adams shared the perfect solution to keep your cash where it belongs. Poppy revealed her hair and skincare products alone weighed in at 2.5kg because they all come in large containers, and she has far too many outfits to pack to justify carrying that much weight.
She branded it the “best weight and space saver for your suitcase,” acknowledging her “clothes overpacking has got better with age,” but her “toiletries have got worse”.
Poppy explained she has a “very simple solution” and demonstrated how you can make all your creams and hair products fit “into the palm of your hand”.
She revealed you need some cosmetic sample jars, which she bought from Amazon for £6.49, and they also include stickers so you can label each one, eliminating any confusion about what’s where, plus you receive spatulas for easy transfer.
Poppy detailed how she decided which product would go in which containers based on the pot size, and then she decanted the products accordingly.
She also noted if you “have products that you know work really well together, you can pre-mix them in your little pots so you don’t have to do that when you’re on holiday”.
Poppy packed essentials, including snail mucin, toner pads, a hair mask, and a glowy foundation, for her holiday, making sure she had everything she needed while away.
She joked it “low-key feels like when you were a kid, and you used to play potions,” as she blended all her body moisturisers together.
Once everything had been decanted, she weighed it once more, and it came in at just 326g, saving a whopping 2.2kg.
Many people were amazed by the hack as one said: “That’s another pair of shoes, I’m sold.”
Another added: “I’m the same Poppy, I decanted stuff for the first time this year and even put it in my hand luggage. I’m still really bad with my makeup, I need it all around me, as I just know that 4 bronzers, 2 highlighters and 5 or 6 large eyeshadow pallets just won’t be enough!”
While a third suggested: “Always decant fragrances, too! You can take more options, and if it gets damaged, at least you’re only losing out on a few ml and not the whole bottle.”
Would you give this packing hack a go? Let us know in the comments…
How Luca Ferrari’s permanent-capital model is transforming distressed digital brands.
Is it a private equity group with a twist? An “emergency room for critically injured tech companies,” as it was described by the Financial Times? Or is it simply a modern tech conglomerate?
How do you categorize a company that buys aging technology and digital brands—brand names like AOL, Vimeo, Eventbrite, WeTransfer, and more recently, Airtable—far below their peak value, overhauls and radically transforms them with a drastic turnaround, and then keeps them under the same umbrella to invest their profits in new acquisitions?
What it is, is a buy-and-hold investment and management company.
Bending Spoons SpA, an Italian company created in 2013 and recently listed on the Nasdaq, raised $1.68 billion with a total valuation of $18.4 billion and a current market value of $23 billion, and marked a 40% pop on its trading debut. For the second quarter, it reported $704 million in revenue and $177 million in net income, up 126% and 171%, respectively, from the second quarter of 2025.
It follows a highly unusual business model: buying distressed tech companies—or tattered internet businesses—at relatively low valuations, fixing them up through layoffs and reorganization, and then holding them rather than spinning them off or selling them separately to the market, as private equity groups typically do.
Bending Spoons has executed this strategy some 50 times since its creation. Funding for its activities comes from debt and from the profits of the acquired companies: the same ones it bought at low valuations, with seemingly no competition to acquire the brand.
All this was achieved as revenues increased fourfold from $387 million in 2023 to $1.3 billion last year, during which period it made 70% of its acquisitions. Ownership’s financial goal is an annualized return of 25% on invested capital, built on operational earnings alone rather than divestments, synergies between different acquisitions, or headcount reductions.
Meanwhile, debt, which financed 70% of the acquisitions that Bending Spoons made in the first quarter of this year, continues to pile up. In the last reported quarter, total debt was more than four times annualized EBITDA: hovering, in other words, between $4.3 billion and $4.4 billion, with a net debt of nearly $3.7 billion. The Canadian company Constellation Software Inc. has a similar business model, but carries less debt on its books, while Barry Diller’s People Inc.—formerly IAC Inc.—has followed a similar business model.
Luca Ferrari, CEO and one of four co-founders of Bending Spoons, described the model as a “deep transformation” because the acquired brands do not just go through layoffs but undergo radical structural reconstruction. The company’s name, an homage to the movie The Matrix, reflects the founders’ belief that mindset can transform reality, fueling their goal to achieve milestones that others might deem impossible.
In the prospectus for its Nasdaq listing, Bending Spoons mentions 1,000 potential targets. Its latest acquisition, announced this month, is Airtable, a “collaborative work management” software company, for $1.29 billion in cash. That represents a nearly 90% discount over Airtable’s highest valuation in 2021.
“The thesis of what we do,” Ferrari said, “is to integrate these companies very deeply onto our platform and rebuild them almost from the ground up: the technology, the product, the monetization, and big parts of the team. If we don’t see that we can make a big difference, we don’t expect to be able to make an appealing offer.”
Bending Spoons is not really a tech company, said Chelsea Michelle, founder of Elevated Business Advisors, who advises founders and family offices on capital strategy and acquisitions: “It is a permanent-capital operator wearing a tech wrapper, and the refusal to sell is the most important line in the model.
“Traditional private equity must manage every acquisition toward an exit multiple, which means dressing assets up for the next buyer. When you never plan to sell, you can optimize purely for cash generation and ignore the story entirely. That is a structural advantage, not a stylistic one.
“The model works because aging digital brands are systematically mispriced; sellers value them on declining top-line while a buyer at Bending Spoons’ scale values durable user bases that cost almost nothing to serve. The real risk is not the buying; it is the integrating. Most acquisitions fail to deliver expected value, and a serial acquirer that holds everything forever has nowhere to hide a bad integration. The integration discipline, not their deal flow, is what investors should watch after the Nasdaq listing.”
In a recent article in Barron’s, Henry Ellenbogen, CIO and managing partner of Durable Capital Partners and an investor in Bending Spoons before the IPO, pointed out an interesting angle on the company’s performance.
“When we first invested, Bending Spoons was making under $500,000 of EBITDA per Spooner, or employee,” he wrote. “Today, EBITDA is more than $1 million per Spooner. That speaks to the investment the company is making in the technology businesses it buys.
“Bending Spoons is centralized. Evernote [a company it acquired in 2023] has fewer than 20 people at the application level. We believe Bending Spoons’ revenue and EBITDA per employee will continue to compound, allowing the company to drive better organic growth and strong operating leverage. The market’s concern about software companies should allow management to buy higher-quality companies that fit its model at attractive prices.”
Currently, only 9% of shares in the company are available for trading, and the owners control the rest with a dual-class share mechanism.
On Wall Street these days, Bending Spoons’ stock gets four hold recommendations from analysts, one overweight, and six buy, but most of the banks it works with were involved in the IPO. Job applications are also strong; 99.9% of the 800,000 applicants for jobs as Spooners—the people running the acquired companies—were rejected.
Beyond the optimism about the stock’s performance and the company’s unusual business model, the future of Bending Spoons is tied to its long-term performance rather than its short- and medium-term performance, and whether its business model can and will be replicated. Time will tell.
Andrea Fiano is the editor-at-large. Contact him at afiano@gfmag.com.