titan

On October 3, 2025, Martin Capital Partners, LLC disclosed it sold out its entire position in Diageo (DEO -1.86%), an estimated $3.28 million trade.

What happened

According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on October 3, 2025, Martin Capital Partners, LLC, sold its entire holding in Diageo (DEO -1.86%), totaling 32,525 shares. The estimated transaction value was $3.28 million based on the average price for the quarter ended September 30, 2025. The firm now reports zero shares held in Diageo as of September 30, 2025.

What else to know

Martin Capital Partners, LLC, fully exited its Diageo stake; the position accounted for 1.3% of 13F assets as of the third quarter of 2025 and now represents 0%.

Top holdings after the filing:

• NASDAQ: AMGN: $8.50 million (3.3% of AUM) as of September 30, 2025
• NASDAQ: CME: $8,413,000 (3.3% of AUM) as of September 30, 2025
• NYSE: CFR: $8.36 million (3.2% of AUM) as of September 30, 2025
• NASDAQ: ASML: $8,286,000 (3.2% of AUM) as of September 30, 2025
• NASDAQ: MSFT: $8.20 million (3.2% of AUM) as of September 30, 2025

As of October 5, 2025, Diageo shares were priced at $96.27, down 30.0% over the past year, lagging the S&P 500 by 47.5 percentage points.

Company overview

Company snapshot

Diageo offers a diversified portfolio of alcoholic beverages including whisky, vodka, gin, rum, tequila, liqueurs, beer, and ready-to-drink products under global brands such as Johnnie Walker, Guinness, Smirnoff, and Baileys.

It generates revenue primarily through the production, marketing, and sale of branded spirits and beer across multiple international markets, leveraging a global distribution network.

The company serves a broad customer base spanning North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, with products available to both retail and on-premise clients.

Diageo is a leading global producer and marketer of premium alcoholic beverages, operating at scale with a diverse brand portfolio and broad geographic reach.

Foolish take

Martin Capital Partners’ move to liquidate its position in the alcoholic beverages juggernaut is a bit of a red flag for Diageo.

While it is far from a death knell for the steady behemoth, Diageo’s shares have slid 50% from their all-time high just three years ago.

Over the last decade, the company’s sales, net income, and dividend payments have only inched higher by low-single-digit percentages annually, offering minimal compounding potential for investors.

Though Diageo pays a high-yield dividend of 4.4%, its payments used 86% of the free cash flow that the company recorded in 2025. This figure doesn’t leave a ton of wiggle room for higher payments in the future — especially considering Diageo wants to use cash to pay down its hefty net debt balance of $21.5 billion.

With global drinking rates and quantities declining, Diageo will have its work cut out for it as it modifies its portfolio of brands to match consumers’ changing tastes.

However, the company now trades at a meager 14 times forward earnings following its decline. Diageo could become an interesting value play if it can turn things around in a better consumer environment, but Martin Capital Partners doesn’t appear to want to wait for that to happen.

Glossary

13F reportable assets: Assets that institutional investment managers must disclose quarterly in Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Form 13F filings.

Assets under management (AUM): The total market value of investments managed on behalf of clients by a fund or firm.

Dividend yield: The annual dividend payment divided by the stock’s current price, shown as a percentage.

Quarter (Q3 2025): Refers to the third three-month period of a company’s fiscal year, here July–September 2025.

Stake: The amount of ownership or shares held by an investor or institution in a company.

Position: The amount of a particular security or asset held by an investor or fund.

Filing: An official document submitted to a regulatory authority, often detailing financial or investment activities.

Lagging: Underperforming or trailing behind a benchmark or index in terms of returns or performance.

Distribution network: The system a company uses to deliver products to customers or retailers across various markets.

TTM: The 12-month period ending with the most recent quarterly report.

The accordionist commands the stage, his eyes staring off as if in a trance, his fingers trilling out the opening notes of a tune. It’s a long, sinuous riff, one so intoxicating that the audience in front of him can’t help but to two-step across the crowded dance floor.

He and his singing partner unfurl a sad story that seemingly clashes with the rhythms that back it. An undocumented immigrant has arrived in San Antonio from Laredo to marry his girlfriend, Chencha. But the lights on his car aren’t working and he has no driver’s license, so the cops throw him in jail. Upon being released, the song’s protagonist finds a fate worse than deportation: His beloved is now dating the white guy who issues driver’s licenses.

“Those gabachos are abusive,” the singer-accordionist sighs in Spanish in his closing line. “I lost my car, and they took away my Chencha.”

The above scene is from “Chulas Fronteras,” a 1976 documentary about life on the United States-Mexico border and the accordion-driven conjuntos that served as the soundtrack to the region. The song is “Un Mojado Sin Licencia” — “A Wetback Without a License.” The musician is Tex-Mex legend Flaco Jiménez, who died last week at 86.

Born in San Antonio, the son and grandson of accordionists became famous as the face of Tex-Mex music and as a favorite session player whenever rock and country gods needed some borderlands flair. He appeared alongside everyone from the Rolling Stones to Bob Dylan, Buck Owens and Dwight Yoakam on “The Streets of Bakersfield” to Willie Nelson for a rousing version of “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain.” With Doug Sahm, Augie Meyers and fellow Tejano chingón Freddy Fender, Jiménez formed the Texas Tornadoes, whose oeuvre blasts at every third-rate barbecue joint from the Texas Hill Country to Southern California.

Jiménez was a titan of American music, something his obits understood. One important thing they missed, however, was his politics.

He unleashed his Hohner accordion not just at concerts but for benefits ranging from student scholarships to the successful campaign of L.A. County Superior Court Judge David B. Finkel to Lawyers’ Committee, a nonprofit formed during the civil rights era to combat structural racism in the American legal system. Jiménez and the Texas Tornadoes performed at Bill Clinton’s 1992 inauguration ball; “Chulas Fronteras,” captured Jiménez as the headliner at a fundraiser for John Treviño Jr., who would go on to become Austin’s first Mexican American council member.

It’s a testament to Jiménez’s heart and humor that the song he performed for it was “Un Mojado Sin Licencia,” which remains one of my favorite film concert appearances, an ideal all Latino musicians should aspire to during this long deportation summer.

The title is impolite but reflected the times: Some undocumented immigrants in the 1970s wore mojado not as a slur but a badge of honor (to this day, that’s what my dad proudly calls himself even though he became a U.S. citizen decades ago). Jiménez’s mastery of the squeezebox, his fingers speeding up and down the rows of button notes for each solo like a reporter on deadline, is as complex and gripping as any Clapton or Prince guitar showcase.

What was most thrilling about Jiménez’s performance, however, was how he refused to lose himself to the pathos of illegal immigration, something too many people understandably do. “Un Mojado Sin Licencia,” which Jiménez originally recorded in 1964, is no dirge but rather a rollicking revolt against American xenophobia.

The cameraman captures his gold teeth gleaming as Jiménez grins throughout his thrilling three minutes. He’s happy because he has to be: the American government can rob Mexicans of a better life, “Un Mojado Sin Licencia” implicitly argues, but it’s truly over when they take away our joy.

“Un Mojado Sin Licencia” is in the same jaunty vein as other Mexican classics about illegal immigration such as Vicente Fernández’s “Los Mandados,” “El Corrido de Los Mojados” by Los Alegres de Terán and “El Muro” by rock en español dinosaurs El Tri. There is no pity for undocumented immigrants in any of those tracks, only pride at their resilience and glee in how la migra can never truly defeat them. In “Los Mandados,” Fernández sings of how la migra beats up an immigrant who summarily sues them; “El Corrido de Los Mojados” plainly asks Americans, “If the mojados were to disappear/Who would you depend on?”

Even more defiant is “El Muro,” which starts as an overwrought metal anthem but reveals that its hero not only came into the United States, he used the titular border wall as a toilet (trust me, it sounds far funnier in the Mexico City lingo of gravelly lead singer Alex Lora). These songs tap into the bottomless well that Mexicans have for gallows humor. And their authors knew what satirists from Charlie Chaplin to Stephen Colbert knew: When life throws tyranny at you, you have to scoff and push back.

There are great somber songs about illegal immigration, from La Santa Cecilia’s haunting bossa nova “El Hielo (ICE)” to Woody Guthrie’s “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos),” which has been recorded by everyone from the Byrds to Dolly Parton to Jiménez when he was a member of Los Super Seven. But the ones people hum are the funny ones, the ones you can polka or waltz or mosh to, the ones that pep you up. In the face of terror, you need to sway and smile to take a break from the weeping and the gnashing of teeth that’s the rest of the day.

I saw “Chulas Fronteras” as a college student fighting anti-immigrant goons in Orange County and immediately loved the film but especially “Un Mojado Sin Licencia.” Too many of my fellow travelers back then felt that to party even for a song was to betray the revolution. Thankfully, that’s not the thinking among pro-immigrant activists these days, who have incorporated music and dancing into their strategy as much as lawsuits and neighborhood patrols.

The sidewalks outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown L.A., where hundreds of immigrants are detained in conditions better suited for a decrepit dog pound, have transformed into a makeshift concert hall that has hosted classical Arabic musicians and Los Jornaleros del Norte, the house band of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. Down the 5 Freeway, the OC Rapid Response Network holds regular fundraisers in bars around downtown Santa Ana featuring everything from rockabilly quartets to female DJs spinning cumbias. While some music festivals have been canceled or postponed for fear of migra raids, others have gone on as planned lest ICE win.

Musicians like Pepe Aguilar, who dropped a treacly cover of Calibre 50’s “Corrido de Juanito” a few weeks ago, are rushing to meet the moment with benefit concerts and pledges to support nonprofits. That’s great, but I urge them to keep “Un Mojado Sin Licencia” on a loop as they’re jotting down lyrics or laying down beats. There’s enough sadness in the fight against la migra. Be like Flaco: Make us laugh. Make us dance. Keep us from slipping into the abyss. Give us hope.

CHILLING new audio reveals the moment OceanGate’s founder fired the company’s operations director who voiced safety concerns about the ill-fated Titan sub.

The audio clip was obtained by Netflix and has been used in its documentary Titan: The OceanGate Disaster.

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American businessman Stockton Rush, who would go on to be one of the victims of the Titan disaster, can be heard David Lochridge in the clip.

Lochridge had raised concerns around the safety of the submersible ahead of its doomed voyage.

Rush tells him: “I don’t want anybody in this company who is uncomfortable with what we are doing. 

“We’re doing weird s*** here. I’m definitely out of the mold, I am doing things that are completely non-standard.

“I’m sure the industry thinks I’m a f****** idiot.

“That’s fine, they’ve been doing that for years. And I’m going to continue on the way I am doing.”

A woman can be heard saying: “We need David on this crew, in my opinion we need him here.”

Lochridge says Rush’s remarks left him “a tad let down” and “pretty gutted”. 

 “This is the first time on paper I’ve ever put any health and safety concerns,” he adds.

“You know every expedition we have had, we’ve had issues.”

Rush concedes the point, and Lochridge asks him: “Do you now want to let me go?”

But Rush bluntly replies: “I don’t see we have a choice.”

Rush would later die on board the Titan alongside Hamish Harding, Shahzada Dawood, Suleman Dawood and Paul-Henri Nargeolet.  

The vessel imploded during a June 2023 expedition that initially prompted a major rescue operation.

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Speaking to filmmakers, Lochridge said: “To me it was just sheer arrogance.

“I didn’t know what to say, but I was blown away that at this point they were willing to play Russian roulette.”

Lochridge was fired back in 2018 after he had worked at the firm for three years.

In one email to an associate, he expressed fears that Rush would be killed, the MailOnline has reported.

“I don’t want to be seen as a tattle tale but I’m so worried he kills himself and others in the quest to boost his ego,” he said.

“I would consider myself pretty ballsy when it comes to doing things that are dangerous, but that sub is an accident waiting to happen.”

Lochridge would go on to inform the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) of Titan’s safety issues after he was fired.

He reportedly got a settlement and release agreement from OceanGate’s lawyers after flagging these concerns with OSHA.

How the Titan tragedy unfolded

By Katie Davis, Chief Foreign Reporter (Digital)

FIVE men plunged beneath the surface of the North Atlantic in a homemade sub in a bid to explore the Titanic wreckage.

Four passengers paid £195,000 each to go on the sub, with the fifth member of the trip being a crew member.

But what was supposed to be a short trip spiralled into days of agony as the doomed Titan vanished without a trace on June 18, 2023.

The daring mission had been months in the making – and almost didn’t happen at the hands of harsh weather conditions in Newfoundland, Canada.

In a now chilling Facebook post, passenger Hamish Harding wrote: “Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023.

“A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow.”

It would be his final Facebook post.

The following morning, he and four others – led by Stockton Rush – began the 12,5000ft descent towards the bottom of the Atlantic.

But as it made its way down into the depths, the vessel lost all contact with its mother ship on the surface, the Polar Prince.

It sparked a frantic four-day search for signs of life, with the hunt gripping the entire world.

There was hope that by some miracle, the crew was alive and desperately waiting to be saved.

But that sparked fears rescue teams faced a race against time as the passengers only had a 96-hour oxygen supply when they set out, which would be quickly dwindling.

Then, when audio of banging sounds was detected under the water, it inspired hope that the victims were trapped and signalling to be rescued.

It heartbreakingly turned out that the banging noises were likely either ocean noises or from other search ships, the US Navy determined.

Countries around the world deployed their resources to aid the search, and within days the Odysseus remote-operated vehicle (ROV) was sent down to where the ghostly wreck of the Titanic sits.

The plan was for the ROV to hook onto the sub and bring it up 10,000ft, where it would meet another ROV before heading to the surface.

But any hopes of a phenomenal rescue were dashed when Odysseus came across a piece of debris from the sub around 1,600ft from the Titanic.

The rescue mission tragically turned into a salvage task, and the heartbroken families of those on board were told the devastating news.

It was confirmed by the US Coast Guard that the sub had suffered a “catastrophic implosion”.

THIS is the chilling moment the doomed Titan sub imploded as it was captured on video from its own support ship.

Footage reveals the sound of when OceanGate’s submersible catastrophically failed during its descent to the Titanic wreck in June 2023.

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The haunting video was obtained by the BBC and presented to the US Coast Guard’s Marine Board of Investigation.

It shows Wendy Rush – wife of OceanGate boss Stockton Rush – staring at a computer used to receive messages from the Titan when a deep metallic thud rings out.

Wendy, visibly startled, freezes before glancing up and asking the crew: “What was that bang?”

Seconds later, a message arrives from the sub: “dropped two wts” – a reference to the Titan shedding weights to control its dive.

But the timing of the message was tragically misleading.

According to investigators, the sub had already imploded.

The sound reached the surface faster than the delayed text, giving the false impression all was well.

All five people onboard were killed instantly when the vessel collapsed under immense pressure at a depth of around 3,300m – just 90 minutes into the £195,000-a-head journey.

The doomed expedition claimed the lives of CEO Stockton Rush, British explorer Hamish Harding, French Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, and British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman.

A BBC documentary, in which the footage is featured, will also reveal chilling new findings – including that the Titan’s carbon fibre hull began failing a full year before the fatal dive.

Lieutenant Commander Katie Williams from the USCG said: “Delamination at dive 80 was the beginning of the end.

“And everyone that stepped onboard the Titan after dive 80 was risking their life.”

The documentary details how carbon fibre, an unconventional choice for deep-sea vessels, started to separate in 2022.

On that dive, passengers heard a loud bang, but Rush reportedly reassured them it was “the sub shifting in its frame.”

The USCG has since confirmed that noise was a sign the hull was beginning to break apart.

Despite warnings from experts and former OceanGate staff – one calling the sub an “abomination” – Titan continued making dives.

Deep-sea explorer Victor Vescovo admitted: “I specifically told them that it was simply a matter of time before it failed catastrophically.”

Businessman Oisin Fanning, who was onboard for the last two successful dives, said: “If you’re asking a simple question: ‘Would I go again knowing what I know now?’ – the answer is no.”

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The mangled wreckage of the Titan was later recovered from the Atlantic seabed, along with clothing, stickers and business cards.

The USCG has confirmed “presumed human remains” were found and matched to the victims.

Christine Dawood, who lost her husband Shahzada and son Suleman, told the BBC the tragedy had changed her forever.

“I don’t think that anybody who goes through loss and such a trauma can ever be the same.”

The harrowing footage comes as the USCG prepares to release its final report later this year, with legal fallout already beginning.

In April, billionaire heiress Karen Lo launched a £1million lawsuit after her trip aboard Titan was axed.

The Hong Kong businesswoman, worth around £758million, paid £680,000 for the once-in-a-lifetime voyage – only for it to be cancelled after the sub was struck by lightning in 2018.

She was promised priority rebooking, but after the sub imploded in 2023, she demanded her money back.

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Lo is now suing Henry Cookson’s ultra-luxury travel firm, arguing it broke the contract.

The company denies wrongdoing, insisting she declined to use her credit for alternative trips and that the refund policy was clear.

Meanwhile, earlier this year, a 20-second audio clip recorded 900 miles from the implosion site emerged, capturing what experts believe was the actual moment the Titan was crushed.

The eerie recording revealed the “acoustic signature” of the vessel’s final seconds.

Rescue hopes were initially high when Titan vanished from sonar on June 18, 2023.

But days later, its shattered remains were discovered scattered across the ocean floor – an area the size of six football pitches.

The Titan was last heard from at 10.47am with the message: “dropped two wts.”

Six seconds later, it vanished from sonar.

The support ship Polar Prince sent a final message at 10.49am: “lost tracking.”

Communication was never re-established.

OceanGate later issued a statement: “We again offer our deepest condolences to the families of those who died on June 18, 2023… It would be inappropriate to respond further while we await the agencies’ reports.”

The investigation continues.