Dealer Families Dealing, Disney Keeping Dreams Alive, Ethereum Approaching A Big Day

The Automotive Troublemaker w/ Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier

We hope you’re up and at ‘em this Thursday as we share a great story about a recent acquisition deal between two families on a handshake. We also cover Disney’s moves in streaming and theme parks to keep consumers happy, as well as a big day coming for cryptocurrency Ethereum.

• ASOTU CON Host, Ciocca Dealerships closed on the acquisition of six stores in Flemington, NJ
  • Owner Gregg Ciocca Sr grew up near the “Flemington Car and Truck Country” founded by the late Steve Kalafer and knew him personally
  • Steve Kalafer, a prominent dealer known for speaking out against stair-step incentive and other automaker programs that he thought disadvantaged retailers, also founded a minor league baseball team and attained national acclaim for producing short films.
  • The stores have been run by Kaalafer’s two sons since his death in 2021
  • "It was really two family businesses that just shook hands very quickly," Ciocca said. "They wanted a good family to take over their great family business. So I felt very privileged and fortunate they chose me and my Ciocca family, my three sons, to be the stewards of that business, which is a high-performing dealer group."
• Ciocca ranks #83 on the most recent AN top 150 list
• Take away: What other industry is like this? Come meet Gregg in person at ASOTU CON!
  
• Disney’s earnings and streaming prices up as well as theme park traffic and streaming subscribers
  • Revenue is up to a higher than expected 26% which caused the stock price to jump 7% in after hours trading
  • Subscribers to Disney + were up however the company slightly lowered future expectations
  • When combining all streaming properties (D+, Hulu, ESPN+) Disney now has over 221M subs, surpassing than Netflix
  • Theme park traffic is very strong albeit they are unable to staff to capacity
    • Profit margins are higher than ever as spend per guest have risen significantly, helped by lower labor costs and tech introductions of Lightning Lane and Genie + which allow park visitors to map out their plans for the day and make reservations at restaurants, among other services
  • Disney also outlined new pricing to make room for the ad supported tier of Disney+
• Cryptocurrency Ethereum executed successful test of its historic test ‘merge’
  • Shifting from ‘proof of work’ to ‘proof of stake’, once the transition is complete, the currency will become far more efficient and inexpensive to transact on while using 99.95% less energy
  • Unlike Bitcoin which is just an asset to hold and trade, ETH is a utility which can be used to carry and deploy smart contracts
  • The price of ETH reached over $1900 overnight which is up from recent low of $879 in June which is down from all time high around $4800 in Nov 2021
  • Take away:

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Hosts: Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier
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