Yum! Brands agreed to sell its iconic Pizza Hut chain for $2.7 billion following a strategic review, separating the struggling pizza brand from its broader restaurant portfolio, which includes KFC, Taco Bell, and The Habit Burger Grill.
LongRange Capital will acquire Pizza Hut's business outside China for $1.5 billion, while Yum China will buy the China business for $1.2 billion. Both transactions are expected to close in the third quarter.
The Stamford, Connecticut-based private equity firm typically invests in middle-market businesses, usually with a longer-term, operationally focused approach.
Its current portfolio includes 24 Hour Fitness, Alpin Unlimited, Bakkavor, Batesville, and US Synthetic.
"These transactions enable Yum! to be a more focused company that continues to leverage scale, technology, and talent to accelerate our raising the B.A.R. priorities and deliver sustained value for our stakeholders," said Chris Turner, Chief Executive Officer, Yum! Brands.
Turner added, "Under LongRange and Yum China, Pizza Hut will be well-positioned for future growth with ownership that brings deep expertise in the restaurant industry. Pizza Hut is one of the most iconic restaurant brands in the world, and we are proud of the important role it has played in Yum! 's history."
Bloomberg noted, "Yum has owned Pizza Hut since the restaurant company spun off from PepsiCo Inc. in 1997. PepsiCo bought Pizza Hut in 1977 and snapped up Taco Bell the following year."
At the end of 2025, Pizza Hut had about 6,300 U.S. locations, and Yum planned to close 250 additional underperforming U.S. stores in the first half of 2026.
The deal follows years of weak performance across Pizza Hut stores, hurt by competition across the space, outdated branding, and delivery competition.
The question for LongRange Capital is what the turnaround strategy will look like and whether it will target value-seeking families, nostalgic millennials…
…and digital-first Gen-Z who have shifted to Domino's, local pizza, fast-casual, and delivery apps.
Tyler Durden Tue, 06/16/2026 - 09:35China’s consumer spending and investment slumped in May to levels unseen since the pandemic, exposing risks for an increasingly two-speed economy, as Bloomberg's Chang Shu and Eric Zhu noted:
"The supply side remains robust, driven by faster-than-expected expansion in exports and AI tech sectors.
The demand side has faltered, with consumption and private non-tech investment plummeting."
Here's the details:
Industrial Production
Industrial production (IP) growth rose modestly to 4.5% yoy from 4.1% yoy thanks to stronger-than-expected exports, although automobile output growth remained weak and the ongoing global energy shock continued to weigh on chemical-related manufacturing output. In sequential terms, IP gained 0.2% mom non-annualized in May based on our estimates (vs. -1.1% mom non-annualized in April).
By industry, the April-to-May acceleration in year-on-year IP growth was led by faster output growth in computer & other equipment, electronic machinery, and utilities industries, more than offsetting slower output growth in chemicals and non-ferrous metal smelting industries.
Among major industrial products (different from by-industry breakdown), year-on-year growth in industrial robot output, metal cutting machine output and power generation rose to +27.9%, +10.7% and +4.2%, respectively, in May from +15.1%, +7.5% and +2.6% in April, while automobile, computer and smartphone output growth in year-on-year terms slowed to -3.2%, -19.4% and -8.8%, respectively, from -2.6%, -9.3% and +4.7%.
Retail Sales
Nominal retail sales growth continued to slow in May, to -0.6% yoy from +0.2% yoy in April, the lowest since December 2022 (during the COVID exit wave), with year-on-year growth in goods sales and restaurant sales revenue both weakening.
Under retail sales, big-ticket items led the decline. Car purchases, which make up about 8% of the overall figure, plunged 16% in May from a year ago. Excluding autos, retail sales grew 1.1% in May.
Sales of home appliances as well as construction and decoration materials also contracted at a double-digit pace.
Property
Property activity data remained under pressure in May despite recent green shoots in large cities.
Year-on-year growth in property sales registered -13.1% in volume (floor space) terms and -9.5% in value terms in May (vs. -9.5%/-7.7% in April). New home under construction and completions growth slowed to -12.3% yoy and -19.9% yoy, respectively in May from -12.1% yoy and -18.8% yoy in April. New home starts growth remained depressed at -24.6% yoy in May, despite a modest improvement from -26.6% yoy in April. NBS and private sector data both showed continued downward pressure on home prices in May, mainly in lower-tier cities.
FAI
Fixed asset investment (FAI) growth fell further -10.6% yoy in May from -8.2% yoy in April on a single-month basis (Exhibit 3), reflecting both adverse weather conditions (e.g., heavy rainfall in southern and central China and a heatwave in northern China) and a still-slow pace of government bond issuance. This takes year-to-date FAI growth to -4.1% yoy in May (vs. -1.6% yoy in April).
By sector, year-on-year growth in infrastructure, property and other investment (i.e., services and agriculture-related) fell to -11.2%, -24.3% and -13.2%, respectively, in May from -5.6%, -20.1% and -10.6% in April, while manufacturing investment growth improved slightly to -4.1% yoy from -4.8% yoy. That said, we caution that the occasional NBS "statistical correction" of previously over-reported data may have exaggerated the volatility of reported FAI growth in recent quarters, as the year-on-year contraction in crude steel and cement output narrowed modestly in May.
Further evidence emerged indicating a growing divergence in the economy. Investment in high-tech industries expanded 4.5%, with capital expenditure of semiconductor and lithium battery makers up 11% and 25%, respectively.
Labor Market
Regarding the labor market, both the nationwide and 31-city unemployment rates (not seasonally adjusted) edged down to 5.1% for May from 5.2% for April.
After seasonal adjustment, we estimate the nationwide unemployment rate inched down to 5.2% in May from 5.3% in April, and the 31-city metric remained flat at 5.2%.
* * *
NBS spokesman Fu Linghui attributed the slump in investment and retail sales to factors including heavy rainfall.
Fu also pointed to last year’s high level of spending driven by subsidies as well as the economy’s transition to new growth drivers.
“Since the second quarter, certain economic indicators slowed because of complex changes in the global environment as well as structural adjustment in the domestic economy,” said Fu in a briefing in Beijing.
“Some companies are facing difficulties. But looking at the overall trend, the momentum of the economy remains overall stable.”
Interestingly, Bloomberg notes that the worse-than-expected slump in retail sales and investment also reignited questions around their accuracy in gauging broader economic health.
The services production index, which inched up to 4.4% on year in May, has a stronger correlation with the pattern of growth in gross domestic product than retail sales, which comprised mostly goods, according to Yu Song, chief China economist at UBS Securities. Inconsistency in the fixed-asset investment data that became apparent last year also mean it might exaggerate the weakness, he said.
“Second-quarter GDP data looks to be weak, but not quite as weak as one would expect from April data,” Song told Bloomberg Television.
Some analysts estimated growth at near 4% in April, tracking below the government’s official full-year target of 4.5% to 5%.
The result of all this was initial yuan weakness (a day after reaching its strongest level since early 2023) and decline in Chinese stocks, but as the session wore on, those initial dips recovered (except for Hang Seng China Enterprises)...
...as the weakness reflexively raises market-watchers hopes for supportive stimulus:
“While there are pockets of strength in tech and export-related industries, the broader economy is still struggling,” said Lynn Song, chief economist for Greater China at ING Bank NV.
“This could eventually add pressure on policymakers to ease policy.”
But without stronger demand at home, the economy is at risk of a deeper slowdown even as the US-Iran deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz holds out the promise of stabilizing global shipping and energy prices.
Finally, Goldman sees downside risk to their Q2 real GDP growth forecast (4.0% qoq sa annualized and 4.7% yoy currently).
However, the latest development in the Middle East and recent policy communications bode well for a sequential growth improvement in Q3, especially given the significant unused government bond quota left for the remainder of this year.
Goldman sees July as an important window to monitor potential policy fine-tuning: if Q2 GDP disappoints meaningfully, there is a decent chance for policymakers to step up their easing rhetoric in the July Politburo meeting and draw on remaining fiscal buffers quickly to stabilize investment and growth.
Tyler Durden Tue, 06/16/2026 - 09:24Flock Safety, the Atlanta-based private surveillance firm, insists its cameras are not tracking people. Yet its own systems, training materials, and expanding product line tell a different story -one of a rapidly growing, warrantless mass surveillance infrastructure that logs vehicle movements, follows pedestrians with AI, and feeds data-hungry police departments across the country.
A new investigative report highlights how Flock's network - now encompassing tens of thousands of cameras - enables police to reconstruct months of travel history for any vehicle with a few clicks, no warrant required. Security researchers and activists are pushing back, mapping the devices and exposing security lapses that leave feeds openly accessible online.
DeFlock and the Scale of the PanopticonIn Boulder, Colorado, activist Will Freeman operates DeFlock.org, which has mapped over 88,000 Flock cameras nationwide. The app reveals camera locations and orientations, underscoring how pervasive the network has become in public spaces. Flock's license plate readers snap time-stamped photos of every passing vehicle, allowing historical queries spanning up to 30 days.
As security researcher Benn Jordan noted, plotting that data on a map effectively places a month-long GPS tracker on your car. Jordan, who previously discovered dozens of Flock cameras streaming publicly, described AI-driven features that zoom in and follow individuals - whether persons of interest or random passersby, Atlanta News First reports.
As we've previously reported on the battle brewing between mass surveillance tech and individual liberty, tools sold for "public safety" quietly erode Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches.
Company Denials vs. Training Videos and Hardware RealityFlock's Chief Communications Officer Josh Thomas claims the company aids in solving around 700,000 crimes annually. He disputes "tracking" characterizations, arguing the system captures discrete points in time rather than continuous monitoring.
However, Flock's own webinars contradict this:
"The example of tracking that vehicle from location to location to location," a Flock webinar instructor said.
"And you're able to track your suspect's movements," another webinar showed.
In one training video, a police officer described using Flock cameras to follow a suspect across state lines: "And we were able to track him all the way over to another state, in Kentucky."
Flock's Condor cameras go further: These pan-tilt-zoom units use AI to detect and automatically follow human movement. When confronted, Thomas maintained the company does not track people, attributing features like "Guardian Mode" to mere object detection rather than persistent tracking. Yet demonstrations show the cameras panning and tilting in real-time to keep subjects in frame.
Critics like Jordan suggest the pedestrian-tracking hardware emerged conveniently after earlier denials that Flock only captured license plates.
Security Nightmares and MisuseJordan and collaborators found over 70 Condor cameras streaming openly online without passwords. He published the video on YouTube along with 404 Media.
"I watched a man leave his house in the morning. I watched a woman jogging alone on a forest trail in Georgia," Jordan said.
Thomas said the exposure was an accident caused by Verizon sending the wrong SIM cards with public IP addresses on roughly 60-70 devices, which were fixed once discovered. Verizon did not respond to requests for comment.
Police officers nationwide have been arrested for using Flock cameras to stalk former partners and love interests. Freeman and Jordan warn that human nature makes such misuse inevitable in a system logging everyone's movements by default. Thomas pointed to audit logs and accountability measures, but activists argue the architecture itself invites overreach.
The "Safety" Trade-Off and PushbackFlock touts its role in preventing mass violence and solving crimes, with Thomas positioning the company on the side of those "fighting to stop" such threats. Yet more than two dozen cities, including Denver, have canceled contracts amid privacy concerns and questions over data access.
Freeman, demonstrating DeFlock's route-planning feature that avoids camera-dense paths (turning a quick 1.7-mile trip into a 14-minute detour), argues the default of logging all citizens - not just suspects - is the core problem. He plans to keep "tracking the trackers" in the absence of oversight.
This saga fits a familiar pattern of privatized surveillance creep: Companies like Flock build the infrastructure, police query it with minimal friction, and civil liberties erode under the banner of security. As similar systems proliferate, the question remains whether Americans are willing to accept a perpetual digital dragnet in exchange for promised safety.
Tyler Durden Tue, 06/16/2026 - 08:45