iac is a majority owner in angie which lists independently. that grew by 9%.y signed up more subscribers than in any other quarter. and dot-dash, revenues grew by 18%. decrease in search revenues because of fewer customer queries at least in part the billion dollar news today though is that 12% stake iac bought in mgm resorts. that really is a departure from standard operating procedures for this company but in a shareholder letter, iac explains we believe mgm presented a once in a decade opportunity for iac to own a meaningful piece of a preeminent grand in a large category with great potential to move online iac just thinks that they can bring something to mgm's table in the move to online. and they said, look, even if we don't, the value is simply too compelling to ignore an extended trading you see iac is just up just a bit. sara >> yeah. talking about going for value, barrie diller going for a big one. we'll talk to angie's sceo late. >> shares of clorox are up 50% this year. fourth quarter sales grew 22% as consumers stock up on disinfecting whipz and ot

the vegas headliner joining forces with barry diller's iac to build up its digital gaming and sports betting business, bet mgm. iac is calling the $1 billion price tag for its 12% stake in mgm a quote, once in a decade opportunity. sure, mgm investors think so. that can sto stock is up 13%. iac's stock down about half a percent. >>> no surprise that sports gambling rival draftkings and penn sinking on the news of fortified competition. they are both down. penn down 7.5%, draftkings down 7.33%. but the soon-to-be golden nugget branded spac is holding up relatively strongly here, up 4%. >>> nikola investors getting charged up. they are creating and buying 2500 electric trash collecting and recycling trucks. yeah. republic services is a waste management company so they are making the investment. they are up .75%. nikola jumping 23.5%. you know, you've got investors starved to see actual big-time orders. they got one today. >>> exuberance in the electric vehicle land world. nio shares rising as rival and alibaba-backed xpeng company files to follow nio all the way across the pacific to t

another major player that helps mgm and they were already well positioned to compete so bringing iac on to compete in that online space will add pressure to other companies. >> appreciate that thank you. contessa brewer. >>> shannon, you own las vegas sands. >> yeah, certainly the macaw news is welcome to shareholders of las vegas sands this is a pseudo china play for us, but i think that the point about an expansion of investment in online gaming is also important. this is a part of the economy that continues to grow, particularly in that younger male demographic that businesses are looking to capture so even though penn is under pressure today i think we're going to continue to see some strength in a tailwind for gaming stocks across the board but we're very happy to see that macaw news for lbs. >> big day in casinos. sizable gains across that whole spectrum let's get to frank holland he has the other headlines for us this had a you are. >> your cnbc news update chicago officials say more than 400 police officers were called in to control lut iooting mass transit was stopped and br

mgm soared 21% and iac shares are down about 2%.rdre, i can remember in the '70s when barry diller was creating it every week, and the question always asked was, what is barry going to do next? this is one that had everybody scratching their heads, but he seems to have a logic here, doesn't he >> absolutely, especially when in the letter he even lays out all the reasons why this sounds counter counterintuitive but it's an interesting way to go after the online gambling market, because they still make up a small part of the business. shares have been beaten down during the pandemic because its main business relies on getting people together. so instead of going for, say, a draftkings or a private company that hasn't yet gone public, he actually went to the open market to buy shares for mgm. if you think there is a lot of runway here, he got quite the discount if you think mgm is going to recover and be a major player in online gambling. >> mike, he calls it an opportunity of a decade. >> it's fascinating. obviously the people at the

people like to be with other people. >> iac's ceo there.ning to travel, cathay pacific reported a loss of more than one billion u.s. dollars in the first half with the coronavirus pandemic hammering aviation. the shares climbed the most in hong kong may restart transfer flights to mainland china. let's discuss all of that. we have this report from the global times. we had a separate report in the south china morning post seeing some of these flights may be reviewed to cater to chinese students. how much pressure would that ?ake off cafe -- cathay >> everything counts in this environment and any good news is welcoming. it seems to me it is only going to be allowing them flights from china rather than to china. maybe students returning to university, starting university as well as people who live overseas who want to go back to their jobs and families. but that is pretty limited one-way traffic. it is not your normal two way traffic. that is not going to happen anywhere to and from china or elsewhere for some time. it will help a little bit,

we saw big investments on the part of iac. mgm particularly for the online gaming. are you looking at those areas? marc: we are. amc, youtheater side, can come in and buy that secured debt. leisure side, the gaming side, there is huge opportunity. think of it this way. look at carville crews. -- carnival cruise. they are losing about $1 billion every quarter. it has $10 billion of equity value. the market is saying that within the next year and a half, carnival will go back to having $5 billion ebitda. there is no reason not to believe that. that means companies today that are having problems will do the same thing. same thing on the theater side, gaming side, same thing on the hotel side. they just need time. have a year that has gone by, you'll find all of these companies, they may not get back to where they were in 2019, but you will see it is starting to get back. i think those investments will be pretty good. vonnie: on the theater side, how are you choosing them? are you looking at other types of entertainment options? marc: we are. same thing with all the ret

>> we're always looking at everything that is the fun thing about iac. we have the ability, the flexibility, and the time horizon to do anything that we want to do and we're always active in the marketplace. >> thank you, we appreciate you taking some time today >> thank you for having me >>> good morning welcome to "squawk alley." carl and john have the day off markets mixed to start the week on prospects for a new stimulus bi bill it is set to take effect on october 15th kara switsher joins us now to weigh in >> good morning, thanks a lot. >> let's say twitter could find the money or the backing to do such a deal. what happens do you think tiktok will thrive or will it go down like vine >> it has to be sold to twitter and the white house will have a lot of control over the process whether or not we like it. so you have to wonder if donald trump will weigh in. the same with amazon there is also the financial parts. they're linked with silver link. it seems unlikely. it seems like microsoft will be the company to get this. it is the easiest deal to do ot

elsewhere and they won't pay that tax >> thank you >> shares of mgm are soaring this morning after iacke in the company. this is fascinating and were very happy to be joined by joey right now. i'm reading your letter. can you hear me by the way >> yeah, you take a 12% stake in the open market. you're focused on trying to get mgm to focus the opportunity on online gaming, if i put another name on this letter, elliott or something else, it would read like a activist letter >> no, i think they're doing a wonderful job focusing on online gaming they're trying to focus more on online gaming and that's where we're excited about it we think bill is a great leader with the right vision for the company, and that they're pushing into digital >> did you talk to the board before you started to accumulate took >> we told them all along what we're doing. >> you told them all along what you were do. what are you doing >> we like the company, the opportunity, the sidze of the market when we talk about our history and what has worked well, offline to online has been a huge them theme. we look for large

jason, i want to ask you about iac taking a billion dollar investment in mgm and they laid out onlinend online sports betting what's your reaction do you feel threatened by that >> it's great that more and more interest is developing in the space. you know, to us it's validation when you see a great company like iac make a billion dollar investment it's great validation that there's a lot of really smart people who heavily researched this space and come to the conclusion that it's going to be a strong growth industry for several years to come. you know, we feel we can compete against anybody. we are making a ton of investments in our products, our technology, our data science, our marketing, our analytics and we're just excited to see more interest and more growth that could come for the overall market >> what about e sports i know only a few states allow betting on it right now. we hear a lot about it does it represent a new frontier in terms of your business? >> over the last few months we've seen an absolute ex-pollution in esports particularly daily fantasy i think it's here. it's

dejoy, a gop donor and trump ally, has been at the center of controversy -- crowd chanting ]utting iace co-ctingeasures that have slowed mail delivery mailbox empty of the prescriptionheee. >> i went almost a week without medication after i finished up my dose that i had and the three-day extras i had for emergency. >> reporter: dejoy said the pandemic is to blame for some of those delays, dismissing allegations that he was trying to sabotage the election. >> the insinuation is, quite frankly, outrageous. >> will you restore the mail collection and processing capacity that the postal service has lost in recent weeks during your tenure? >> it's insignificant -- it's not material to anything that we do. >> reporter: and dejoy's message to americans, vote early. but despite a strong push from some democrats, today's legislation in the house is not expected to include any coronavirus relief. it will still likely face a major challenge in the senate. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell calling voting by mail a nonexistent issue. dan? >> rachel, thank you. democratic ticket, former vice pr

. >>> iac reporting a wider operating loss in the second quarter despite higher revenues, however, a decline in search revenue cutting into those sales gains. this as the first report for the company since completing the spinoff of match.com >> we'll see you in a few minutes. thank you very much. >>> now to the latest developments in the growing cold war with china, beijing rolling out a number of new policies aimed at helping boost that company's semiconductor industry it is just the latest provocation between the two super powers and our own ewe un shun joining us live from beijing. what exactly moves are china making now >> the chinese government announced there will be new policies to try to help strengthen the home grown chip sector the state council said it's going to be offering tax relief funding as well as encouraging chinese ipos for a lot of these companies. now, this is, of course, a signal that china expects and is preparing for a decoupling, especially when it comes to technology, but we also have been seeing some signs that beijing does want to ease some of the tension

iac's chairman is calling the $1 billion investment a once in a decade opportunity.g business is what initially attracted him to this. and it was not a picture perfect day for eastman kodak's stock yesterday, the stock plunged as much as 43% after the loan to produce drug ingredients was put on indefinite hold. the securities and exchange commission is investigating how kodak controlled the closure of the money from the government, the stock up 13% in the premarket, after yesterday's story. word on the deal began to emerge on july 27th. the stock price rose 25% at the time. a lot of eyes on eastman kodak and how this was handled. dagen: stimulus stalemate, treasury secretary steven mnuchin saying that new federal unemployment benefits will be rolled out by states within the next two weeks. the extension of additional benefits follows president trump's executive orders on covid aid. joining me now, texas congressman, house oversight budget and veteran affairs committee member, chip roy. good to see you this morning. do you think the democrats will move to file suit to

mgm and barry diller's iac.an, why and i think this is the story, why is barry diller putting a billion dollars into a gaming company which runs the strip in vegas? susan: online betting. sports betting. barry diller also confident of a vegas bounce-back as well. he's buying a billion dollars in mgm so that works out to a 12% stake and diller's company iac has been rearranging its portfolio. they spun off tinder owner match for $1.5 billion so he's cashed up and probably sees an opportunity when it comes to sports betting and online gaming, while mgm and vegas have struggled this year. fanduel, draftkings are thriving since we have sports restarting. casino companies won't be up today and that's owing to china finally issuing tourist visas to macao again. that's the world's biggest gaming enclave, almost five times the take you get in macao that you do in vegas each and every year. stuart: nobody realizes that. macao has totally overtaken vegas in terms of the amount of money put on the table. big deal. susan, t

one that interested me was mgm, which the iac position was really interesting to me and i think he could to me, that's sort of a cheaper way to play a similar theme. >> all right that's the online gaming part of the discussion now on to our next companion question about the cannabis sector. >> greetings from new york city. in the next few weeks, the house of representatives are set to make a vote on decriminalization on cannabis opening the flood gates state to state creating the nation's much needed strong revenue stream already you have the top cannabis companies in position however, grow generation may be the leading retailer in the u.s. but when it comes to that supplements, nutrients, special lighting and so forth, grow generation has major competition with power house that is scotts miracle grow i ask you, can grow generation grow past scotts miracle grow in this vastly growing industry >> all right that's a great question out there. carter worth, we'll turn to you with that one here i mean, the whole outlook for cannabis, what do we think >> i mean, so as is the case with so many

>>guest: iac at the running to that collection. don't read novels because i'm scared to death to pick something up that sticks in my head and i could be accused of plagiarism. but they play a pivotal role in my research in whatever they apply to. for country and core it's about her grandfather the commanding general of the first marine division in korea. he is what are the main places in that story she wrote this biography. i didn't know her. i was blown away. i want this man to be a voice in the story. i contacted her. i wrote her a letter actually and introduce myself and said i'm interested to learn more about this man i promise you i do not exploit i'm not looking for and expose i just want to tell the story. she wrote back and said i know who you are, i've read most of your books. that's a nice thing to hear. and she sent me three audio cds of her grandfather who did audio them are i had his voice. so somebody wants to contradict what he did i can get him to tell you. i love that. that's the best example of that personal getti

days, whether you think the play is something like a pen which owns bar stool and the like or you saw iacbarry diller, make a huge play on mgm on the assumption he can turn that and helper swayed them to have a global or worldwide digital presence who do you think wins in that game >> well, i think it's a huge opportunity for both the reason why is, look, what we know is it's inched out. it hasn't gone to 50 states yet. as the gambling expands across the you states, so will the financial opportunities. i think this is going to be a big revenue stream for sports going forward. if you look at what ted leonce has done in dc which is starting to adapt a venue to more gaming and gambling, i think that's going to be the future gambling will be a good revenue stream for teams and states. i also think it's going to be something that's sticky. 18 or 19 times more likely to watch a game if you bet on it. i think it's going to connect in ways with the avid fans. gambling is an overall positive and it's a real growth engine going for it financially. >> 18 or 19 times. that's a big number. so you assu

. >> i never asked you what did you make of the great barry dillard's decision at iac to take a stakeing to be able to transform that business in that same way, digitally? >> i thought that mgm by now would have already partnered with a couple of entities out there. i think they are sports book is going to be gigantic the numbers in the goldman piece are very good, i think they're also understated i don't think they understand the power what have barstool brings to t my colleague david faber often things i overestimate the power of portnoy, i'm not doing that, what i'm saying is there are now 13 million people, 13 million people peep at robin hood, how many of them were brought in by the work that portnoy does i think a substantial number because he's made it interesting. he never once says he's done any rigorous fundamental research. never once has he claimed that so let's just back off and say he's making it fun, i know it's if you know money, but money is -- what it's done is bring in new people go educate him he's not against that, he's in favor of t anybody that brings more peopl