Crypto News: 50 Companies to Watch, reexamined

On Tuesday, we published Bloomberg Businessweek's list of 50 Companies to Watch for next year. But we wanted to know how our predictions for 2025 fared, so we asked the editors of the list, David Rocks and Tim Craighead, to dig into the numbers. As it turns out, the analysis was pretty good, even if we whiffed on a few. Plus: A new episode of the Everybody's Business podcast, Uniqlo's founder goes shopping, and why Hulken bags might be on your family's wish list.

If this email was forwarded to you, click here to sign up.

Every year, we work with our colleagues at Bloomberg Intelligence to identify 50 companies the analysts there say merit a closer look in the coming year, for better or worse. These experts around the globe open their spreadsheets, dust off their slide rules and start shunting the beads on their abacuses (OK, maybe we exaggerate) to put together the list, bestowing on each company either a sunny or a cloudy outlook. They consider factors such as new bosses, products and services, pending acquisitions, and—this year especially—the effects of artificial intelligence and tariffs.

The exercise isn't about making buy or sell recommendations (they don't do that over there, and we don't either), but we did want to see how the companies fared relative to BI's predictions. So let's start with the elephant in the room, er, in the AI boom: Palantir Technologies Inc. Boy, did we get that wrong. BI said the maker of infrastructure software risked losing ground to the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta Platforms and Google. In the end, soaring interest in AI has driven revenue well past expectations for Palantir, and its 2026 sales growth is now forecast to be 43%.

Sales for Colgate toothpaste and toothbrushes slowed this year. Photographer: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg

Another one we flubbed was ITV, an independent broadcaster in the UK. We expected it to miss the earnings targets stock analysts had set, but as it turns out, revenue and cost-cutting efforts were positive surprises. We did better with Colgate, where we said the toothpaste maker would likely miss management growth guidance. That's what happened as sales in the US, Brazil, China and India slowed. Similarly, we predicted revenue from concourse shops at Shanghai Airport would disappoint, and 2025 earnings expectations have dropped 18%. And we said virtual health-care provider Teladoc would be challenged, as it had been slow to heal problems at its BetterHelp remote counseling unit, where revenue is on track to decline about 9% this year.

Among companies where we had optimistic outlooks, Citic Securities stands out. The Chinese broker, which beat analyst earnings expectations on the back of renewed interest in Chinese stocks as well as outbound purchases by mainland citizens through Hong Kong. At HSBC, we said that, if the new CEO's streamlining effort and pivot to Asia were successful, the lender's earnings would surprise. They did, with 2025 profit estimates jumping $4 billion during the year. And mega-screen cinema operator Imax has profited from organic expansion as well as deals with big-name directors such as James Cameron to beat the market's predictions.

Our optimism was misplaced with Rémy Cointreau, which we expected to buck the tariff challenge. US and Chinese customers have continued to shy away from its premium cognac. At Porsche we predicted a slew of new or refreshed models would lift the automaker out of a sales slump, but slowing sales in China and a downshift in the move to EVs drove a disappointment in 2025. And our projection of earnings growth for UPS ran afoul of the impact of tariffs and trade wars on shipping.

For those of you who are Bloomberg Terminal clients (and why shouldn't you be?), you can find more detail on all 50 companies and more by typing BI FOCUS <GO>.

In Brief

TikTok's long-delayed plan to separate from its Chinese ownership was put in motion Thursday when the video app said it's being bought by a group led by Oracle Corp. TikTok's parent, ByteDance Ltd., is on track for profits of roughly $50 billion in 2025.
The Trump administration halted the US green card lottery program, which it said was used by the suspect in the Brown University shooting and the killing of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor.
One of Point72 Asset Management's star traders, Alex Silverstein, is leaving to launch his own hedge fund, and he's secured the largest initial backing the firm has ever granted to a departing trader.

Get the Bloomberg Businessweek print magazine delivered to you and unlimited access to Businessweek stories on Businessweek.com. Annual subscription for $99.
Subscribe

On the Podcast

This week on the Everybody's Business podcast from Bloomberg Businessweek, hosts Stacey Vanek Smith and Max Chafkin talk about two of the biggest economic stories of 2025, "buy now, pay later" and $Trump. Businessweek senior reporter Amanda Mull joins in to discuss BNPL: why it's on the rise, how it's different from just paying with a credit card and what the potential pitfalls are. Then Bloomberg News' Zeke Faux goes through the implausible story of the Donald Trump memecoin launched just a few days before the 2025 inauguration.

Listen and subscribe to Everybody's Business on Apple, Spotify, iHeart and the Bloomberg Terminal.

A Japanese Billionaire's Ambitions

Tadashi Yanai in front a Uniqlo store in New York. Photographer: Levi Mandel for Bloomberg Businessweek

Tadashi Yanai is standing on a bustling Tokyo street corner, watching shoppers drift into one of the 3,570 stores that made him a billionaire. The visitors to this three-floor Uniqlo are a blend of salarymen on lunch break, overseas tourists, families with strollers and well-heeled locals. "This is a good mix," Yanai says, sizing up the crowd. "Just about right."

The chief executive officer of Uniqlo's parent company, Fast Retailing Co., a clothing empire built on thermal wear, seamless basics and multicolored socks, knows a thing or two about what his customers want. After all, he is one. On this sunny autumn afternoon, everything he's wearing, from his navy cashmere sweater to his brown cotton trousers, was made and sold by the apparel brand he founded in 1984—except for the black Adidas sneakers on his feet.

In the past four decades, Uniqlo has refined the art of selling clothes, Reed Stevenson and Kanoko Matsuyama write. In our series A Walk With, Yanai describes his plans to triple sales in the coming years: Uniqlo Founder and Japan's Richest Man Loves a $32 Pair of Slacks

Gold Rush

$18 billion

That's the potential value, at December's prices, of the 4.2 million ounces of gold that Perpetua Resources Corp. expects to mine from its Idaho antimony mine over 15 years. Efforts to revive domestic production of antimony could bring a windfall because of its proximity to the more precious metal.

A Funkier Way to Haul Stuff

Photo illustration: Ryan Haskins for Bloomberg Businessweek; photos: Hulken, Getty Images

In the early 2010s, Alex Schinasi's dad sketched out an idea he had to make shopping easier: a tote made of tough yet pliable plastic, big enough for carting around six grocery bags, that rolled on wheels. As an executive at Codefine International SA, a Swiss company that manufactures large industrial bags for transporting everything from animal feed to mined ores, he was able to get a few samples made for his family, including his daughter.

Schinasi, a tech entrepreneur who's launched and sold two software startups, would roll the bag to the grocery store near her home in Brooklyn, New York. Her husband, Yoni Sheleg, a musician, filled it with amps, cymbals and gig equipment. Everywhere they went, strangers would stop and obsess over the bag's utilitarian look—something like a boxier IKEA tote on wheels. In 2018, Schinasi and Sheleg started to turn their family's prototype into a real product and created a Shopify site for the bag, which they called Hulken. When Covid-19 hit and Sheleg's gigs dried up, the couple doubled down and launched the bag to the masses. "We wanted to make sure we had a product that was not just practical but fashionable, and something people would be proud of having by their side," Schinasi says.

For our series Going Viral, Julia Press writes that this family business has become a must-have brand at Target this holiday season: How the Shiny, Viral Hulken Bag Became a $50 Million Brand

Fly-Fishing Flop

"There's no secret that over the last several years, private equity has had its eyes on the outdoor industry. When we look at what's happening across an industry like fly-fishing, it is a juggle between growth and holding onto that romantic passion."

Stephen Baird

Founder and chief executive officer of TrackFly

Retailers across the US are publicly dropping Simms, a brand whose chest waders were once beloved by anglers, after a private equity roll-up and broader turbulence in the outdoor industry.