LifeLock Offer: Earn 95x Amex Membership Rewards with Rakuten
🔃 Update (Apr 01, 2026) – This offer is available again through the Rakuten site and app. You can earn 95X Amex/Bilt points. New Rakuten members can also get a $50 signup bonus.
The popular LifeLock offer from Rakuten is back. You can now earn 95x American Express Membership Rewards points or 95% cash back through the Rakuten app only. This is an easy way to add a big stash of points to your account, and it is a good deal depending on your valuation of these points. The cheapest LifeLock subscription costs $296.90.
To get in on this deal, you need to be a Rakuten member. If you don’t have an account you can sign up now. Get the app, and search for LifeLock and follow the easy prompts to sign up. Just make sure you see the 95x rate before proceeding.
The LifeLock’s “Ultimate Plus Plan” costs $296.90. That means that you would get $282.05 in cashback or 28,205 Membership Rewards points. There are more expensive plans as well, such as the “Ultimate Plus Plan for Family with Kids” that costs $491.88. That would earn you 46,728 Membership Rewards points.
If you run the numbers, this deal means that you’re purchasing points at 1.05 cents each. If you can cash out with Schwab for example, then you’re making a small profit. But American Express Membership Rewards points can be even more valuable when used through travel partners. And on top of that, you would be earning rewards with your credit card. That brings the cost closer a penny.
The terms of the Rakuten cashback state that you need to maintain the membership for at least 60 days. If you cancel after that, I don’t know if you receive a pro-rated refund. If you do, the deal becomes significantly more profitable.
HYBE is pumping $100 million into its US subsidiary, HYBE America Inc., according to a regulatory filing published on Tuesday (March 31).
The capital injection, approved by HYBE’s board on March 31, takes the form of a paid-in capital increase in which the South Korean entertainment giant is acquiring 10 million new shares in its wholly owned subsidiary.
The acquisition amount of KRW 150.8 billion ($100m) was calculated using the Seoul Foreign Exchange Brokerage’s quoted exchange rate of KRW 1,508.10 per US dollar on March 30.
The filing, published on South Korea’s DART disclosure system, states that the purpose of the investment is to support “the smooth business operations of HYBE America Inc.”
HYBE America’s registered business type is listed as e-commerce — a classification that reflects its role as the home of Weverse’s US commerce operations alongside its expanding music label portfolio.
HYBE America was originally established in 2019 as the company’s US headquarters.
It became the vehicle for HYBE’s landmark $1.05 billion acquisition of Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings in 2021 — a deal that brought SB Projects and Big Machine Label Group under HYBE’s umbrella, and which Braun led as CEO until his departure last year.
In 2023, HYBE America acquired Atlanta rap powerhouse QC Media Holdings in a deal worth approximately $300 million.
News of the $100 million capital injection arrives at a key moment for HYBE America, which has undergone significant restructuring under Chairman and CEO Isaac Lee.
Lee, the former Univision and Televisa executive, was appointed to lead the HYBE America division in July 2025, in addition to his existing role as Chairman of HYBE Latin America.
Since taking the reins, Lee has overseen a busy period of change. In February, Scott Borchetta exited HYBE America, with the Nashville operation rebranded as Blue Highway Records under new CEO Jake Basden.
In January, HYBE America hired Ethiopia Habtemariam — the former Chair and CEO of Motown Records — as President of Music to drive A&R and artist development across the company’s label ecosystem. Other recent senior hires include Gene Whitney as General Counsel.
Lee also oversaw the launch of HYBE Label Service, a US-based global distribution and label services division, and the creation of S1ENTO Records, a regional Mexican music-focused label under HYBE Latin America.
HYBE America’s portfolio now spans Blue Highway Records (Nashville), Quality Control Music (Atlanta), the HYBE x Geffen Records joint venture (home to KATSEYE), SB Projects, HYBE Label Service, and HYBE Latin America’s growing roster of labels including S1ENTO Records and Docemil Music.
Separately, according to a regulatory filing, HYBE’s annual general meeting also saw Isaac Lee appointed to the company’s board, alongside Kevin Mayer — the former CEO of TikTok and former Chairman of Direct-to-Consumer and International at The Walt Disney Company, who currently serves as Co-CEO of Candle Media. Both were appointed for three-year terms.
Lee’s elevation to HYBE’s board further cements his central role in the company’s global strategy, while Mayer’s appointment adds significant US media and technology expertise at the governance level. Mayer has an existing connection to HYBE through Candle Media’s 2022 acquisition of Exile Content Studio, the company co-founded by Lee.
The DART filing also offers a window into HYBE America Inc.’s financial health.
According to the disclosure, HYBE America Inc. posted revenue of KRW 28.8 billion (approximately $19m) in its most recent fiscal year (2024), down from KRW 36.2 billion in 2023 and KRW 70.4 billion in 2022.
The subsidiary recorded a net loss of KRW 18.3 billion ($12m) in 2024, an improvement on a KRW 27 billion loss the prior year — but still a significant red-ink position. HYBE America also posted a KRW 74.8 billion net loss in 2022.
Total assets stood at KRW 1.68 trillion ($1.1bn) at the end of 2024, with total equity of KRW 1.45 trillion.
It should be noted that HYBE America Inc. is the specific legal entity listed as an e-commerce business in this filing; the financials above may not capture the full breadth of HYBE’s US operations, which span multiple subsidiaries and business units.
On the parent company level, HYBE reported record consolidated revenue of KRW 2.65 trillion ($1.86bn) for 2025, up 17.5% YoY, though operating profit fell 73% to KRW 49.9 billion amid what the company described as “preemptive investments for mid-to-long-term growth”.
Those investments have been focused squarely on global expansion. In addition to the Americas push, HYBE launched HYBE China in April 2025 and established HYBE India Entertainment in September of the same year. The company first entered the Latin music market in late 2023 through its acquisition of Exile Music.
The company has told investors that 2026 will be a financial inflection point, driven by BTS’s return to full-group activities — including a new album and an 82-show world tour across 34 cities — alongside the scaling of newer IPs like KATSEYE.
MBW has reached out to HYBE for comment.Music Business Worldwide
With SpaceX filing for an initial public offering, the tone in markets is unmistakably bullish. Analysts are already calling it “one of the year’s most-anticipated market debuts” and “one of the largest IPOs ever.”
Unlike the outdated IPO framework of the last decade, SpaceX reminds us that going public is no longer an endpoint, but a strategic accelerant: a way to access deeper pools of global capital, expand infrastructure, and scale at a level private markets alone cannot support.
But at a private valuation of $1 trillion-plus, SpaceX — despite being a great company led by a visionary founder — also underscores everything wrong with the U.S. IPO market: by the time companies reach public markets today, almost all upside is in the rearview.
The threshold for going public in the U.S. has changed dramatically. Two decades ago, companies routinely listed at valuations of a few hundred million dollars. Amazon went public in 1997 at roughly $438 million. AOL, one of the defining IPOs of the early internet era, delivered returns exceeding 100x from its public debut to its peak. Public investors participated in the full arc of value creation.
That is no longer the case. Today, companies often need to reach a $2 billion to $3 billion valuation before even considering an IPO. Stripe was last valued at $65 billion in private markets. Databricks has been valued above $40 billion. SpaceX itself has raised capital at valuations exceeding $175 billion prior to any public listing. By the time these companies reach public markets, they are already global leaders.
Much of the benefit that once accrued to public investors is now captured in private markets. But staying private too long comes with real costs — such as a brittle capital structure where ownership is concentrated among a narrow group of insiders and a dependence on continued private funding. It also limits broader investor participation and delays the price discovery and discipline that public markets provide. In trying to avoid the scrutiny of public markets, many companies have instead traded it for different kinds of risks: less transparency, less liquidity, and fewer pathways to sustainable, long-term capital.
SpaceX serves as a signal that public markets are once again open at scale, but the math alone confirms that by the time unicorns like SpaceX, Anthropic, Stripe and Databricks go public, the exponential value creation is already gone.
So why are investors still fixated on mega-unicorn IPOs?
The next generation of outsized returns won’t come from trillion-dollar IPOs. They will come from smaller companies, listing earlier in their lifecycle, before global capital has fully priced them. Historically, the greatest gains have come from identifying category-defining companies before they were obvious — making the real opportunity — not just 100x, but 400x — companies with sub-$500 million valuations. As legendary investor Peter Lynch wrote, that’s how you get “one up on Wall Street.”
SpaceX is just a distraction.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
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Acting CFPB Director Russell Vought filed a revised workforce restructuring plan on March 31, 2026, asking a federal appeals court for permission to cut 618 of 1,174 current employees – keeping just 556 staff.
This is a scaled-back version of earlier plans that would have eliminated roughly 90% of the agency.
This plan was filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals, which has blocked previous layoff attempts since March 2025.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Acting Director Russell Vought is asking a federal appeals court for permission to lay off more than half of the agency’s remaining workforce. While a significant reduction from previous layoff attempts, it does highlight the sentiment reported earlier this week that the CFPB is not going away.
In a motion filed March 31, 2026 (PDF File), the government presented a “Workforce Restructuring Plan” that would retain 556 of the CFPB’s 1,174 currently onboard employees. That’s a reduction of roughly 53% from current staffing levels.
The filing came at the request of Judge Cornelia Millett, who asked the government to share its downsizing plans with the court. Any headcount reductions at the agency are currently blocked by a preliminary injunction issued by a federal district court in March 2025, which required the CFPB to rehire terminated employees, reinstate canceled contracts, and refrain from further layoffs.
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From Near Shutdown To 50% Reduction In Workforce
The revised plan represents a shift from the administration’s earlier posture of eliminating the CFPB. When Acting Director Vought first took the helm of the agency in early 2025, the government was accused of attempting to shut the bureau down entirely. The district court found the CFPB was pursuing a “plan” to “shut the agency down entirely,” which formed the basis for the preliminary injunction.
In the new filing, the government explicitly states that “CFPB leadership will not close the agency” and that the revised plan “supersedes any and all previous plans regarding reductions-in-force and any prior decisions about the proper size or functioning of the agency.” Vought’s March 31 memorandum declares those earlier plans and decisions “null and void.”
The memorandum outlines, division by division, which statutory functions the agency will continue performing and how many employees are needed to carry them out.
Which Departments Would See The Biggest Cuts
The largest cuts in absolute terms would hit the Supervision Division, which would shrink from 350 onboard employees to 77 (a 78% reduction). The Enforcement Division would drop from 137 employees to 50, a 64% cut. The Operations Division would go from 255 to 133 employees.
Some offices would be nearly eliminated. The External Affairs Division would drop from 30 employees to just 5. The Director’s office would shrink from 62 to 15 staff.
The Legal Division is set to retain all 60 onboard employees, while Consumer Response and Education would keep 90 of 127 employees. The plan argues that Consumer Response is “largely automated” and can operate with fewer staff, especially as the CFPB implements additional technology to screen fraudulent and duplicate complaints.
The plan also reveals the CFPB has already dismissed or withdrawn from 41 enforcement actions filed under former Director Rohit Chopra, characterizing many as “agency overreach.” Only 8 enforcement cases remained pending as of December 31, 2025.
What This Means For Consumers
The CFPB was created by the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010 to protect consumers in the financial marketplace. It oversees banks, credit unions, mortgage lenders, debt collectors, and other financial companies.
The agency’s Consumer Response division handles complaints from the public, the Enforcement division brings legal actions against companies that violate consumer financial laws, and the Supervision division conducts examinations of large financial institutions.
Under the proposed plan, the consumer complaint hotline and database would remain operational, and the agency says the Office of Financial Education would retain the majority of its staff. The government’s filing argues that none of the services plaintiffs in the case rely on (including complaint handling, educational resources, and the Student Loan Ombudsman) would be eliminated.
For borrowers, particularly those with student loans, the plan specifies that the Deputy Director will serve as the Student Loan Ombudsman.
The drastic reduction in supervision and enforcement staff raises questions about how aggressively the CFPB would police financial companies going forward. The plan envisions cutting supervisory exams from 107 in 2024 to 64 in 2026, with smaller teams conducting shorter, more targeted reviews. The agency says it will focus supervision on depository institutions, actual consumer fraud, and areas “clearly within its statutory authority”—a shift away from what the filing characterizes as “novel legal theories” pursued under the prior administration.
However, Chi Chi Wu, director of consumer reporting and data advocacy at the National Consumer Law Center, says “This latest attempt to eliminate essential staff at the CFPB would reduce the bureau to an empty shell, unable to fulfill the functions the CFPB is statutorily required to engage in. People need a strong, independent CFPB that is staffed to address unscrupulous practices by credit reporting companies, Wall Street banks, and big corporations.”
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Technically valid until 4/4 but there is a limit of 10,000 so I would use ASAP if you’re interested. Free is free.
The HBR Executive Playbook on turning C-suite onboarding into a leadership team-wide performance upgrade. by Ania W. Masinter
April 1, 2026
Companies today need new executives to hit the ground running. And they often operate under the assumption is that these hires are seasoned enough that a briefing on the business and a few meetings will suffice; they’ll figure the rest out as they go.
Beyond Meat(BYND 10.46%) stock is falling fast in Wednesday’s trading. The company’s share price was down 10.6% as of 3:20 p.m. ET despite the S&P 500 being up 0.7% at the same point in the day’s trading. The stock had been off as much as 14.3% earlier in the session.
Beyond Meat posted its fourth-quarter results after the market closed yesterday, and the report didn’t bring the signs of a turnaround that investors were hoping for. Sales and earnings for the period came in worse than anticipated, and the company’s forward guidance was also disappointing.
Image source: Getty Images.
Beyond Meat’s Q4 results were a dud
Beyond Meat recorded a loss of $0.29 per share on sales of $61.59 million in last year’s final quarter. The average analyst estimate had only called for the business to post a loss of $0.21 per share in the period, and revenuewas expected to come in roughly $410,000 higher than it did. Sales were down nearly 20% year over year in the quarter, and the company’s margins continued to weaken.
Today’s Change
(-10.46%) $-0.07
Current Price
$0.63
Key Data Points
Market Cap
$318M
Day’s Range
$0.60 – $0.66
52wk Range
$0.50 – $7.69
Volume
54M
Avg Vol
37M
Gross Margin
5.98%
What’s next for Beyond Meat?
In addition to soft results in Q4, Beyond Meat issued guidance for the current quarter that looks concerning. The company expects sales for the period to come in between $57 million and $59 million — far short of the roughly $63.5 million called for by the average analyst estimate prior to the latest earnings release.
On the heels of the company’s weak Q4 report and forward guidance, it seems likely that Beyond Meat will have to move forward with a reverse stock split. The company’s share price is below the $1 level needed to continue trading on the Nasdaq exchange, and reorganizing its share structure to boost the stock’s pure-dollar price could be a necessary move.
Keith Noonan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Beyond Meat. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
U.S. Bank has turned to Built Technologies, which provides technology for real estate and construction finance, to help manage its portion of this process.
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The bank says it will be able to fund projects faster as well as give clients real-time visibility into each step in the construction process and the related financing.
“Our investor and developer clients in the homebuilding sector expect a streamlined, transparent lending experience,” said Suzanne Rathbun, lending services group manager at U.S. Bank. “With one connected platform, we’re delivering faster access to funds and real-time visibility into every draw, so they can keep projects on track.”
Last November, Built unveiled Draw Agent, agentic artificial intelligence technology designed to manage this process.
For customers, once U.S. Bank activates the transaction in Built, they will be notified they have the option to sign in to the system. It gives the borrower a single location to manage draws, inspections and communications between the parties.
The platform takes manual work required with construction loans out of the process.
Built said the benefits of its technology include:
Accelerated funding: Improve draw times by up to 70%.
Borrower Experience: Platform with on-demand access to information and actions.
Real-time insight: Instant access to budgets, inspection reports, and project updates.
Automated workflows: Standardized processes and automations to reduce manual work.
Scalable capacity: Greater control to manage more projects while maintaining compliance.
“U.S. Bank is aligning their construction lending teams and clients around a more connected operating model,” said Scott Traina, general manager of Built’s lender business unit. “When lenders, builders, and borrowers operate from the same system, capital moves more predictably and projects stay on track.” Built Technologies has completed seven rounds of financing since 2017 for a total of $312.7 million, according to data from Crunchbase. The most recent was a venture round of an undetermined amount led by Citi in April 2023.
Before then, it did a private equity round of $23.9 million in July 2022, plus two in 2021: A Series D of $125 million and a Series C of $88 million.
If the administration has its way, overall construction financing volume could increase significantly.
In March, President Trump signed an executive order looking to reduce or remove “regulatory barriers to home construction.”
This followed the Federal Housing Finance Agency looking to get Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac more active in construction lending.
However, a proposal in the Senate’s 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act to limit large investor ownership of built-to-rent properties has some feeling it would be a constraint on new construction.
