The $50B Break-Up That Could Reshape Ag | Big Moves In Sports | Tech

2025 is shaping up as the year of the break-up. 

Boards are under pressure to strip down sprawling businesses into cleaner, easier-to-value parts.

Corteva, today’s headline, is a $50B agriculture giant best known for Pioneer seeds and Enlist soybeans. 

The company is weighing a split of its seed and crop protection units: 

This separation could reset how investors play the global farm economy and trigger a fresh wave of carve-outs across the sector.

Corteva is weighing whether to separate its seed business, which generates nearly $10B in revenue, from its $7B crop protection arm. 

Seeds are the growth engine, biotech-driven and therefore rewarded with higher valuations. 

Crop protection brings steadier cash, but with the weight of regulation and litigation.

Should a break-up occur, it would give each business a cleaner identity, and investors a clearer picture.

The timing is telling. 2025 has already become the year of corporate separations as boards simplify sprawling portfolios. 

The risk is whether innovation suffers when seeds and crop protection no longer develop side by side.

BASF, the German chemical giant, has signaled plans to spin out its agriculture business in 2027. 

If Corteva makes a move now, it could accelerate that timeline and put fresh pressure on Bayer, which is still reeling from more than $10B in settlements tied to Roundup, its widely used weedkiller, with more settlements cases ahead.

Investor Takeaway
This is more than an agriculture story. Breakups are becoming a deal engine in their own right. 

For investors, it signals the next wave of value creation may not come from building bigger empires, but from breaking them apart.

Sports empires are starting to look more like media and tech platforms. 

Josh Harris, co-founder of Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment (HBSE), is exploring a path to take a bundle of sports assets public. 

The move would tap into the wider rush to monetize rights, venues, and global fandom.

HBSE, valued at roughly $14.6B and ranked third on CNBC’s 2025 list of sports empires, controls franchises and arenas that generate steady cash and rising media value. 

A listing would give investors direct exposure to sports as an asset class, rather than through broadcasters or sponsors.

The signal is bigger than one owner. 

Teams are increasingly packaged as full-scale platforms — not just contests on the court or ice, but engines for content, fan data, and real estate value.

Next up: Expect more owners to test the IPO market, especially as private equity firms and sovereign wealth funds continue to crowd into sports.

Apollo Global Management is testing the market for AOL after receiving inbound interest. 

A deal could value the internet pioneer at around $1.5B, roughly four times its $400M in EBITDA.

It’s a reminder that “legacy” brands still throw off cash. 

AOL’s core today isn’t dial-up nostalgia but a portfolio of email, privacy tools, and its long-standing portal. 

For buyers, the attraction is predictable cash flow from a stable user base, not flashy growth.

The broader signal: private equity firms continue to find value in overlooked digital assets. Even brands that feel past their prime can be engineered into reliable yield machines.

Next up: Expect Apollo and peers to keep recycling internet veterans as income plays, while chasing growth elsewhere in AI, cloud, and data infrastructure.

CVC Capital Partners is acquiring a majority stake in Namecheap at a $1.5B valuation. 

The company, often seen as a rival to GoDaddy, manages the domain names, hosting, and security tools that keep millions of small businesses online.

It’s a bet on the digital infrastructure most users never think about but can’t do without. 

Namecheap has grown by serving entrepreneurs and small firms, and founder-operators are expected to remain in place to drive the next stage of growth.

The signal here: private equity is still drawn to “picks and shovels” plays in tech. While AI and cloud dominate headlines, the basics of internet plumbing continue to generate sticky revenue.

Next up: Watch for more activity in domains, payments, and backend security — areas where steady cash flow and scale make even quiet platforms attractive.

Local TV is consolidating quickly. 

Nexstar has already agreed to buy Tegna for $6.2B, but Sinclair has floated a counter: merge Tegna with its own station group while spinning off its Ventures arm.

The play is about scale. 

Owning more stations means more leverage in advertising and distribution talks, but it also means tougher scrutiny in Washington. 

Regulators have long been wary of letting any one broadcaster dominate too much of the local market.

The signal: traditional TV may be under pressure from streaming, but consolidation shows its cash flow still matters. Broadcasters are chasing size to stay relevant as ad dollars fragment.

Next up: Expect regulatory winds to shape the outcome. The real question becomes how big Washington is willing to let local TV groups become.

Convenience stores are stealing the morning rush. 

Chains like Casey’s and Wawa are pulling traffic from traditional fast-food players with quicker lines, cheaper coffee, and hot food that keeps commuters coming back. 

What once looked like “gas stations” are becoming daily habit destinations, and Casey’s is now one of America’s biggest pizza sellers to boot.

The playbook is simple but powerful: combine real estate in high-traffic locations with fresh food and loyalty apps, and you get a sticky cash flow engine.

Investor Takeaway
Don’t overlook the “unsexy” side of retail. Convenience chains are proving that everyday platforms, built around repeat behavior, can quietly scale into some of the most durable businesses in consumer markets.

Mortgage rates have slipped to about 6.39%, the lowest since October 2024. 

That drop spurred a jump in applications — and adjustable-rate mortgages climbed to 13% of new loans, their highest share since 2008. 

Cheaper upfront payments are pulling borrowers back toward riskier structures.

Investor Takeaway
This is classic late-cycle behavior: buyers hacking affordability as rates fall. It may boost near-term housing turnover, but it loads more interest-rate risk into the system if the easing path reverses.

Markets are full of signals if you know where to look. 

Corteva’s breakup talk shows how boards are chasing clarity. 

Josh Harris’s sports play and CVC’s bet on domains reveal how private equity keeps turning platforms into portfolios. 

Even AOL proves that legacy brands can be cash machines in the right hands.

And then there’s housing. Adjustable mortgages creeping back is the kind of late-cycle tell you don’t forget. Cheap today, risky tomorrow, that’s how leverage sneaks in.

The deals and datapoints may look scattered, but they rhyme. Capital is flowing to platforms that feel durable, while households and boards are both reaching for optionality. 

Read it right, and you see the same truth in seeds, stations, sports, and mortgages: simplicity sells, but risk never disappears.

— The Private Markets Digest Team