Logo for The Closer: Deals Change the World

The Closer: Deals Change the World

Brazen

The Closer brings you the inside story of deals changing the world, as told by the people who know how it all went down.

Understand the human motivations behind groundbreaking business decisions, and learn dealmaking lessons through a deep dive into one deal each week, with host Aimee Keane.

The Closer is a Project Brazen production. For more thrilling storytelling, search for the Brazen channel on Apple Podcasts or visit brazen.fm, home to all our podcasts, documentaries and newsletters. At Brazen, we show you how the world really works. From landmark business deals to international espionage and organised crime, we’ll take you inside stories from hidden worlds.

Subscribe to Brazen+ on Apple Podcasts or at brazen.fm/plus to and get exclusive bonus episodes for The Closer and all our shows, as well as ad-free listening and early access to new podcasts. For the latest from Brazen delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters at brazen.fm/newsletters.

Copyright © 2024 Brazen

The Closer brings you the inside story of deals changing the world, as told by the people who know how it all went down.

Understand the human motivations behind groundbreaking business decisions, and learn dealmaking lessons through a deep dive into one deal each week, with host Aimee Keane.

The Closer is a Project Brazen production. For more thrilling storytelling, search for the Brazen channel on Apple Podcasts or visit brazen.fm, home to all our podcasts, documentaries and newsletters. At Brazen, we show you how the world really works. From landmark business deals to international espionage and organised crime, we’ll take you inside stories from hidden worlds.

Subscribe to Brazen+ on Apple Podcasts or at brazen.fm/plus to and get exclusive bonus episodes for The Closer and all our shows, as well as ad-free listening and early access to new podcasts. For the latest from Brazen delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters at brazen.fm/newsletters.

Copyright © 2024 Brazen
16hr 7min
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There’s a new season of The Closer coming soon — but before it does, we have a special episode to share from our friends over at The Negotiators podcast.
October 2, 202330min 43sec44.25 MB
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December 18, 202334min 4sec81.79 MB
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December 11, 202329min 33sec42.57 MB
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Disney’s acquisition of ABC/ Capital Cities kick-started its transformation to one of the largest companies in the world.
December 4, 202330min 1sec43.23 MB
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Rob Copeland, author of The Fund: Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates, and the Unraveling of a Wall Street Legend, takes us inside the fight to succeed Ray Dalio.
November 27, 202332min 27sec46.74 MB
Thumbnail for "The Failed Deal that Led to WeWork’s Downfall".
What set WeWork on the path to bankruptcy can be traced to another failed deal called Project Fortitude.
November 20, 202338min 6sec54.88 MB
Thumbnail for "How Occidental Petroleum beat an oil giant in a high stakes acquisition".
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November 13, 202333min 29sec48.24 MB
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Lise Buyer, ‘IPO Whisperer’ who helped take Google public, talks about how it all went down.
November 6, 202334min 16sec49.39 MB
Thumbnail for "How 90s cool kid Marc Jacobs changed the fashion business".
How a LVMH deal set a new precedent in the industry and helped usher in the era of celebrity in high fashion.
October 30, 202334min49.01 MB
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October 23, 202333min 26sec80.27 MB
Thumbnail for "How Walmart bought Jet.com and went up against Amazon".
The story of Jet.com, its founder Marc Lore, and how the startup helped retail giant Walmart sharpen its ecommerce edge against Amazon.
October 16, 202338min 15sec55.08 MB
Thumbnail for "Introducing The Closer: Season 3".
The Closer returns with ten dramatic new stories of groundbreaking deals.
October 9, 202339sec947.3 kB
Thumbnail for "We want to hear from you!".
A special request from Aimee and The Closer team as we gear up for a new season of the show.
September 22, 202350sec1.21 MB
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Vince McMahon took over his father’s regional wrestling business in the 1980s, and made it into an international media and entertainment juggernaut valued at billions of dollars.
July 17, 202335min 50sec51.62 MB
Thumbnail for "S2 E5: Inside The Private Equity Deal-Machine That’s Buying Apartments".
The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest private equity firms, has quietly built a deal-making machine that's gobbling up apartments in desirable and gentrifying neighborhoods.
July 10, 202327min 27sec39.54 MB
Thumbnail for "S2 E4: Airbnb's pandemic turnaround".
In early 2020, the home-sharing platform was poised to make a splashy debut on the public markets later that year.
July 3, 202333min 29sec48.23 MB
Thumbnail for "S2 E3: PetSmart & Chewy: A private equity turnaround story".
When private equity-backed PetSmart bought Chewy.com for more than $3bn in 2017, people thought the retailer was doomed.
June 26, 202326min 27sec38.1 MB
Thumbnail for "S2 E2: Who Killed Toys R Us?".
We take you inside the final days of Toys R Us with Lauren Hirsch, the reporter who first revealed the iconic company’s impending bankruptcy.
June 19, 202332min 48sec47.25 MB
Thumbnail for "S2 E1: How the US Women’s Soccer Team scored their victory for equal pay".
The US Women's National Soccer Team is among the most decorated teams in the game but, until recently, was paid a fraction of what the men took home.
June 12, 202336min 3sec51.93 MB
Thumbnail for "Introducing The Closer: Season 2".
The Closer returns this summer with six dramatic new stories of groundbreaking deals.
June 5, 20231min 48sec2.6 MB
Thumbnail for "The Closer Weekly: The Saudis and the Soccer Team".
A new kind of money is flooding into professional sports: sovereign wealth.
June 2, 202315min 57sec22.97 MB
Thumbnail for "The Closer Weekly: Discovering Max: HBO's App Gets a New Home".
HBO and Discovery are getting a new streaming home.
May 26, 202315min 10sec21.86 MB
Thumbnail for "The Closer Weekly: How AI is helping solve Japan's succession crisis".
Hundreds of thousands of Japanese companies have a problem – their founders are aging without a successor in sight.
May 19, 202313min 45sec19.82 MB
Thumbnail for "The Closer Weekly: Leaving for Las Vegas - The A’s are out of Oakland".
The Oakland A’s are one step closer to a move to Las Vegas, reaching a deal this week for a new plot of land that would house a brand new ballpark.
May 12, 202315min 52sec22.86 MB
Thumbnail for "The Closer Weekly: The shape of deals to come".
The financial press has been reporting on a big trend in dealmaking: it's way down this year, especially in comparison to the M&A activity of 2021.
May 5, 202316min 5sec23.17 MB
Thumbnail for "The Closer Weekly: Bed Bath & Beyond enters bankruptcy".
Ben and Aimee discuss Bed Bath & Beyond's collapse, diving into stock sales, failed turnarounds, share buybacks, meme stocks and yes, those iconic blue and white coupons.
April 28, 202320min 9sec29.02 MB
Thumbnail for "The Closer Weekly: A back to the future moment for Netflix".
Ben and Aimee discuss two big pieces of news from Netflix this week.
April 21, 202314min 53sec21.45 MB
Thumbnail for "The Closer Weekly: What's going on with the JetBlue and Spirit Airlines deal?".
This week, we're looking at a deal suggested by one of listeners: JetBlue's $3.8bn takeover of discount carrier Spirit Airlines.
April 14, 202316min 50sec24.27 MB
Thumbnail for "The Closer Weekly: The UFC and WWE join forces".
Two of the biggest names in fighting, WWE and Endeavor’s UFC, are coming together to form a new, publicly traded entity.
April 7, 202312min 44sec18.34 MB
Thumbnail for "The Closer Weekly: Jack Ma returns, and Alibaba breaks up".
Shares in Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba jumped this week after founder Jack Ma made a rare visit to mainland China.
March 31, 202312min 55sec18.62 MB
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March 24, 202317min 43sec25.53 MB
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Financial Times journalist Tabby Kinder breaks down Silicon Valley Bank's swift collapse and tells us what it's been like covering the story as it unfolds.
March 17, 202327min 53sec26.81 MB
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David Bowie: ground-breaking musician; artistic shape-shifter; style icon; and ... savvy financial player?
March 13, 202326min 46sec38.57 MB
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What happens when an eccentric Brazilian investor gets interested in ... Ketchup?
March 6, 202336min 23sec52.41 MB
Thumbnail for "S1 E4: How Amazon Disrupted The Drug Business With The Help of a Scrappy Startup".
What happened when Amazon came for Big Pharma?
February 27, 202330min 16sec43.6 MB
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WhatsApp and Facebook: not the match made in heaven you might think.
February 20, 202333min 22sec48.05 MB
Thumbnail for "S1 E2: The Failed Deal That Doomed WeWork (no, not the one you're thinking of)".
The deal behind the failed WeWork IPO.
February 13, 202339min 4sec56.3 MB
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February 6, 202335min 31sec51.17 MB
Thumbnail for "Introducing The Closer".
The inside story of the deals that changed the world.
January 30, 20231min 34sec2.26 MB

Introducing The Negotiators podcast

Thumbnail for "Introducing The Negotiators podcast".
October 2, 202330min 43sec

There’s a new season of The Closer coming soon — but before it does, we have a special episode to share from our friends over at The Negotiators podcast.

Last season, we talked to Jeffrey Kessler, the lawyer who represented the US Women's National Team in their equal pay lawsuit against the US Soccer Federation. He said one of the main obstacles was bad leadership. Until it changed.

Today, Cindy Parlow Cohn is president of the federation. After taking up the leadership role, she worked across from Kessler in grueling negotiations to make gender parity a reality for the women's and men's national teams.

She spoke with our friends at The Negotiators, which is a podcast collaboration between Doha debates and Foreign Policy.

For more episodes, search for The Negotiators wherever you listen to podcasts.

Thumbnail for "Introducing The Negotiators podcast".
Introducing The Negotiators podcast
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