Over the past week, I wrote two short pieces on my Substack about events that, on the surface, appear unrelated. One examined the sharp fall in SaaS valuation multiples, the other examined geopolitical escalation in the Gulf and its implications for capital markets.

On 28 February 2026, Greg Abel published his first annual letter as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. What struck me reading it is not what has changed - but what hasn’t.

The SaaS premium didn’t disappear overnight. It began to erode when inevitability stopped being priced as certainty.

A Future Beyond Brick and Mortar- disruptive change ahead in automotive retail by McKinsey is well-researched and directionally sound.

A week at NADA is usually enough to kill a few assumptions and sharpen a few others. This year's overwhelming takeaway wasn’t about the death of dealerships, EVs or the US market - it was about defensibility.

As the US Q4 earnings season kicks off, listed dealer groups are once again setting the tone for global automotive retail. The early read-across is familiar: revenues remain resilient, margins continue to normalise, and capital discipline is firmly back in focus.