Business
Miranda Kerr and Snap CEO Evan Spiegel Erase $550 Million in Medical Debt for More Than 261,000 Californians
Snap Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel and his wife, Australian model Miranda Kerr, have erased $550 million in medical debt for more than 261,000 Californians through a partnership with a national nonprofit, the organization announced this week.
Undue Medical Debt, the Santa Monica-based nonprofit behind the gift, said the donation marks one of the largest single contributions of its kind to date, providing relief to families across the state at a moment when healthcare costs and broader affordability concerns continue to weigh heavily on households.
How the couple revealed the gift
Spiegel and Kerr announced the donation themselves in a video posted to Instagram on Saturday, choosing to make the gift public specifically so recipients wouldn’t mistake the upcoming notification letters for a scam. “Hey everybody, Evan and Miranda here,” Spiegel said at the start of the video. “And today we are so excited because we’re announcing a partnership with Undue Medical Debt to relieve over half a billion dollars of unpaid medical debt for more than 250,000 Californians.”
Kerr followed by explaining the reasoning behind going public with the donation rather than keeping it private. “If you happen to receive a letter in the mail letting you know that your medical debt has been forgiven, we want you to know, it’s real,” she said.
The couple also spoke to the personal motivation behind their decision to focus on medical debt specifically. “When someone you love is sick, all you want to do is focus on helping them get better,” Kerr said. “That’s why we wanted to support this effort and help relieve medical debt, so families can focus on caring for their loved ones and really supporting their healing.”
Spiegel echoed that sentiment, expressing hope that the gift would offer recipients more than just a financial reprieve. He said he hoped the donation gave families “a little peace of mind” and allowed them “to focus on what matters the most.”
How the relief actually works
Undue Medical Debt operates by purchasing qualifying medical debt in bulk directly from hospitals, physician groups and collection agencies, often for a fraction of its original value. According to the organization, every $10 donated translates into roughly $1,000 in medical debt relief for families in need, allowing relatively modest contributions to produce an outsized impact at scale.
Recipients of the relief don’t need to take any action to qualify. The debt is identified and canceled directly by the nonprofit based on income thresholds, with qualifying individuals earning at or below 400% of the federal poverty level, or carrying medical debt amounting to more than 5% of their annual income. Affected Californians are expected to begin receiving notification letters in the mail starting in mid-July.
The scale of impact across California
The donation’s reach extends across numerous counties throughout the state, with some regions benefiting more significantly than others. San Diego County is expected to see the largest impact, with the gift relieving approximately $99 million in debt for roughly 40,369 residents. Los Angeles County will also see a substantial benefit, with about 17,466 people set to have a combined $26.7 million in medical debt wiped away. Other counties included in the top 10 beneficiaries are Riverside, San Bernardino, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Monterey, San Francisco, Sonoma and Alameda.
A nonprofit leader’s reaction
Allison Sesso, president and CEO of Undue Medical Debt, characterized the donation as one of the most significant gifts the organization has received. “The scale of this gift to Californians is truly astonishing, unburdening over a quarter million families of over half a billion dollars of un-payable medical debt,” Sesso said in a statement. “In the U.S. 1 in 4 adults are in medical debt; it’s a growing crisis undermining healthcare access, economic wellbeing, and mental health. We’re so grateful that Evan Spiegel and Miranda Kerr share our belief that no one should go bankrupt because of a cancer diagnosis, and no family should have to choose between insulin and groceries.”
Sesso added that the organization’s technology-driven approach to acquiring and canceling debt at scale is designed to address one of the central barriers preventing people from seeking necessary medical care, regardless of where in the state they live. The nonprofit has said it has erased more than $40 billion in medical debt across all 50 states since its founding in 2014, working with nearly 30 government partners nationwide, including Los Angeles County.
A pattern of giving for the couple
The medical debt gift is not the first large-scale act of philanthropy from the pair. In 2022, Spiegel paid off student loans for the graduating class of Otis College of Art and Design. More recently, in January 2025, Spiegel — who grew up in Pacific Palisades and lost his childhood home in that month’s devastating Los Angeles County wildfires — personally donated $5 million in immediate aid through Snap and was among those who helped form a relief initiative known as the Department of Angels to assist wildfire survivors. At the time, Spiegel said California had given so much to him and his family, adding that he cares “deeply about the wellbeing of our communities.”
Backgrounds of the philanthropic couple
Spiegel co-founded Snapchat in 2011 alongside two of his Stanford University fraternity brothers, and the disappearing photo and video app’s rapid rise helped him become the world’s youngest self-made billionaire at age 24 in 2015. His net worth currently stands at approximately $2.1 billion, according to Forbes.
Kerr, 43, built her career as one of the fashion industry’s most recognizable models, including a lengthy run as a Victoria’s Secret Angel, before founding skincare brand Kora Organics in 2009. The company now generates more than $23 million in annual revenue. The couple met at a Louis Vuitton dinner at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 2014, married in 2017, and share three sons together: Hart, 8, Myles, 6, and Pierre, 4. Kerr also has a 15-year-old son, Flynn, from her previous marriage to actor Orlando Bloom.
Why medical debt remains a pressing issue
The donation arrives amid mounting national concern over medical debt, which health policy researchers have identified as the leading cause of bankruptcy in the United States. Surveys have found that a majority of Californians worry about facing unexpected medical bills, with roughly 40% of the state’s population already carrying some form of medical debt. Advocates say gifts like Spiegel and Kerr’s, while substantial, represent one piece of a much larger affordability challenge facing households nationwide, even as they offer immediate, tangible relief to the families directly affected.
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Markets Got Its Final Warnings
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That dynamic is now facing a reset. On June 17, NSE filed its listing papers with market regulator Sebi, and is targeting a listing before January 30 next year. Early estimates put the issue size at close to Rs 30,000 crore, based on NSE’s unlisted valuation of Rs 5 lakh crore. BSE’s market capitalisation at Thursday close was Rs 1.58 lakh crore.
NSE shares will list exclusively on BSE, since under Indian securities law an exchange cannot list on its own platform—a regulatory symmetry that will hand BSE one of its most consequential listings.
Exchange vs Exchange
On its part, BSE has framed the development as a positive rather than a threat to its own valuation. “Listing of any eligible institution is a positive development for India’s capital markets,” said managing director Sundararaman Ramamurthy. “Valuations and stock prices are outcomes of a company’s growth prospects and execution, and are best left to the market.”
NSE commands 88% of cash-market turnover, 91% of equity futures and options, and 89% of interest-rate futures. In currency derivatives, its share is 74% in futures and effectively 100% in options. Globally, NSE ranks first in equity derivatives contracts traded—with a 51% share—and third in the number of cash-equity trades.
Yet the listing papers also discloses a rare stumble. Total operational revenue declined 3% year-on-year to Rs 16,601 crore in FY26, from Rs 17,141 crore in FY25. Profit fell 16% to Rs 10,302 crore, from Rs 12,188 crore in FY25. The exchange attributed the decline to lower transaction charges, softer trading activity, and the impact of Sebi’s tightening of the futures and options segment—the very regulations that have reshaped the derivatives landscape across both exchanges.
That creates an unusual valuation setup. NSE is cited at 38x to 43x FY26 price-to-earnings on IPO price band assumptions of Rs 1,600 to Rs 1,800 per share, compared with BSE trading at 69x FY26 earnings.In other words, the dominant exchange may come to market at a significant discount to its smaller rival—at least on near-term multiples—partly because it is bearing the brunt of the same regulatory changes BSE has so far navigated better.
Two Sides
Investors are divided on the new equilibrium. As Investor Vijay Kedia says, “Scarcity premium may reduce once NSE gets listed because investors will get an opportunity to own the larger exchange as well, but BSE does not lose its importance.”
Pankaj Murarka, CIO at Renaissance Investment Managers, takes a longer view. Exchanges typically command rich valuations due to their oligopolistic structure and high entry barriers, he argues, and both NSE and BSE can sustain strong multiples—though NSE is likely to command a premium given its dominant market share. BSE’s trajectory, he said, will depend on whether it can meaningfully gain share in options, futures and cash equities, and expand into new product segments.
A listing of NSE—valued at Rs 5 lakh crore—exclusively on BSE could itself prove a fillip. “It may result in enhanced liquidity, business and participation by institutional investors at BSE,” said Parmod Kumar Bindlish, a former Sebi official.
BSE’s Revival
The debate arrives at a moment of transformation for BSE. When Ramamurthy took over as MD in January 2023, the exchange reported FY2022 revenue of Rs 928 crore, profit of Rs 254 crore, and a market cap of Rs 5,742 crore. By FY2026, revenue had risen to Rs 5,226 crore—up 41% CAGR—and profit to Rs 2,497 crore, an increase of 58% CAGR.
The markets have taken note, with valuation surging more than 20-fold since he took charge.
Ramamurthy attributed the turnaround to “innovation, product development and execution”—reviving the equity derivatives business, acquiring a 50% stake from S&P Dow Jones Indices in the index venture, upgrading mutual fund platforms to handle surging volumes, and stepping up investments in technology and member connectivity.
“When we started, both systems and the culture were somewhat archaic and lacked vibrancy,” he said. BSE filled long-standing vacancies, brought in a fresh set of C-suite leaders and hired younger professionals. Some of the changes were basic but necessary, he added, noting that even employee facilities such as a proper cafeteria needed attention.
The strategy in derivatives, he added, was not driven by market share targets but by “the voice of the customer.”
On Sebi tightening options trading, he said investor protection and market development “must go hand in hand,” and that markets “naturally adapt to evolving regulations over time.” Derivatives trading revenues more than doubled to Rs 3,134 crore in FY26, with daily average premium volume rising 118% to Rs 19,522 crore.
Kedia believes NSE’s listing will prompt investors to compare the two exchanges more closely. “The exchange that grows faster and creates more value for shareholders is likely to command a higher multiple,” he said.
Murarka offered perhaps the most durable framing: “Markets can go up or down, but in casino parlance, the house never loses. Exchanges are the house.”
Business
Will Sensex, Nifty extend gains or turn volatile? Q1 updates, F&O expiry among 8 factors set to steer stock market this week
Market participants will closely monitor the beginning of the June-quarter earnings season, monthly auto sales, the June F&O expiry, foreign fund flows, crude oil prices, monsoon progress, global bond yields, and key macroeconomic data for cues on the market’s next direction. Here are eight factors that could dictate Dalal Street this week.
1) Q1 business updates in focus
Investor attention will gradually shift from macro factors to corporate earnings as the June-quarter reporting season approaches. The first set of Q1 business updates and quarterly results will be watched closely for indications on demand trends, margins and management commentary.
According to Mayuresh Joshi, Head of Equity at Marketsmith India, markets have rebounded strongly in recent weeks and attention will now shift to earnings.
“The expectation is largely getting built out for Q1 that it is going to be a washout quarter because of supply chain issues, input cost inflation and some element of demand probably coming off,” he said.
2) June F&O expiry, portfolio rebalancing
Traders are bracing for a volatile week as the NSE’s June monthly derivatives expiry falls on Tuesday, accompanied by quarterly portfolio rebalancing by institutional investors.
According to Santosh Meena, Head of Research at Swastika Investmart, derivatives positioning has improved marginally, but expiry-related adjustments could lead to heightened volatility.3) Auto sales data
Monthly automobile sales for June, scheduled to be released on July 1, will be another major domestic trigger.
Investors will track dispatch trends across passenger vehicles, two-wheelers, commercial vehicles and tractors to gauge demand momentum after the onset of the monsoon. Strong numbers could reinforce optimism around consumption-led sectors, while any disappointment may weigh on auto stocks.
4) Monsoon progress
The progress and distribution of the southwest monsoon will remain on investors’ radar, given its implications for rural demand, inflation and agricultural output.
A healthy monsoon is expected to support farm incomes and consumption, benefiting sectors such as FMCG, automobiles and rural-focused businesses.
5) FII flows
Foreign institutional investor activity will continue to be a key determinant of market direction after selling pressure showed signs of easing in recent sessions.
Dr VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Investments, said relentless foreign selling appears to be over.
“A significant trend in FPI activity in the second half of this month is the tapering of FPI selling. The big relentless FPI selling appears to be over,” he said.
According to Vijayakumar, the appreciation in the rupee and volatility in other Asian markets have made India relatively more attractive for overseas investors despite weak earnings expectations.
“The crash in crude to below $73 is a huge positive for India. Therefore, it can be safely concluded that the period of relentless FPI selling is over. But it may take some time for FPIs to become sustained buyers in India,” he added.
6) Oil prices
Crude oil prices will remain a closely watched global variable after retreating sharply from recent highs.
Lower crude prices are positive for India as they ease inflationary pressures, improve the current account position and reduce input costs for several sectors. Any fresh geopolitical developments that trigger volatility in oil could quickly influence market sentiment.
7) US bond yields
Global investors will also monitor movements in US Treasury yields and the dollar index for signals on capital flows into emerging markets.
Persistently elevated bond yields or renewed strength in the dollar could limit risk appetite, while softer yields may support foreign inflows into equities.
8) Macro data
A host of macroeconomic releases will keep global markets on edge during the week.
Investors will track manufacturing PMI data and employment numbers from the US, along with key economic indicators from China, for fresh clues on global growth and the outlook for interest rates.
Technical setup
According to Santosh Meena of Swastika Investmart, the Nifty continues to face a strong hurdle around the 24,200 mark.
A sustained breakout above 24,200 could open the door for a rally towards the 24,450-24,600 zone. On the downside, 24,000 and 23,770 remain immediate support levels.
Bank Nifty continues to outperform and is trading above its key moving averages. The index faces resistance in the 59,000-59,300 zone, while 57,500 and 57,000 are expected to provide strong support.
(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)
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