Papa John’s International is reportedly reviewing a new proposal to take the company private in a potential $1.5 billion acquisition, according to Reuters. 

Irth Capital Management, a Qatari-backed investment fund supported by Brookfield Asset Management, reportedly submitted the proposal on Wednesday, offering $47 per share, a 44% premium over the stock’s most recent closing price.

Following the announcement, the stock surged by a significant 15%, closing around $38.86. 

The bid comes after Papa John’s has been pursuing a turnaround strategy following years of weak demand under multiple CEOs.

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Irth Capital, a relatively new firm founded in 2024 and backed by a member of the Qatari royal family, reportedly already holds about a 10% stake in Papa John’s. 

Led by co-founders Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulla Al-Thani and Matthew Bradshaw, the firm is working alongside Brookfield Asset Management on a high-stakes offer that, if successful, would mark one of Irth’s first major transactions, Reuters said.

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
PZZA	PAPA JOHN’S INTERNATIONAL INC.	38.86	+6.32	+19.42%

The potential acquisition would become one of the firm’s first major deals, following a period of financial recovery and previous failed buyout attempts by other investors, including Apollo Global, which had partnered with Irth last year on a joint offer exceeding $60 per share.

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Mounting speculation about the company’s future has also prompted activist investor Irenic Capital Management to build a stake in the pizza chain, according to the outlet. 

While the bid is significant, there is no guarantee of an agreement as the pizza giant remains open to other potential buyers. 

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Papa John’s has previously struggled with weak consumer spending and tough competition in the pizza industry, specifically among North American restaurants.

In the last quarter, the company reported a 5.4% drop in North American same-store sales. To improve profitability, it announced plans to close roughly 300 underperforming restaurants in the region by the end of 2027.

Reuters contributed to this report.

U.S. stocks closed lower on Wednesday as markets largely looked past a tame inflation report, focusing instead on intensifying hostilities and mounting repercussions related to the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

Trade was choppy for much of the session as investors were caught in a tug-of-war over oil supply concerns. Iran continued to attack ships in ‌the blockaded Strait of ⁠Hormuz, but ⁠OPEC assured markets that Saudi Arabia had ramped up production and the International Energy Agency (IEA) agreed to release 400 million barrels of oil from its strategic reserves.

The Dow logged the steepest percentage drop among the three major U.S. equity indexes, while chip manufacturers lifted the tech-heavy Nasdaq to a marginal, late-session gain.

The Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) indicated that inflation remained moderate last month, matching analyst expectations.

Annual CPI growth is now within half a percentage point of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s 2% target. Still, markets shrugged off the report, as it predated the war on Iran, which has sent crude prices soaring and could stoke inflation. Inflation jitters mounted after Iran’s military command said the world should prepare for crude prices to hit $200 per barrel, more than double their current level.

“In such an uncertain environment, ⁠the markets ‌and investors are kind of starving for any signal, in one direction or another,” said Matthew Keator, managing partner in the Keator Group, a wealth management firm in Lenox, Massachusetts. “There have been these false or inaccurate reports, and the markets are swinging on that type of news.”
“It’s ⁠all about the consumer, and how the shock of a sustained increase in oil prices is going to affect the consumer’s pocketbook and their spending habits,” Keator added. The Fed is widely expected to let its key interest rate stand at its upcoming policy meeting, during which policymakers are likely to weigh the possibility of spiking prices against signs of a softening jobs market, a combination that raises concerns over potential stagflation.

“I think the word ‘transitory’ may come back,” said Chuck Carlson, chief executive officer at Horizon Investment Services in Hammond, Indiana. “I think they’re probably more concerned about jobs than they are about inflation right now, the spike in oil notwithstanding.”

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 289.24 points, or 0.61%, to 47,417.27, the S&P 500 lost 5.68 points, or 0.08%, to 6,775.80 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 19.03 points, or 0.08%, to 22,716.14. Among the 11 major ‌sectors of the S&P 500, consumer staples notched the largest percentage decline, while energy was the clear outperformer, rising 2.5% on rising crude prices.

Front-month WTI and Brent crude futures settled up 4.6% and 4.8%, respectively. Tech was also marginally higher, with a boost from Oracle, which provided better-than-anticipated revenue guidance on expectations that the artificial intelligence-related spending boom ⁠will extend through 2027. Its shares jumped 9.2%. JPMorgan Chase marked down the value of certain loans held by private-credit groups and is tightening its lending to the sector, a report said. Ares Management slid 4.8% and Apollo Global fell 1.9%. Campbell’s tumbled 7.1% after the packaged food company cut its annual forecasts and warned of increasing pressure in the second half from revised U.S. tariffs. Defense company AeroVironment dropped 6.3% after forecasting 2026 adjusted profit below estimates.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.84-to-1 ratio on the NYSE. There were 71 new highs and 121 new lows on the NYSE.

On the Nasdaq, 1,960 stocks rose and 2,696 fell as declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.38-to-1 ratio.

The S&P 500 posted 2 new 52-week highs and 13 new lows while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 44 new highs and 112 new lows.

Volume on U.S. exchanges was 17.79 billion shares, compared with the 20.09 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.

The New York Times’ popular word-association game Connections delivered another clever brain teaser on Wednesday, March 11, 2026, with puzzle No. 1004 featuring a mix of straightforward synonyms, idiomatic phrases and tricky homophones that left players debating categories and celebrating quick solves.

Connections, launched in 2023, tasks players with grouping 16 words or phrases into four themed sets of four. Categories range in difficulty from yellow (easiest) to purple (hardest), and players get four mistakes before the puzzle ends in defeat. The game has surged in popularity alongside Wordle, Strands and other daily NYT brain games, drawing millions who share scores and frustrations on social media.

For March 11’s edition, the 16 words were: DRESS, HEE, ICE CREAM, JAZZ, LIFT, MI, OUI, PALM, PINCH, PINE, POCKET, SNOW, SPIFF, SPRUCE, TRAFFIC and YEW.

Hints circulated quickly online from sites like Mashable, CNET, Forbes and The Gamer, offering subtle nudges without full spoilers. Common early clues pointed to “take without permission” for the yellow group, “enhance, perhaps vertically” or “make nicer with ‘up’” for green, “conical variety” or “photoreceptor cells and funnels” for blue, and “sounds like…” or “pronoun homophones” for the challenging purple.

The yellow category proved the most accessible: **STEAL** — LIFT, PALM, PINCH, POCKET. These are all informal verbs meaning to pilfer or swipe something discreetly, from “lifting” goods in retail slang to “palming” an item or “pinching” pennies.

Green followed as **MAKE NICER, WITH “UP”** — DRESS, JAZZ, SPIFF, SPRUCE. Each word pairs with “up” to form a phrase meaning to improve appearance or style: dress up, jazz up, spiff up, spruce up. Reviewers noted this as a classic Connections trope relying on common idioms.

The blue group, rated medium difficulty, was **KINDS OF CONES** — ICE CREAM, PINE, SNOW, TRAFFIC. This category highlighted diverse uses of “cone”: the frozen dessert, the evergreen tree part, a weather phenomenon like a funnel cloud variant, and the road safety device. Players often spotted “ice cream” and “traffic” first, then connected the others.

The purple category, as usual the trickiest, required thinking phonetically: **PRONOUN HOMOPHONES** — HEE, MI, OUI, YEW. These sound like the English pronouns “he,” “me,” “we” and “you” but come from other languages or spellings — “hee” (a variant or laugh sound approximating “he”), “mi” (as in do-re-mi, sounding like “me”), “oui” (French for “yes,” homophone to “we”), and “yew” (the tree, pronounced like “you”). Many solvers called this one “bizarre” or “diabolical,” with some needing multiple mistakes before cracking it.

Player reactions flooded Reddit’s r/NYTConnections subreddit and X, where the daily thread for March 11 garnered hundreds of comments. Scores varied widely: some finished in perfect runs with few guesses, while others struggled with the purple group, reporting three or four mistakes. “That purple had me yelling at my screen,” one user posted. Another praised the cone category: “Once I saw traffic and snow, it clicked — great misdirect with pine though.”

The puzzle’s difficulty rated around average for midweek, with the purple homophones providing the biggest hurdle. No major bugs or complaints surfaced, unlike occasional past issues with ambiguous words.

Connections continues to evolve under NYT Games, occasionally introducing themed variants like Sports Edition (No. 534 on March 11 focused on athletics terms). The core game remains free with limits or via subscription for unlimited play.

For those who missed it or want a rematch, the official NYT site archives puzzles, though spoilers abound online. Strategy tips from experts include scanning for obvious pairs first, avoiding early submissions on uncertain groups to preserve mistakes, and considering multiple meanings — literal, slang, homophones or phrases.

As Connections marks its third year, puzzle No. 1004 exemplified why the game endures: clever wordplay, escalating challenge and that satisfying “aha” moment when groups lock in. With daily refreshes at midnight Eastern Time, players in Incheon and beyond already eye tomorrow’s grid.

Whether you’re a streak maintainer or casual solver, March 11’s edition reminded fans that Connections rewards lateral thinking — and a good ear for sounds-alike tricks.

As the war in Iran sent oil prices soaring, one market holding up unexpectedly well is that of the world’s largest crude importer: China. Chinese stocks have fallen less than global peers since the conflict began, the yuan has held steady against the dollar and government bond yields have barely moved. Together, this amounts to surprising resilience in a crisis that, at first glance, appeared likely to leave the country vulnerable.

For decades Beijing has sought to insulate its economy from precisely this kind of shock. It poured investments into renewables, secured dominance across much of the clean-energy supply chain and promoted electric vehicles at a remarkable speed. The result is an economy still dependent on imported fossil fuels but less beholden to them than before – providing some protection as oil prices have jumped as much as 65% since the conflict.

“Chinese asset classes are something that is missed by global investors as a safe haven,” Cary Yeung, head of Greater China debt at Pictet Asset Management.

Global markets have been on a roller coaster since the war broke out late February. Stocks slid as crude – which briefly surged to almost $120 a barrel – threatened to stoke inflation and delay central bank easing, only to rebound on signals from Washington hinting at a possible end to the fighting.

Asian equities have taken the hardest hit, given the region’s heavy reliance on imported energy. Japan, Korea and India are down about 6%, 9% and 4%, respectively, since late February. European markets have lost around 5% and US stocks fell 1.4%. Yet China’s CSI 300 slipped just 0.3%. That means a Chinese investor have preserved more capital than in most major markets.

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