Closing the racial wealth gap with commercial real estate | A $16.6B acquisition | Earnings season continues

Welcome to the BBJ's LinkedIn Weekly Edition! I'm Digital Editor?Jess Aloe , bringing you the top business stories from this week, plus what's going on in Boston's tech economy.??This week...

Boston rolls out program to help minority business owners buy their own real estate.

Teresa Maynard ’s business, Sweet Teez Bakery , has turned a profit every year since 2019. Some of the biggest names in corporate Boston have used Sweet Teez: Brigham and Women's Hospital ordered 9,000 cupcakes to give to employees this year, and the New England Patriots put almost 3,000 cookies into luxury boxes for this season’s home opener.

But since Maynard started Sweet Teez six years ago, she's been based out of the Dorchester food-business incubator CommonWealth Kitchen , which has limited its growth.

If Sweet Teez could find its own space, the business could take on more work, Maynard said, and she could bring on her three employees full-time.

Many businesses have sought to better recruit and retain employees of color and to use more minority-owned contractors. But entrepreneurs and advocates say there’s an overlooked path to helping owners of small businesses build real wealth: commercial real estate ownership.?

In this week’s cover story , Greg Ryan takes a look at Boston’s commercial acquisition program and how it could help close the racial wealth gap.

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What else happened this week:

Heart pump maker gets snapped up for billions?

强生公司 is buying Danvers-based Abiomed in a deal valued at $16.6 billion. Abiomed, which makes implantable heart pumps the size of a pencil tip, is one of the biggest acquisitions for the health care conglomerate in years as it focuses on growing its medical device unit.?

Read more about the deal here.

What does this deal mean for Abiomed’s future footprint in Massachusetts? Here’s what we know.

And, for more about Abiomed’s rapid revenue growth, which recently crossed $1 billion, check out this story from Grant Welker from late September.

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Chaos at Twitter?

Elon Musk has officially owned Twitter for only one week, but what a chaotic week it’s been. According to? Lucia Maffei ’s sleuthing, Twitter still has at least one office and some employees in the Boston area. Read more here.

(Or at least it did–on Friday, when this newsletter went out, Musk was in the process of slashing Twitter’s headcount by half, according to some reports.)

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Boston is not meeting its climate goals

Grim news from the The Boston Foundation ’s inaugural Climate Progress Report: Boston is off-pace to meet its 2030 carbon emissions goal and has “no clear path” to becoming net-zero by 2050. But it’s not all doom and gloom. Benjamin Kail Kail has the details here.

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Pegasystems has a defiant approach to $2b lawsuit

Many companies embroiled in lawsuits are reluctant to share details. Not Pegasystems .?

The Cambridge-based software maker is currently fighting a $2 billion verdict in a case brought against them by rival firm Appian . But it’s not trying to keep it under wraps. In fact, according to CEO Alan Trefler , Pega brings it up to customers.

Lucy Maffei has more on Pega’s strategy here.

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Motherboards and molecules — this week in Boston's tech economy:

It was a big week as many of Boston’s biggest tech and biotech companies reported their third-quarter earnings.? Some highlights:?

The CEO of troubled, cash-strapped Internet service provider Starry, Inc. told investors on a short call that he was confident the right solution would emerge. He also said that the company’s problems were all cash-related, not operational. Get the details on the unusual call here.

Wayfair , which has also struggled recently, outlined its path to profitability on its call. Find out when the company thinks it’ll be back in the black here.

Lucy Maffei also has three takeaways from DraftKings Inc. 's Friday call here .

Moderna has lowered its revenue outlook for 2022 by as much as $3 billion, citing supply constraints and vaccine authorization timing. But the company also offered little in the way of guidance for 2023. Find out more here from Rowan Walrath .

And as cases of respiratory syncytial virus reach a 2-year high, according to the CDC, Moderna said it expects to have a vaccine ready next year — but only for adults. Learn more about the vaccine and what needs to happen before it's approved.

Pharmacy giant CVS Health reported a $3.5 billion loss, driven in part by agreeing to pay nearly $5 billion as part of an opioid settlement, but still beat analysts’ expectations. Find out more here.

This week on the Petri Dish, Rowan Walrath ’s roundup of the biotech news you may have missed: Pyxis Oncology partners with 辉瑞 , Concerto Biosciences gets backing from Merck KGaA , Hologic, Inc. scores a BARDA contract, and more. Get all the details here.

It’s Form D Friday, Lucia Maffei ’s weekly feature highlighting which Boston-area companies are raising capital. This week, fundraises by Relevize , VerAI Discoveries and Connective Health . Find out how much they raised here.

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Finally…

Boston can't keep up with the 24/7 nightlife of New York City. It doesn’t have year-round nice weather like San Diego. And the parties on Carson Beach are no match for the bacchanals on Miami's South Beach.

But the city still wants to people to have fun.

This week on BostInno , three young people shared their visions for Boston's social scene with Hannah Green . Find out what the youths think a fun city would look like.

This Weekly Edition was compiled by Jess Aloe. This is a new feature from the Boston Business Journal, and she wants to hear your thoughts. Questions? Comments? Concerns??Send them her way .