Hasbro's $500 million sale of film and TV studio Entertainment One to Lionsgate on Thursday morning marks an unglamorous end to the toymaker's grander Hollywood ambitions, Tim Baysinger writes.

Why it matters: Hasbro bought eOne for $4 billion in 2019. With the Lionsgate deal, it will now have sold off the majority of that for just $885 million.

The big picture: Adding eOne was part of former CEO Brian Goldner's plan to turn the toymaker into a bigger media player.

• The crown jewel of that deal — popular children's brands like Peppa Pig and PJ Masks — remain with Hasbro as they were folded into the company's wider merchandising operations.
• Those remaining pieces account for 15% of eOne's total business and operations.
• Hasbro found early success in films based on its toys with the "Transformers" franchise — for which eOne was not the studio, due to a prior production deal with Paramount.
• But since then, the Hasbro-eOne combo produced box office disappointments including the "G.I. Joe" spinoff "Snake Eyes" and "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves."

Of note: Hasbro is shifting its Hollywood play to a licensing model, CEO Chris Cocks said Thursday morning during the company's earnings call.

• There are still 30 projects in development based on Hasbro brands, Cocks said, which will now be under Hasbro Entertainment.
• That division will be run by Olivier Dumont, the current head of Family Brands.
• "We expect to move to an asset-light model for future live-action entertainment, relying on licensing and partnerships with select co-productions," Cocks said. "It's a plan about re-centering Hasbro."

Between the lines: While "Barbie" is likely to strut herself to a $1 billion box office this weekend, Hasbro's struggles with the rest of its toy catalog serve as a warning sign to Mattel about the difficulties of sustaining Hollywood success.

Catch up quick: Hasbro's Goldner died in 2021 following a lengthy battle with prostate cancer. His successor Cocks then launched a review of the business in early 2022.

• Around that same time, Hasbro came under fire from a pair of activist investors who criticized the eOne purchase and called for the company to offload it.
• Hasbro sold eOne's music business to private equity firm Blackstone for $385 million in 2021.

Meanwhile, Lionsgate's studio spinout plans have drawn M&A chatter about the future of its film and TV assets, which include more than 18,000 titles. Adding eOne only figures to further that conversation.

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Ford's U.K. chief this week fretted that extreme heat has drivers and investors simply throwing up their hands, imperiling the automaker's multibillion-dollar electric vehicle ambitions, Alan Neuhauser explains.

Driving the news: "We're in danger of making it feel like the world's on fire; it's too late," Tim Slatter told Bloomberg.

State of play: The comments came as the U.K.'s conservative leadership is considering backpedaling on some of the government's ambitious climate goals amid an outcry over soaring energy costs.

Meanwhile, also in the U.K., investors in just the past three months have withdrawn more than $1.3 billion from ESG-oriented investments, seeking perceived safer harbors during the global macroeconomic chill.

The bottom line: What to make of all this? The data doesn't offer much — though there are differences depending on the sector.

• Electric vehicles in the U.S. are piling up on dealer lots — partly due to their higher sticker prices, partly due to ongoing concerns about charging. And maybe — one publication posits — because U.S. wages have stagnated.
• Global renewable energy investment, by contrast, is booming.

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Stripe has found a chief financial officer after a six-month search, Lucinda Shen reported (before anyone else did).

Driving the news: The payments startup named Steffan Tomlinson to the role on Wednesday. Tomlinson previously helped take data analytics company Confluent public as its CFO in 2021.

• Stripe co-founder and president John Collison announced the news to the company.

Of note: Stripe has been considered a major IPO candidate for several years now. The company hired investment banks to explore going public and approached investors about its listing plans, according to media reports earlier this year.

• The company reached EBITDA profitability in the first two quarters of the year, a source tells Axios, confirming a report by The Information.

Background: Former Stripe CFO Dhivya Suryadevara stepped down in February, citing family matters. Collison took over her responsibilities in the interim.

• Her exit came as Stripe was raising funds at a $50 billion valuation after previously being valued at $95 billion.

What they're saying: "Steffan has a strong track record of optimizing the financial engines of high-growth and high-discipline organizations," Collison said in a statement.

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The Danish government is raising up to $800 million for a new fund targeting investments in waste management and waste handling, Alan first reported.

Why it matters: The fund underscores the complexity and amount of money needed to address a hardware-heavy sector that's historically been difficult to monetize for venture investors.

Catch up quick: The fund, known as the Investment Fund for Developing Countries (IFU), has built a roughly $1.3 billion impact-driven project portfolio.

• You may recognize the name from last week — IFU led Bright's $31.5 million Series C to expand rooftop solar in Mexico.

The latest: IFU began raising for its new waste-focused fund in July, Thomas Hougaard, IFU's head of green energy and infrastructure, tells Axios.

• "No official commitments, but we've already been around the block and spoken to the LPs and have a good feeling from them," Hougaard says.

Zoom in: The fund will pursue minority investments, with checks starting at $25 million for companies valued at $100 million or more.

• "It's impact growth capital, so we are targeting low to mid-teen returns," Hougaard says.

What they're saying: The market cooldown of the past year or so hasn't weighed too heavily on IFU's fundraising — including this latest raise that will near $1 billion.

• "We are getting a lot of support both from the Danish government and from pension funds because it's being counter-weighted by a lot of private interest — consumers like the story that their pension fund capital is not only generating returns but helping to do good in the world," Hougaard says.

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• Google search trial to move forward with narrowed case (Axios Tech Policy Pro)
• JPMorgan hopes to wrap Subway sale process by Labor Day (Axios Retail Deals Pro)
• Private equity firm KKR is reportedly in advanced talks to buy Simon & Schuster (WSJ)