• Wayne Griffiths, CEO of Volkswagen’s Spanish subsidiary SEAT and father of the Cupra brand, stepped down at his own request “to pursue new challenges.” Just three weeks earlier, he told reporters his current post was a dream job and hoped to be around to see through the launch of Cupra in the United States. Could a Stellantis post beckon?

Three weeks ago, Wayne Griffiths was greedily looking forward to the June opening of Cupra’s flagship presence in the U.K. 

The father of the Spanish performance-car brand that styles itself as a rebel didn’t choose London but Manchester, the world’s first industrial city, where the CEO of Cupra and the broader SEAT group also grew up.

“You can imagine I’m really looking forward to going home,” Griffiths told journalists at his company’s annual press conference. “Like Cupra, it’s in my DNA.”

That won’t happen anymore—at least not as the head of SEAT (pronounced SAY-aht). Effective Monday, he abruptly stepped down at his own request “to pursue new challenges.” The news came as a shock after reporting record results despite a stagnant European car market in 2024, where it generates 90% of its total revenue.

In fact, Griffiths just said last month he had zero ambition to leave after taking over the CEO role in late 2020. And why should he? On track this year to hit 1 million cumulative vehicles sold since its 2018 founding as a stand-alone brand, Cupra was his baby. 

Griffiths was preparing the September unveiling of the Raval small EV, based off its Urban Rebel concept, and even exploring a deal to bring Cupra to the U.S. market, with local retailer Penske Automotive, by the end of the decade.

“I’ve always said this company is my destiny, I’m all in until the end of my career,” Griffiths told reporters at the event, saying he hoped to be around for the U.S. launch of Cupra in some years’ time. “For me personally, this, as I say, is a dream job. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. I don’t have any other plans.”

Created Cupra from a blank sheet of paper

Griffiths could only be described as a marketing genius when he created Cupra in 2018. Unlike Europe’s other popular brands that often boast the substance and name recognition only a century of automotive history and motorsport racing can provide, Cupra is a brand effectively cooked up by committee in a corporate boardroom. 

And yet, thanks to Griffiths’ nose for strategy, positioning, and design, he was able to outgrow other upstart premium peers like Hyundai’s Genesis, Polestar of Sweden, France’s DS, and even more established players like BMW’s Mini.

In the process, he delivered consolidated turnover of €14.5 billion ($15.7 billion) and operating profit of €633 million last year. Both are record highs for SEAT, long a problem child for parent Volkswagen Group, puking up red ink year after year amid repeated rumors of a possible shutdown. More than half of its total 2024 revenue came from Cupra alone, according to its finance chief. 

Key to that success was the turnaround a decade ago by Jürgen Stackmann, who pushed an ambitious strategy through Volkswagen to expand into SUVs for the first time in 2016 with the Ateca. But it was Griffiths that has taken a restructured SEAT and turned it into a solid profit contributor led by Cupra.

In a LinkedIn post on Tuesday, Griffiths shed no light on what his next move is after 37 years at the Volkswagen Group—or whether in fact he already had a new assignment lined up. Stellantis chairman and Fiat heir John Elkann is currently on the lookout for a new CEO, for example. 

“As my hero David Bowie said, ‘I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise you it won’t be boring,’” wrote the Mancunian at heart.

A spokesman for Stellantis declined to comment to Fortune, reaffirming the company planned to announce a CEO before the end of the current second quarter. 

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Circle Internet Financial, a leading U.S. crypto firm that issues the stablecoin USD Coin, filed long-anticipated paperwork for an initial public offering on Tuesday. The 225-page financial disclosure includes previously unreported insights into one of the world’s largest crypto firms, illustrating Circle’s outsized presence in the booming stablecoin space, as well as the risk factors that might give investors pause ahead of an IPO. 

Founded in 2013, Circle has attempted to go public before, resulting in a failed SPAC agreement in 2022 that cost the company over $44 million in costs, according to the S-1 filing.  But with the crypto industry ascendant in the U.S. thanks to the support of President Donald Trump, Circle is hoping that the second time is the charm—and boasts over $1.6 billion in revenue in 2024 to attract would-be investors. 

Although the document does not lay out a timeline for Circle’s public offering plans, companies’ shares typically begin trading within weeks of filing their S-1. Fortune previously reported that the fintech—which plans to trade under the ticker CRCL—is working with investment banks JP Morgan Chase and Citi on the IPO. Here are some key takeaways from the S-1 filing: 

Circle is growing—but its income depends entirely on stablecoin reserves

When Jeremy Allaire and Sean Neville cofounded Circle during the early days of the blockchain industry, they intended the company to disrupt the payments space, launching different products, including a crypto exchange and Venmo-type service. Around 2018, the firm began to focus entirely on stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency that is pegged to an underlying asset, such as the U.S. dollar or a commodity like gold or oil. 

Circle’s stablecoin USDC exploded in popularity during the last crypto bull market, rising from a market capitalization of under $1 billion in 2020 to over $50 billion in 2022. Because USDC is backed by dollar-like assets such as U.S. treasuries, Circle earns a hefty return on the interest generated by its reserves, keeping the revenue rather than passing it on to USDC holders. Those returns still represent the vast majority of Circle’s revenue. According to the S-1, over 99% of Circle’s $1.68 billion in revenue from 2024 came from reserve income, with just $15 million coming from other sources. 

That means that Circle is highly dependent on a single source of revenue—and one that is dependent on government-set interest rates. In the S-1, Circle estimated that just a 1% decrease in interest rates could result in a $441 million decrease in its stablecoin reserve income. However, Circle argued that a decrease in interest rates could result in a rise in USDC in circulation as investors turn to different financial strategies. “Any relationship between interest rates and USDC in circulation is complex, highly uncertain, and unproven,” reads the filing. 

Circle is paying Coinbase and Binance to boost USDC adoption

Circle originally envisioned USDC as a partnership between different crypto firms and traditional financial institutions, creating a consortium called Centre that would help govern and issue the stablecoin. But Centre only have had one other participant—the leading crypto exchange Coinbase. Circle and Coinbase shuttered Centre in 2023, though they remain partners on USDC. 

New disclosures from the S-1 reveal how the partnership shifted in 2023, with Coinbase taking a minority equity stake in Circle. Before the new agreement, Circle and Coinbase shared revenue generated from USDC reserves based on the amount distributed and held by each company. But under the new terms, the payments are more evenly split based on the total reserve income, though it is still divided by how much is held by each company’s wallets and custodial products.

Last December, Circle also announced a partnership with the top crypto exchange Binance to promote the adoption of USDC and hold the stablecoin as part the company’s treasury. According to the S-1, Circle paid Binance a one-time fee of $60.25 million for the partnership, as well as agreeing to pay a monthly fee representing a percentage of USDC held on Binance and its treasury.  

Circle is feeling the heat from competition

While USDC’s market cap has exploded over the past year, doubling from around $30 billion to $60 billion, it is facing a crowded marketplace. Along with its main rival—the offshore Tether, which boasts a market cap of over $140 billion—Circle lists a number of other competitors in its S-1. That includes PayPal, which launched its own stablecoin in 2023, and banking giants like J.P. Morgan that are exploring the blockchain space. 

Still, Circle sees bullish conditions ahead, including the passage of stablecoin legislation in the U.S. After the Senate Banking Committee advanced a bill in March, the House is expected to vote on its version this week, with Circle ready to benefit from more regulatory certainty. That could only invite more players into the space, however.

Circle’s venture capitalists are poised to cash in

Allaire, CFO Jeremy Fox-Geen, and more than ten other executives stand to reap millions from Circle’s forthcoming IPO. But the real winners are the investors in Circle who hold 5% or more in the company’s stock. Those include the venture capital firm General Catalyst, which owns the most shares among the biggest corporate holders. IDG Capital, a Beijing-based venture firm, is not far behind. Other big VCs set to cash in on the Circle IPO are Breyer Capital, Accel, and Oak Investment Partners. Fidelity, the investment bank that has dipped its toes more and more into crypto, is also a big owner.

Collectively, Circle’s biggest investors hold more than 130 million shares in the stablecoin giant. The initial filing did not include details about how much money Circle is targeting to raise through its IPO, though sources say the IPO aims for a valuation of $4 to $5 billion.

It pays to work at Circle

Circle’s executives make a pretty penny. Allaire, unsurprisingly, is the most well-compensated and has a total compensation package of more than $12 million. That’s $900,000 in base salary, $9 million in stock awards, plus another $2 million in other benefits.

Jeremy Fox-Geen, the CFO, is the second-most compensated exec and has a take-home pay of $5.2 million. That’s $500,000 in base pay, $4 million in stock awards, and another $700,000 in other benefits. Rounding out the top executives are Chief Strategic Engagement Officer Elisabeth Carpenter, President and Chief Legal Officer Heath Tarbert, and Chief Product and Technology Officer Nikhil Chandhok. All of them make in the range of $4 to $5 million, according to the SEC filing.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com