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Good Morning,
Jefferies is arranging SpaceX shorts after being snubbed from its IPO, BofA is sticking with entry-level hires despite AI fears, ASML became Europe's most valuable company, Google upsized its record-breaking equity offering, and Jamie Dimon will personally pitch ultra-rich clients on SpaceX's IPO.
Columbia Business School Exec Ed and Wall Street Prep launched a comprehensive online program on AI for Business & Finance, covering everything from GenAI foundations to advanced ML, all while offering access to a global network of industry veterans. Learn more below.
Let's dive in.
Before The Bell

As of 6/3/2026 market close.
Learn more about the Litquidity portfolios and subscribe to the strategies on Autopilot.*
Markets
US stocks slipped from ATHs yesterday as traders digested prolonged US-Iran negotiations
S&P snapped a nine-day win streak
Earnings
Broadcom beat Q2 earnings estimates but missed on revenue despite a 48% surge on demand for custom AI chips, including Google's TPUs (CNBC)
CrowdStrike issued a Q1 beat-and-raise as 'the worlds of cybersecurity and frontier AI collide' (CNBC)
Macy's issued a beat-and-raise on its strongest Q1 growth in four years amid a high-stakes turnaround effort (CNBC)
GameStop posted record quarterly profit on a 65% surge in its collectibles business as it adapts to consumers buying video games digitally (WSJ)
What we're watching this week:
Today: lululemon
Full calendar here
Prediction Markets
Anthropic also picked Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs to lead its historic IPO
Trade event contracts on Polymarket, the world's largest prediction market
Headline Roundup
Iran war may end in interim deal (RT)
Gulf states are in talks for an oil pipelines to bypass Hormuz (FT)
Private payrolls grew by the most since January 2025 (CNBC)
Quant traders generated a combined $114B in revenue last year (FT)
Bank of America will hire 4k interns and analysts despite AI fears (RT)
Jamie Dimon will pitch JPMorgan's ultra-rich clients on SpaceX IPO (BBG)
Jefferies becomes go-to arranger of SpaceX shorts after IPO snub (BBG)
Greg Abel puts stamp on Berkshire Hathaway with pair of megadeals (WSJ)
Holly Kim says private credit reckoning is written in 'laws of physics' (BBG)
Vanguard's S&P 500 ETF surpassed $1T in AUM (BBG)
ASML became Europe's most valuable company ever (BBG)
Trade groups urge US to boost memory chip supply (BBG)
Meta is selling AI agents to businesses in AI monetization push (BBG)
Saudi's PIF replaces foreign CEOs with locals (FT)
Sellers are pulling homes off the market at fastest pace since Covid (CNBC)
Wealthy Russians see empires crumble as Putin seizes assets (BBG)
Germany, France, and UK sketch plan to engage Putin in Ukraine talks (BBG)
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Deal Flow
M&A / Strategic
Nippon Paint and Sherwin-Williams ended their $14.5B effort to buy Netherlands-based Akzo Nobel, allowing it to proceed with its $25B merger with Axalta Coating Systems
BlackRock and Temasek are considering a $10B sale of AI data center parts maker Xnrgy Climate Systems
Japanese consumer electronic retailers Yamada and Edion plan to merge in an over $5B deal
China Southern Power Grid Co. abandoned efforts to gain control of Chile's top power transmission company Transelec from Canadian pensions at a $4B valuation
Sixth Street agreed to acquire a minority stake in commodities data and analytics firm Kpler from Insight Partners and Rothschild-owned Five Arrows at an over $3.7B valuation
Triton Partners agreed to acquire German drive technology maker Flender from Carlyle at a reported $3.5B valuation
Country music star Garth Brooks is considering a $2B sale of his catalog
SoftBank is among bidders for Blackstone's $625M sale of Japanese payments services provider SP.LINKS
Investment firm Aequita will acquire the automotive unit of German industrials giant Rheinmetall for $405M to make Rheinmetall a pure defense company
Danish digital-experience software company Sitecore acquired AI customer-experience platform Scrunch in a $225M deal
Foods giant Nestle will take full control of German ready-to-drink meal maker yfood Labs at a $522M valuation three years after buying a 49% stake
Russia authorized France's TotalEnergies to sell its 10% stake in a $21B US-sanctioned Arctic LNG project
VC
Chinese OpenAI rival DeepSeek is set to raise a debut $7.5B funding round at a $55B valuation from investors including Tencent
AI research startup Lila Sciences is in talks to raise a $2B Series B at an $8.5B valuation anchored by CalPERS and NVentures
Self-driving startup Nuro raised $500M from Uber
AI music startup Suno raised a $400M Series D at a $5.4B valuation led by Bond Capital
AI market research platform AlphaSense raised a $350M round at a $7.5B valuation from Vitruvian Partners, JPMorgan Asset Management, Goldman Sachs Alternatives, D.E. Shaw Ventures, and others
Oxford Quantum Circuits, an Oxford University spinout developing quantum computing hardware and software, raised a $350M Series C led by Bullhound Capital
Coralogix, a software monitoring startup, raised a $200M Series F at a $1.6B post-money valuation led by Advent and Canada's CPPIB
Forage, a mission-driven financial infrastructure platform for low-income families and retailers, raised a $40M Series B led by Mouro Capital
Lassie, an autonomous systems startup for small businesses, raised $35M in a Series A led by a16z
Terra AI, an AI platform for subsurface exploration, raised a $20M Series A led by Khosla Ventures
Arpio, a cloud recovery and resilience platform for cloud environments, raised a $15M Series A co-led by S3 Ventures and Paladin Capital Group
Access the complete VC deal flow and data on Fundable
IPOs / Listings / Issuances / Block Trades
Google raised its record-breaking equity offering from $80B to $85B
SpaceX is seeking to raise $75B at a $1.8T valuation in a fixed-price all-primary IPO
Anthropic picked Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs to lead its IPO
French media giant Canal+ was valued at $3.4B in its South Africa secondary listing after closing its $3B acquisition of African pay-TV giant MultiChoice
Honeywell-backed quantum computing company Quantinuum raised $1.7B in an upsized IPO priced above an increased marketed range
Bill Ackman's hedge fund Pershing Square will exit its $1.7B stake in Europe-listed Universal Music Group after it rejected a takeover bid
Canadian power producer TransAlta will acquire two natural gas-fired plants near Denver from Blackstone for $1B
Vedanta Resources' US-domiciled Zambian copper and cobalt producer CopperTech Metals is seeking to raise over $670M in a US IPO
Greenbriar-backed Applied Aerospace & Defense raised $650M for a $3.55B valuation in an IPO priced at the top of a marketed range
Aussie data center operator NEXTDC recently raised $2.5B in equity and debt to fund expansion
Chinese humanoid robots firm PaXini Tech is considering a Hong Kong IPO; the firm is valued at $1.5B
Aussie connectivity firm Megaport is seeking to raise $600M at a 14% discount to fund creation of an AI inference cloud
Dubai-based fashion and lifestyle retailer Apparel Group is considering an India IPO of its India unit
SPAC / SPV
SPAC Lionheart Capital is raising $2.25B, with $1.5B of backing from brokerage fintech Clear Street, to purchase Venezuelan oil fields for $150M-$400M
Debt
JPMorgan is preparing to sell $1.85B of debt to back Belden's $1.85B acquisition of Ruckus Network from Vistance Networks
Citigroup, Santander, and JPMorgan are working on a $1B debt package for a $3B shale project by Argentine natural gas firm TGS
Hong Kong conglomerate Jardine Matheson is seeking a $1.1B loan to fund its $2.4B takeover of Aussie medical diagnostic imaging provider I-MED Radiology Network from UK PE firm Permira
Bahrain sold $1B of dollar bonds at a 7.125% YTM just hours after Iran's missile attack
Alphabet will participate in a $1B California munis deal to finance purchase of a discounted long-term electricity supply for Pioneer Community Energy
Coastal GasLink, a pipeline project in Western Canada, is seeking to sell $720M of high-grade bonds
Indonesia SWF Danantara hired banks for a dollar bond sale
Bankruptcy / Restructuring / Distressed
Zambia is set for talks with creditors after a group of bondholders blocked its bid to buy back a $1.36B bond before a costly coupon increase
Ares is owed over $550M following the collapse of John Textor's Eagle Football Group, with recovery dependent on the sale of the group's principal assets including Olympique Lyonnais and Botafogo
Clover Private Credit Opportunities Origination, a former UBS private credit fund, sued law firm Pillsbury Winthrop for helping fintech Aspiration Partners defraud it of $145M
Funds / Secondaries
Investment firm Crescent Capital raised $10.8B for its fourth private credit fund
Swiss investment firm Partners Group limited redemptions from an $8.6B flagship private markets fund
Investment firm Kayne Anderson's real estate arm raised $5.1B for its biggest-ever fund
Joshua Kushner's VC ThriveCapital launched Current, a $1B vehicle to acquire local accounting firms and rebuild them around AI
UK investment firm Fasanara Capital launched a $500M private credit strategy to finance and flip Ferraris
UK financial services-focused PE firm AnaCap raised $370M for its second buyout fund
Wingman Growth Partners raised $215M for its debut fund
Midwest VC R1 Capital spun out from Rev1 Ventures with $150M to back enterprise AI/software, deep tech, and life sciences startups
Crypto Sum Snapshot
Strategy's Bitcoin investment is currently at a $8.5B unrealized loss
Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe will launch a stablecoin platform
Binance will shut down its NFT marketplace
Crypto Sum compiles the most important stories on everything crypto. Read it here.
Exec’s Picks
Ben Carlson shared a cool piece on the different kinds of successful investors.
WSJ published some quite interesting data points to put Elon Musk's wealth into perspective.
Also, how the H-1B crackdown on Indians is eroding a Texas (North Dallas) real estate boom. A hot-button issue if you follow the politics…
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