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Good Morning,

Microsoft will incorporate ChatGPT into Bing, Amazon is laying off 18k, the Fed plans to slow rate hikes, Manhattan home prices fell for the first time since 2020, Wall Street's war for tech talent is cooling off, GM led US auto sales, and Jefferies might be going Japanese.

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Let's dive in.

Before The Bell

If you want to learn more about crypto trading strategies and the world of DeFi, check out our Foot Guns newsletter.

Markets

• US stocks closed higher to snap a 2-day 2023 losing streak as Fed minutes confirmed their inflation-focus and slowing of rate hikes

• The pan-European Stoxx 600 rose 1.4% in a third-straight day of gains on a lower inflation reading from France and better-than-expected business activity data

Earnings

• What we're watching this week:

  • Today: Walgreens Boots Alliance, Constellation Brands

• Full calendar here

Headline Roundup

• Fed December minutes confirmed that bank should slow pace of rate hikes, but wants to remain 'flexible' (RT)

• US job openings fell less than expected in November (RT)

• Britain inflation expectations fell in December (RT)

• France inflation unexpectedly dropped to 6.7% in December, in an optimistic sign for Europe (RT)

• Foreign investors withdrew $57B from emerging Asian equities in 2022 in biggest outflows since 2008 (RT)

• Mala Gaonkar’s $1.8B hedge fund, SurgoCap Partners, started trading Tuesday in the largest debut of a woman-led hedge fund in the industry’s history (BBG)

• Manhattan home prices fell 5.5% in first decline since mid-2020 (BBG)

• China resumed approvals for PE funds to raise money for residential property development (BBG)

• Amazon will layoff over 18k employees, higher than the original 10k estimated (WSJ)

• Salesforce will cut ~10% of its workforce and reduce real estate holdings (BBG)

• Video platform Vimeo is laying off 11% of its staff (VMO)

• Ireland fined Meta $419M on privacy violations, adding on to the firm's $800M in fines last year (RT)

• Toyota's 2022 US auto sales fell by 9.6% (RT)

• Microsoft plans to incorporate OpenAI's ChatGPT software in Bing search engine (TI)

• Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce was ordered to pay $848M in damages to PE firm Cerberus (RT)

• Foxconn's biggest Chinese rival wins premium iPhone contract (FT)

• Samsung's consumer-products CEO expects tech slump to persist through 2023 (WSJ)

• Wall Street's war for tech talent is cooling off (TI)

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Deal Flow

M&A / Investments

• Byju Raveendran, the founder of ed-tech startup Byju, is in financing talks to lift his stake in the company to up to 40%; Byju was last valued at $22B (BBG)

• Swiss PE firm Partners Group agreed to buy personal protective equipment maker SureWerx in an ~$870M deal (BBG)

• Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group is considering raising its stake in Jefferies Financial Group. Sumitomo currently holds a ~5% stake and hopes to make Jefferies an equity-method affiliate, which could involve an interest of 20-50%; Jefferies stock jump ~19% on the news (BBG)

• US-founded global law firm Holland & Knight will merge with Nashville-based Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis to create a 2k lawyer army (RT)

• Telecom firm BT Group agreed to buy a minority stake in drone startup Altitude Angel (BBG)

• Payments-software provider ACI Worldwide is in talks with PE firms about a potential sale (BBG)

VC

• Performance management software startup Product Science raised an $18M seed round at a $200M valuation led by Slow Ventures, Coatue, K5 Global, and others (TC)

• Autonomous driving startup Gatik will raise $10M at a $700M+ valuation in a financing round from Microsoft (RT)

• Glowbar, a skincare startup offering a $65 clinical-grade facial, raised $10M in growth capital led by Peterson Partners, solidcore, Bonobos, and others (PRN)

• Exosome therapeutics startup Mantra Bio raised a $9M Series A-2 led by Samsung Securities, 8VC, Viking Global Investors, and others (PRN)

• Database-as-a-service startup SurrealDB raised a $6M seed round led by FirstMark (TC)

• Porter, a healthcare IT / services startup, raised a $5.4M seed round led by Grit Capital Partners, Old Line Capital, and JLC Family Office (PRN)

• Highline Technologies, a payroll-linked lending and bill pay startup, raised $4.5M in funding led by Foundation Capital and Costanoa Ventures (BW)

IPO / Direct Listings / Issuances / Block Trades

• GE HealthCare Technologies, General Electric’s former medical-equipment business, surged in its trading debut as investors bet on the now-independent company (BBG)

Debt

• Twenty corporate issuers raised $34.05B in US investment-grade bonds on Tuesday as firms take advantage of a favorable market window (RT)

• Hong Kong raised ~$5.8B of green bonds denominated in three currencies in its largest-ever green deal (BBG)

• Argentina extended maturities of ~$16.8B in debt by up to 1 year following a debt swap that saw high interest from banks (RT)

Crypto Corner

• Crypto exchange Coinbase will pay a $50M fine and spend $50M to improve compliance as part of a settlement reached with New York regulators (NYT)

• DOJ is in the process of seizing Robinhood shares worth ~$460M tied to SBF (RT)

• Crypto broker Genesis' CEO told clients they need more time to sort out finances (CD)

• Gemini's COO has left the company (BBG)

Exec's Picks

• The Minneapolis Fed published an essay that covered why they missed on inflation and implications on monetary policy moving forward

• Nassim Taleb pulled no punches in his latest piece: Bitcoin is the detector of Imbeciles

• Bloomberg's Ashley Carman and Lucas Shaw covered "The Great Podcasting Market Correction"

The Hiring Block 💼

If you're looking to break into finance, lateral, or move out, check out our job board on Pallet, where we curate highly relevant roles for you. We aim to curate jobs across IB, S&T, VC, tech, private equity, DeFi, crypto, CorpDev and more. We'll sift through all the noise on LinkedIn, Indeed, Monster, etc. so you don't have to.

If you're a company looking to hire candidates and want to list a job opening on our board and feature on Exec Sum, click the button below:

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