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Ken Griffin hit back at Mamdani over his 'tax-the-rich’ mockery, Deutsche Telekom is weighing the largest M&A deal ever, Trump's Intel stake is paying off, and US is considering straight up buying bankrupt Spirit Airlines in another major deal following the White House's $21B equity shopping spree.

Seems like Trump has an affinity for this whole dealmaking stock-picking thing.

Wall Street's favorite LBO modeling platform Mosaic has some good news: they're expanding into private credit and banking. If you work in PE, credit, or banking, you must try it out. They've been a favorite at PE megafunds for some years now.

Let's dive in.

Before The Bell

As of 4/23/2026 market close.

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Markets

  • US stocks slipped yesterday as software, Iran, and oil jitters weighed

Earnings

  • Intel crushed Q1 EPS and revenue estimates on booming growth in its data center business thanks to surging demand for CPUs (CNBC)

  • Blackstone beat Q1 distributable earnings estimates as $70B of new AUM boosted revenue and fee-related earnings; the firm is predicting its best IPO year ever while also topping $100B in secondaries AUM (WSJ)

  • American Airlines beat Q1 revenue estimate and posted a smaller-than-expected loss but cut FY guidance and capacity growth plans amid a surge in fuel costs (CNBC)

  • American Express beat Q1 EPS and revenue estimates on strong demand and engagement with premium products across the customer base and especially Gen Z and millennials (WSJ)

  • What we're watching this week:  

    • Today: Procter & Gamble

  • Full calendar here

Prediction Markets

  • Who are the tech bros supporting?

  • Trade event contracts on Polymarket, the world's largest prediction market

Headline Roundup

  • Trump extended a Lebanon-Israel ceasefire as Iran peace efforts stall (CNBC)

  • Biggest IPO wave in history promises $3T in value with no profits (RT)

  • Blackstone cites AI build-out as firm's top driver (BBG)

  • Blackstone says its funds are designed with credit cycles in mind (RT)

  • US regulators are trying to get a grip on private credit risks (WSJ)

  • Private credit BDCs' 2028 maturity wall poses risk (BBG)

  • AI junk bond binge brings rare early repayments to sweeten deals (BBG)

  • Small banks are finally gaining on giant rivals (WSJ)

  • Meme stock Avis collapsed 70% (BBG)

  • Norway's $2.2T SWF fell 2% in Q1 (BBG)

  • First Citizens will retire the 'Silicon Valley Bank' brand (BBG)

  • Musk will retain full board control of SpaceX following an IPO (RT)

  • a16z and Thrive are set for massive windfalls on Cursor (BBG)

  • Bob Iger will return to Thrive following Disney CEO tenure (WSJ)

  • Australia's $240B SWF named Richard Brandweiner as CIO (BBG)

  • Microsoft plans first-ever voluntary buyout for 7% of US employees (CNBC)

  • Meta will cut 10% of jobs to 'offset' AI spending (FT)

  • KPMG will cut 10% of US audit partners (FT)

  • Nike cut 1.4k more jobs (CNBC)

  • Ken Griffin hits back at Mamdani over 'tax-the-rich' video (WSJ)

A Message from Mosaic

Wall Street-favorite Mosaic has an update

Since 2021, Mosaic has quietly established itself as the go-to deal modeling automation platform among  Wall Street’s leading PE firms. Even Bloomberg and FT have highlighted their ability to help build complex LBO models in minutes.

Today, they're out with an exciting update: an $18M Series A to expand their renowned LBO automation platform to IB and private credit. 

By popular demand, Mosaic is combining its deterministic, rules-based platform with natural-language agentic workflows and extending its capabilities to cover sell-side and credit financial modeling demands.

I wish I had this tool during my PE days and I'm not surprised that Mosaic is emerging as the industry standard in deal modeling.

A list of prominent funds already use Mosaic and report 20x faster error-free modeling and deal analyses. If you work on Wall Street, you must try it out.

Model with Mosaic

Deal Flow

M&A / Strategic

  • A $380B merger between majority shareholder Deutsche Telekom and its $215B-listed US unit T-Mobile would be the biggest ever

  • Warner Bros. Discover shareholders overwhelmingly approved the $110B takeover by Paramount Skydance despite opposition in Hollywood

  • American Airlines rejected a ~$40B merger with United Airlines and signalled deeper ties with Alaska Airlines

  • Bain ​Capital is seeking to sell a 40% stake in Singapore-based Bridge Data Centres at a $5B valuation

  • Stanmore Resources, Mitsubishi Corp., and BUMA Internasional Grup are bidding for the Aussie steelmaking coal assets of miner Anglo American after a $3.8B sale to Peabody Energy collapsed last year due to a fire

  • American Industrial Partners is in advanced talks to acquire WWS, the warehouse and workflow solutions business of industrials conglomerate Honeywell International, for potentially $2B

  • Apollo is nearing a $1.6B acquisition of the auto interiors business of French automotive supplier FORVIA

  • India's John Distilleries is open to selling all of its founder's remaining stake to US spirits group Sazerac following a funding round that fetched a $425M valuation

  • PE firm Atlas Holdings' bid for $215M-listed UK construction ​materials supplier BRCK Group collapsed on DD failures

  • Italian eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica ​acquired Faro, an ⁠Italian firm specializing ​in high-precision eyewear manufacturing tech

VC

  • Anthropic secondary shares are selling at a $1T valuation

  • Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is in talks to raise funds at a $20B valuation to retain staff

  • French satellite internet startup Univity raised a $32M Series A

  • Pudu Robotics, a commercial service robotics company, raised a $150M round at $1.5B valuation 

  • Omni, an AI analytics platform, raised a $120M Series C at a $1.5B valuation led by ICONIQ

  • Philippine consumer finance app Salmon raised $100M from Spice Expeditions, WUSTL, Moore Strategic Ventures, and FJ Labs

  • European artifact management platform Cloudsmith raised a $72M Series C led by TCV 

  • Humble Robotics, an autonomous, cabless, electric freight platform startup, raised a $24M seed round led by Eclipse

  • Petual, an AI-powered audit and compliance platform, raised $20M from a16z, First Round Capital, Cowboy Ventures, and Elad Gil 

  • Rilian, an AI-native cybersecurity and defense systems integrator, raised a $17.5M seed and seed extension led by 8VC

  • Multi-agent interaction infrastructure startup Band raised a $17M seed round from Sierra Ventures, Hetz Ventures, and Team8 

  • Blackstar, an AI hardware company, raised a $12M round led by Abstract

  • Era, a startup building a software platform for AI wearables, raised an $11M pre-seed and seed round led by Abstract Ventures and BoxGroup 

  • PvX, a UA financing platform for mobile games and apps, raised a $10.5M Series A led by T-Accelerate Capital

  • Copperhelm, an agentic cloud security startup, raised a $7M seed round led by TLV Partners

Access the complete VC deal flow and data on Fundable

IPOs / Listings / Issuances / Block Trades

  • Norway's $2.2T SWF NBIM is considering investing in SpaceX's $75B IPO

  • $30B-listed Czech state-owned power utility CEZ plans to spinoff its non-production assets to pave way for full government ownership of CEZ's power generation business

  • Italian lender UniCredit boosted its stake in $67B-listed insurance giant Generali to 8.7%

  • Italian app investor Bending Spoons picked banks for a $20B US IPO

  • A family office vehicle linked to India's GMR Airports will acquire a 7.3% stake in GMR from Paris airport operator ADP as part of a $1.1B deal

  • Swedish appliance maker Electrolux will launch a $975M rights issue and unveiled three North American JVs with Chinese rival Midea

  • Indian state Maharashtra is preparing a $500M-$1B IPO of its power distribution utility Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Co.

  • Alibaba-backed Chinese robovan operator Zelos Technology is planning a $600M Hong Kong IPO

  • Chinese battery materials maker Yangzhou Nanopore filed confidentially for a $200M Hong Kong IPO

Debt

  • Abu Dhabi, Qatar, and Kuwait raised a combined $13B in dollar bond private placements since the Iran war, with PIMCO buying over $10B

  • SoftBank is seeking a $10B margin loan backed by shares in OpenAI

  • AT&T raised $6B in an investment grade bond sale

  • Banks are preparing to sell $1.75B of debt financing to back Lone Star Funds' $2.9B acquisition of Swiss pharma manufacturer Lonza Group's capsules and health ingredients business

  • Baltic supermarket chain Maxima Grupe is in talks to sell $350M of bonds

Bankruptcy / Restructuring / Distressed

  • US is considering straight up buying bankrupt Spirit Airlines

Funds / Secondaries

  • UK wealth manager St James's Place yanked $6B from the systematic long-only strategy of $230B AUM hedge fund Man Group

  • JPMorgan Asset Management is raising several billion dollars for a private credit strategy to invest in loans sourced by JPMorgan's commercial bankers

  • Private markets FOF HarbourVest Partners raised $2.4B for its thirteenth flagship US primaries fund

  • New Mountain Capital raised a $2.4B CV for water infrastructure firm Azuria Water Solutions led by HarbourVest Partners

  • Growth equity investor Lime Rock New Energy raised $640M for its second fund to invest in energy transition companies

  • LVMH-backed PE firm L Catterton is launching a $500M consumer fund with strategic backing from athletes like Kevin Durant, Mike Trout, Joe Burrow, and Livvy Dunne

  • French healthcare VC Kurma Partners raised $250M for its fourth biotech fund

  • Bayshore Global Management, the family office of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, took over $200M AUM brain-health VC Nexus NeuroTech Ventures

  • Azalea Investment Management, a firm linked to Singapore SWF Temasek, plans to raise an evergreen PE fund 

Crypto Sum Snapshot

  • Jane Street urged a judge to throw out an insider trading lawsuit related to the $40B crypto crash of Terraform Labs

  • Tether froze over $345M of assets following requests from US law enforcement

Crypto Sum compiles the most important stories on everything crypto. Read it here.

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*DISCLAIMER: Investment advice provided by Autopilot Advisers, LLC ("Autopilot"), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Investing carries risks, including loss of principal. As always, be smart out there. Litquidity is compensated to promote AutoPilot. Compensation details available upon request.

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