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US is playing trade policy like a game of monopoly, China set its growth target at 5%, PE AUM fell for the first time ever, a Twitter lender said Twitter is more profitable than markets believe, and none other than BlackRock acquired two major Panama Canal ports within weeks of Trump's plan to bring them under US control.

Curious about the state of fintech in 2025? Plaid just released their highly insightful 2025 Fintech Predictions Guide, discussing some interesting trends on the horizon. Check it out.

Let's dive in.

Before The Bell

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Markets

• US stocks swung to close lower as investors digested new tariffs (and potential tariff pacts) on Canada and Mexico

  • S&P wiped out all post-election gains

• Global stocks across Europe, Asia and elsewhere also plummeted

• US 10Y yield rebounded from four-month lows

• Dollar traded at a three-month low

  • Euro rose to a four-month high and a YTD versus dollar

Earnings

• Target beat Q4 earnings and revenue estimates but forecast a a rough Q1 on concerns about consumer health and the additional effects of tariffs (CNBC)

• Best Buy fell 13% despite beating Q4 earnings and revenue estimates as it forecast flat FY sales growth on likely tariff-fueled price hikes which may offset sales growth (CNBC)

• CrowdStrike fell 9% despite beating Q4 estimates as it grapples with weak spending on its products despite rapid adoption of cybersecurity AI (CNBC)

• Nordstrom beat Q4 sales estimates on strong holiday demand as the firm prepares to go private (MW)

• AutoZone missed Q2 revenue estimates amid inflationary pressures and FX fluctuations and warned of near-term impacts from tariffs and cautious consumer spending (RT)

• What we're watching this week:  

  • Today: Abercrombie & Fitch, Victoria's Secret, LandBridge

  • Thursday: Costco, Broadcom, Macy's, Gap

• Full calendar here

Headline Roundup

• PE AUM fell for the first time in twenty years (FT)

• US may relieve yesterday's Canada and Mexico tariffs by today (CNBC) 

• Global government borrowing is set to hit a record $12.3T (FT)

• China set its GDP growth target at 5% (CNBC)

• Soros CIO sees investors who shifted to privates in 'world of hurt' (BBG)

• Top decile Asian equity fund is most bullish on Chinese stocks ever (BBG)

• NYSE president Martin sees 'more normal' IPO market this year (BBG)

• Hong Kong targets creation of rival to Euroclear (FT)

• CFPB dropped its Zelle case against JPMorgan, BofA and Wells Fargo (RT)

• TD Bank set its new CEO's pay at $8M and cut pay for US CEO (RT)

• Activist Elliott nominated seven directors to Phillips 66's board (RT)

• Twitter-lender Diameter says X was more profitable than first believed (BBG)

• Google urged US to reverse course on antitrust breakup (BBG)

• A court denied Musk's attempt to block OpenAI from going for-profit (CNBC)

• Goldman plans to cut 5% of jobs in review targeting VPs (WSJ)

• UK asset manager abrdn rebranded back to aberdeen (FT)

• Arab states endorsed an alternative to Trump's Gaza plan (FT)

• Ukraine will sign US mineral deal (BBG)

A Message from Plaid

Our 2025 Fintech Predictions?

Two words: Edible Bitcoin. 

We kid, we kid (unless…). When it comes to predicting the future of fintech, we defer to the experts: Plaid – and can you blame us? They've got a seriously impressive track record of nailing upcoming trends, which is why we're so excited to check out their latest and greatest:

Fintech Predictions 2025

What's inside this free download? Plaid's co-founder and CEO Zach Perret gives the skinny on (among other topics): 

• Fraud as the #1 focus for banks

• AI: hype or substance?

• Renaissance of fintech funding

• Surge of interest in stablecoins

If you want to flex your fintech knowledge to your friends/coworkers/competitors, this is one piece of content you can't miss.

Get your free copy of Fintech Predictions here.

Deal Flow

M&A / Investments

• A group led by BlackRock agreed to acquire a 90% stake in Hong Kong's CK Hutchison's Panama Canal port operations and dozens of other global ports in a $22.8B deal

• Italy's Banco BPM plans to launch an offer for Italian asset manager Anima this month as part of its defense against UniCredit's $10.48B all-share hostile takeover bid

• Blackstone dropped out of race for a minority stake in Indian snack maker Haldiram's over valuation concerns; Haldiram's is seeking a $10B valuation 

• PE firm Francisco Partners agreed to acquire O&G software firm Quorum at a $2.4B valuation, including debt

• Engineering conglomerate Honeywell International agreed to acquire industrial pump manufacturer Sundyne from PE firm Warburg Pincus for $2.16B cash ahead of a planned three-way split (RT)

• Insurance firm Arthur J. Gallagher agreed to acquire rival Woodruff Sawyer in a $1.2B deal

• South Africa's Nedbank and  Norwegian investment firm Norfund acquired a substantial minority stake in Pele Energy Group as part of a $165M investment

• Swedish lender Swedbank agreed to merge its corporate finance and high-yield bond teams with SpareBank 1 to form a new investment bank SB1 Markets

• 23andMe rejected a $75M MBO bid by its CEO Anne Wojcicki 

VC

• Chinese tech giant and TikTok-owner ByteDance plans to buy back employee stock at a $312B valuation

• Peregrine Technologies, a tech platform for state and local law enforcement agencies, raised a $190M Series C at a $2.5B valuation led by Sequoia

• Assured Insurance Technologies, a startup automating insurance claims with AI, raised a round at a $1B valuation from ICONIQ and Kleiner Perkins 

• Saudi quick commerce firm Ninja is in talks to raise a round at a $1B valuation led by Riyad Capital

• Materials science startup Forge Nano is seeking to raise new funding at a $900M valuation

• Odeko, a startup helping local F&B businesses with operations and technology, raised a $126M Series E led by B Capital

• Flowdesk, a digital asset trading and liquidity business, raised a $102M round from HV Capital and BlackRock

• Aescape, a robotics startup creating a massage experience, raised an $83M strategic round led by Valor Equity Partners

• Hotel management platform Mews raised a $75M round led by Tiger Global

• Tandem PV, a perovskite solar tech company, raised a $50M Series A led by Eclipse

• Netforce, a French law enforcement tech startup, raised $48M from GEM Global Yield

• Swap, a startup building tools for e-commerce companies to navigate cross-border trading, raised a $40M Series B led by ICONIQ Growth

• Quantum computing startup QuantWare raised a $21M Series A led by Invest-NL Deep Tech Fund and InnovationQuarter

• LlamaIndex, a startup allowing developers to build custom agents over unstructured data, raised a $19M Series A led by Norwest Venture Partners

• Infrared, an Ethereum liquidity staking protocol, raised a $16M Series A led by Framework Ventures

• Heidi Health, a healthcare startup developing an AI scribe to ease doctor workloads, raised a $16M Series A follow-on led by Headline

• Helios, a an AI-powered workforce management platform, raised a $15.5M seed round

• Daisy, a home and small business technology installation and services company, raised a $15M Series C

• Stargate Hydrogen, a manufacturer of electrolyzer stacks and systems, raised an $11M Series A led by Giga, UG Investments, and SmartCap Green Fund

• myTU, a Lithuanian AI-powered cloud-first digital bank, raised a $10.6M Series A from existing backers

• Nitricity, a startup electrifying the production of nitrogen fertilizer, raised $10M in funding led by Elemental Impact and Trellis Climate

• Cloud security enforcement platform Aryon Security raised a $9M seed round led by Viola Ventures and Blumberg Capital

• GEM HEALTH, a virtual specialty care company, raised a $7M Series A led by HealthTrend Capital and LFE Capital

• AI revenue workforce solutions provider Alta raised a $7M seed round led by Entrée Capital and Target Global

• Mote, a startup working on carbon negative energy production, raised a $7M Series A led by Nella Next and Preston-Werner Ventures

• Digital pass issuance startup PassEntry raised a $6.7M round led by Acurio Ventures and Bonsai Partners

• Copley Software, an AI-powered cross-channel experimentation platform, raised $4.8M led by Asymmetric Capital Partners and Underscore VC

• Scrunch AI, a startup helping companies prepare for a world in which more AI bots and agents visit their website than humans, raised a $4M seed round led by Mayfield

• Uniti AI, an AI agent platform for CRE operators, raised a $4M seed round led by Prudence

• Cino, a real-time shared payment app allowing users to split bills, raised a $3.7M seed round led by Balderton Capital

IPO / Direct Listings / Issuances / Block Trades

• Reliance Retail, the retail unit of Indian conglomerate Reliance, is restructuring to address investor concerns in hopes to boost its valuation from $50B to $125B for a potential IPO

• Indian budget hotel chain Oyo Hotels is fast-tracking its IPO to meet a looming $383B debt repayment deadline, with a potential $5B valuation

• KKR is looking to raise $1.5B in mandatory convertible preferred stock offering 

• UK insurance firm Prudential aims to raise $1B at a $12B valuation in an India IPO of its India JV ICICI Prudential Asset Management

• Italian businessman Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone raised his stake in Italian insurer Generali to 8% via a $525M investment

• Swedish investment firm Roko is aiming to raise $502M at a $2.9B valuation in a Sweden IPO in what could be the largest Nordic IPO in three years

SPAC

• Japanese regenerative medicine firm Instinct Brothers will merge with Relativity Acquisition Corp in $242M deal

Debt 

• EU proposed borrowing up to $158B as part of a rearmament plan

• China plans to issue $69B in special sovereign bonds to boost capital at its largest state-owned banks

• Private credit lenders HPS, Ares, Oaktree, Sixth Street. Goldman Sachs Asset Management and JPMorgan Asset Management and banks Citigroup, Goldman, UBS, Wells Fargo, and JPMorgan are in talks to lend $12B to back Sycamore Partners' potential $20B LBO of Walgreens Boots Alliance, with private credit making up $4.5B of the debt package

• Consumer lender Ally Financial sold $2.8B of low-yielding investment securities as part of a repositioning 

• Chinese EV maker Geely raised a $2.5B syndicated loan to refinance debt related to its 2018 acquisition of a stake in Volvo

• Harvard University will issue $450M in tax-exempt bonds

• Oaktree secured a $215M private credit loan from Ares and Barings to fund its LBO of Australian advisory AZ Next Generation Advisory

Bankruptcy / Restructuring / Distressed

• Defaulted Chinese developer Country Garden missed a self-imposed target date to reach a deal on its debt restructuring plan

Fundraising

• South Korea is preparing a $34B fund for national strategic industries

• BlackRock-owned Global Infrastructure Partners is nearing a $25B close for its fifth fund, making it one of the largest infrastructure funds ever

• European PE firm CVC raised $4.8B for its CVC Strategic Opportunities III fund

Crypto Sum Snapshot

• IMF put the brakes on El Salvador's Bitcoin frenzy

Check out our Crypto Sum newsletter for the full stories on everything crypto!

Exec’s Picks

• Trump mentioned Panama Canal in his inaugural address and within weeks BlackRock CEO Larry Fink was on the line. Check out Bloomberg's article on how Larry Fink used a direct line to Trump for the Panama Canal deal.

• Matt Phillips shared some analysis on why retail traders may not buy this times dip.

• Joachim Klement shared his thoughts on why short and long-term investors really are different.

Financial Services Recruiting 💼

If you're a junior banker looking for your next career move, check out Litney Partners, a recruiting firm established by Litquidity and Whitney Partners (the oldest purely financial services executive search and consulting firm).

We aim to place strong candidates across private equity, hedge funds, venture capital, growth equity, credit, and investment banking.

We're currently seeking talent for some incredible roles. Head over to Litney Partners to drop your resume / create your profile and we'd love to get in touch!

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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"