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The eurozone just might avoid a recession, Japanese investors turned net buyers of overseas bonds, Hong Kong real estate firms are leading China's "reopening" trade, Amazon is going big on physical stores, Super Bowl betting set records for sports books, and, in the most crypto story ever, the founders of Three Arrows Capital (a now-bankrupt crypto hedge fund) launched an exchange to let users trade bankruptcy claims. Classic.

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Let's dive in.

Before The Bell

Markets

• All three major US indexes rallied by more than 1% yesterday as investors bet on optimistic inflation data today

• The pan-European Stoxx 600 rose 0.9% to recover Friday's losses

• The dollar rose to a six-week high against the yen

• Today, we'll receive January's CPI reading

Earnings

• Palantir jumped 16% AH after reporting its first ever quarterly profit for Q4 on a 79% YoY increase in customer count; the firm expects a profitable FY on AI boom (CNBC)

• What we're watching this week:

  • Today: Coca-Cola, Airbnb, GoDaddy, Restaurant Brands International 

  • Wednesday: Cisco, Shopify, Zillow 

  • Thursday: DraftKings, WeWork

• Full calendar here

Headline Roundup

• Eurozone may avoid a recession as energy crunch eases (BBG)

• Investments in technology remain surprisingly resilient (NYT)

• Europe has spent over $850B to tackle energy crisis (RT)

• Japan investors turned net buyers of overseas bonds in January for first time in five months (RT)

• Hong Kong real estate firms / funds are leading China's re-opening trades (RT)

• Biden will name Fed's Lael Brainard as his top economic advisor (BBG)

• 2022 saw a record number of new activist investors (AX)

• Adani Group slashed its revenue growth target by half (RT)

• China's economic bonanza from trade surplus is fading (BBG)

• Adani Group claimed its companies' balance sheets are 'very healthy' (RT)

• Amazon's CEO vowed to ‘go big’ on physical stores (FT)

• Credit Suisse says rogue staffer took personnel data such as pay (BBG)

• Twilio will cut ~17% of staff (RT)

• Meta's chief business officer Marne Levine will depart this year (AX)

• Layoffs are hitting big law (WSJ)

• Super Bowl betting set records for sportsbooks (CNBC)

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Deal Flow

M&A / Investments

• Banking and payments processing giant Fidelity National Information Services will take a $17.6B write-down on its merchant business after announcing plans to spin off a $43B acquisition (RT)

• EU antitrust regulators opened a full investigation into US satellite company Viasat’s $7.3B bid for British rival Inmarsat, warning that it may reduce competition in the aviation connectivity market (BBG)

• The US DOJ is likely to sue to block the pending $3.8B merger between JetBlue Airways and Spirit Airlines (RT)

• Media company Fox Corp. turned down unsolicited offers of $2B+ for its Tubi streaming service, over four times what it paid for the business (BBG)

• Israeli billionaire Teddy Sagi offered to buy software solutions company Kape Technologies in a deal valuing it at ~$1.51B (BBG)

• Luggage company Away, which was valued at $1.45B when it raised capital in 2019, is exploring strategic options including a sale (BBG)

• Angolan energy company SOMOIL agreed to buy Portuguese oil company Galp Energia’s exploration and production assets in Angola for ~$830M (RT)

• Canadian gold miner B2Gold agreed to buy domestic mining company Sabina Gold & Silver in an $820M deal (BBG)

• British lender NatWest agreed to buy 85% of workplace savings and pensions fintech company Cushon for $174M (BBG)

• Investment firm Foris Ventures agreed to invest $10M in solar company Complete Solaria, whose merger with Freedom Acquisition I Corp is expected to close in the first half of 2023 (BBG)

• British telecom group Liberty Global agreed to buy a 4.9% stake in rival Vodafone (BBG)

• A Qatar Investment Authority-led consortium is preparing an offer for Manchester United (BBG)

• Shares of London-based lender Standard Chartered fell up to 7% after First Abu Dhabi Bank reiterated it isn't currently evaluating a possible offer for the firm (BBG)

VC

• Zeekr, the luxury EV brand of China’s largest private carmaker Geely, raised a $750M Series A at a $13B valuation from CATL, Yuexiu Industrial Fund, Tongshang Fund and others (TC)

• On-demand shuttle service and transit tech startup Via raised a $110M Series F at a $3.5B valuation led by 83North (TC)

• Highbeam, a startup providing banking features, credit, and cash flow insights to e-commerce customers, raised $10M in debt from TriplePoint (TC)

• No-code web3 infrastructure platform Caldera raised $9M across two rounds led by Sequoia Capital and Dragonfly Capital (TC)

• Qotto, a solar kit provider in sub-Saharan Africa, raised an $8M debt / equity round led by the IBL Group (TC)

• CaPow, a startup developing perpetual power solutions for autonomous robotics, raised a $7.5M seed round led by IL Ventures (PRN)

• Quino Energy, a water-based organic flow battery startup, raised a $4.55M seed round led by ANRI (PRN)

• BuuPass, a Kenyan startup building a B2B2C full-stack marketplace for mobility, raised a $1.3M pre-seed round from Founders Factory Africa, FrontEnd Ventures, Adaverse and more (TC)

IPO / Direct Listings / Issuances / Block Trades

• South Korean grocery app Oasis withdrew plans for an IPO amid difficulty in reaching an expected valuation (BBG)

SPAC

• Music distributor Alliance Entertainment completed a $480M merger with Adara Acquisition (MBW)

Debt

• Saudi Arabia’s PIF raised $5.5B from a three-part green bond sale, their second debt offering in four months (BBG)

• Germany's Delivery Hero will offer a 4% semi-annual coupon rate to raise $1.07B via a new seven-year convertible bond (RT)

• India raised $1B in its first ever 'green bond' sale, with the ten year bond priced at a 7.29% coupon (FT)

• Hong Kong hired Bank of China, Credit Agricole, Goldman Sachs and HSBC to raise $102M via a first digital green bond sale (YH)

Bankruptcy / Restructuring

• Sorrento Therapeutics, a target of short-seller Hindenburg, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection (BBG)

Fundraising

• The European Investment Bank (EIB) group and five EU countries agreed on a new $4B fund of funds to invest in late-stage VCs (SFT)

• Mesa West, the US real estate credit arm of Morgan Stanley Investment Management, raised $1.37B for a fifth value-add real estate debt fund (BW)

• Alternative investment firm Summit Partners closed a $1.5B fourth Europe Growth Equity Fund (FN)

• Sydney-based VC firm EVP raised $70M for its fourth-fund to continue investing in tech (AFR)

Crypto Corner

• The founders of bankrupt crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital launched Open Exchange, a $25M crypto-exchange venture that will let users trade bankruptcy claims from insolvent platforms / funds (WSJ)

• New York regulator ordered crypto firm Paxos to stop issuing Binance stablecoin (WSJ)

• SEC will sue Paxos over Binance stablecoin (WSJ)

• New EU banking regulation assigned highest risk score to crypto (BC)

• Cryptocurrency payments app Wirex and Visa will expand their partnership to 40 countries (CD)

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• Bloomberg published an interesting piece breaking down how many billions of dollars remote work is costing Manhattan.

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