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Good Morning,

The Fed is getting ready to raise interest rates (again), Yellen wants to move ahead with a global minimum corporate tax, Amazon sold 300M items on Prime Day, China is dealing with a mortgage boycott, Musk wants to block Twitter's request for an expedited trial, and Disney is jacking up the cost of ESPN+.

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

• Stocks rebounded on Friday to end a volatile week filled with corporate earnings and economic data 

  • The S&P 500 snapped a five-session losing streak but ended the week down 0.9% 

  • The Dow and Nasdaq dropped 0.2% and 1.6% on the week respectively 

• A report from the Commerce Department showed that US retail sales rose 1% in June

• Earnings season will continue in full swing this week 

Earnings

• UnitedHealth Group exceeded revenue and profit expectations for Q2 on the back of its Optum health services and its UnitedHealthcare health insurance plans while also raising its future outlook for the second consecutive quarter; its stock rose 5.2% on Friday (FBS)

• WellsFargo’s Q2 profit fell 48% from a year earlier as a result of setting aside money for bad loans and a slowdown in mortgage lending, but the stock still rose more than 6% (CNBC)

• Citigroup posted a 27% profit decline but became the only big US bank to exceed earnings expectations for Q2 thus far; its stock rose 13% on the day (WSJ)

• Progressive rose 3.2% on Friday despite failing to meet earnings expectations and reporting a Q2 loss of $542.9M (MW)

• BlackRock also missed expectations, reporting a net income of $1.08B, down 22% from $1.38B a year ago (WSJ)

• What we’re watching this week:

  • Today: Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, IBM

  • Tuesday: Johnson & Johnson, Netflix 

  • Wednesday: Tesla, United Airlines

  • Thursday: AT&T, American Airlines, Snap

  • Friday: Verizon, American Express

• Full calendar here

Headline Roundup

• The Fed is preparing to raise interest rates by another 75 basis points this month (WSJ)

• ​​US oil mergers dropped to $12B in Q2, nearly one-third of last year's Q2 numbers as market volatility persists (RT)

• US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the US aims to move ahead with global minimum corporate tax plans (RT)

• Amazon sold over 300M items in its biggest ever Prime Day sale (CNBC)

• China's central government is expediting local government debt issuance to bolster capital of small and medium-sized banks (RT)

• Chinese regulators are urging banks to extend loans to qualified real estate projects and meet developers’ financing needs amid a mortgage boycott (RT)

• China is trying to attract foreign money into its stock market by listing dozens of ETFs on a popular cross-border trading link called Stock Connect (WSJ)

• Ukraine's central bank has sold $12.4B of gold reserves since Russia invaded the country in February (RT)

• Boeing is 'very close' to resuming deliveries of the 787 Dreamliner after a nearly two-year pause (WSJ)

• Elon Musk filed a motion to block Twitter's request for an expedited trial over his abandonment of the $44B takeover deal (RT)

• Disney's ESPN+ will hike monthly subscription fees to $9.99, a 43.3% increase (RT)

• Shopify rescinded fall internship offers and halted recruitment for other roles as the tech-industry continues to dry up (BI)

• Cameron Smith won his first major at the 150th Open Championship after passing Rory McIlroy in the final round (ESPN)

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Deal Flow

M&A / Investments

• Telecommunication company Ericsson received clearance from the US national security panel to complete their $6.2B acquisition of cloud communications firm Vonage (RT)

• Australia & New Zealand Banking Group will acquire the banking operations of insurance firm Suncorp Group in a ~$3.3B deal (RT)

• Infrastructure investment firm I Squared Capital is weighing a takeover of fruit and vegetable conglomerate Fresh Del Monte, which has a current market cap of ~$1.5B (BBG)

• Independent gas company Momentum Midstream agreed to buy pipeline assets in East Texas from natural gas company Midcoast Energy for $1.3B (RT)

• A JV led by India's largest private port operator Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone will buy Israel's Haifa Port for ~$1.2B (BBG)

• Investment firms InfraRed Capital, Northleaf Capital, and Infratil will acquire Vodafone New Zealand's mobile-phone tower assets for $1.1B (BBG)

• RBC is exploring a potential sale of its European custody business (BBG)

• Starbucks is reportedly exploring a sale of its UK business (TT) 

• Virgin Media O2 is in talks to acquire UK-rival TalkTalk Telecom Group (BBG)

• Telecommunications company MTN Group is in talks to buy smaller domestic rival Telkom in a deal that would create South Africa's biggest mobile-phone operator (BBG)

VC

• Mexican fintech startup Stori raised a $150M Series C-2 at a $1.2B valuation: the raise included a $50M equity investment from BAI Capital, GIC and GGV Capital and a $100M debt facility from Davidson Kempner (PRN)

• Nyobolt, a British fast-charging battery startup, raised a ~$59M Series B led by H.C. Starck Tungsten Powders (RT)

• Phaidra, a provider of AI and ML to enhance performance in the industrial sector, raised a $25M Series A led by Starshot Capital (PRN)

• Arch Systems, an analytics platform for factory operations, raised $15M in new funding led by Two Bear Capital (PRN)

• Sift Healthcare, a data science platform for healthcare payments, raised a $9M Series A led by Allos Ventures and First Trust Capital Partners (PRN)

• Empiric Network, a new decentralized blockchain "oracle", raised a $7M funding round led by Variant (CD)

• Twenix, a Spanish edtech startup that helps professionals break down the barrier of speaking in English, raised a ~$3.5M Series A led by Brighteye Ventures (EUS)

• Decentralized derivatives exchange DEXILON raised $2M in seed funding backed by GSR, Youbi Capital, Fenbushi Capital, Ledgerprime, and Cipholio Ventures (PRN)

IPO / Direct Listings / Issuances / Block Trades

• Exotic car manufacturer Aston Martin plans to raise $772M through a share issuance to Saudi Arabia's state-owned Public Investment Fund, giving it a 17% stake and making PIF the company's second biggest stakeholder (BBG)

• Investment firm Dubai Digital Investment aims to raise ~$272M in Dubai IPO by year end to invest in technology deals (GN)

• Chinese fintech Amtd Digital rose 108% to $16.21 on Friday after its US IPO (BBG)

• Online music and entertainment company LiveOne raised $8.1M for its PodcastOne division for its plan to spinoff the subsidiary as a separate public company; PodcastOne has a $60M post-financing round valuation (BBG)

• Cancer detection startup AI Medical Service is planning a Tokyo IPO as early as next year (BBG)

Bankruptcy / Restructuring

• Bankrupt crypto lender Celsius owes over $4.7B of its total $5.5B liabilities to users of their platform (WSJ)

• A group of lenders led by Barings and Farallon Capital Management will take over UK cinema chain Vue International in a restructuring deal that will see the lenders swap a portion of the company's $828M debt they own for equity (BBG)

• Crédito Real, the Mexican consumer lender with over $2.55B billion of outstanding debt, is facing a liquidation of its business after acknowledging accounting flaws related to the value of its loan book (WSJ)

Fundraising

• VC firm McLaren Strategic Ventures is targeting ~$1B in funding to invest in tech startups and PE opportunities in India and beyond (BBG)

• Systemiq Capital, a VC firm that invests in early-stage climate tech startups, secured $70M to kick off its second fund and aims to raise $130M more (TC)

• Queer and female-led PE firm Alternative Wealth Partners raised ~$15M for their first fund (PRN)

Crypto Corner

• Russia banned the use of digital payments across the country (CD)

• House and Senate democrats push regulators to demand data from Bitcoin miners (TB)

• Crypto exchange Coinbase is reportedly 'temporarily shutting down' its US affiliate-marketing program for influencers and publishers on July 19 (BI)

• Crypto VC investments dropped 26% to a total $9.3B in the first half of 2022 (CD)

• Monthly trading volumes for NFTs fell 74% between the months of May and June, according to data compiled by The Block Research (TB)

Exec's Picks

• Yesterday, Mario Gabriele published a fantastic deep dive on Palmer Luckey's defense company, Anduril. Check it out here.

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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