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US is in talks to acquire Venezuela's oil fields, Nvidia paused its revenue-sharing deals with AI cloud companies, ex-Barclays CEO Jes Staley shared confidential JPMorgan client and deal information with Epstein, and Kevin Durant is set to record the best athlete investment ever after his seed/Series A investment in Hugging Face delivered a 240x return from its exit to Nvidia.
Today's letter is brought to you by F2, the agentic operating system for private markets. Their deal agent, Adam, is built on the best models from Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google and embedded in your firm's institutional knowledge. Try a demo and see for yourself.
Let's dive in.
Before The Bell
As of 8/27/2026 market close.
Learn more about the Litquidity portfolios and subscribe to the strategies on Autopilot.*
Markets
US stocks rallied yesterday as traders digested strong earnings from AI bellwether Nvidia
EM stocks volatility is dropping at the fastest pace since Covid
US Treasuries fell for a second day
Earnings
Marvell Technology issued a Q2 beat-and-raise on growth in its data center business (WSJ)
Workday beat Q2 earnings and revenue estimates on growing adoption of its AI agents (WSJ)
Best Buy issued a Q2 beat-and-raise on strength in all major categories, especially computing, as its turnaround takes hold (CNBC)
Dollar General issued a Q2 beat-and-raise as shoppers opt for cheaper products (RT)
Ulta Beauty issued a Q2 beat-and-raise as the firm focuses on innovation, value and convenience to boost sales (WSJ)
Full calendar here
Prediction Markets
You just know Tom Lee is invested in this market lmao
Deposit $10 and get a $20 bonus with code LIT on signup, only on the Polymarket US app
Headline Roundup
2026 TIME100 AI list incudes Paris Hilton and Bernie Sanders but not Jensen Huang (TIME)
Consulting firms order juniors back to office to sharpen human skills (FT)
Venezuela is weighing exiting OPEC (BBG)
Trump renamed Lake Ontario to Lake America amid trade war (CNBC)
Bessent and Warsh diverge on fundamental economic policy (RT)
US bank regulators will narrow enforcement focus to financial risks (FT)
Japan regulator warned against single stock leveraged ETFs (BBG)
Korea's $1.4T pension rose 27% in H1, with 100% gain in domestics (BBG)
Citadel Securities Q2 trading revenue surged 250% to a record $7.3B (BBG)
Two Sigma told investors that its billionaire founders are fighting again (BBG)
Nvidia paused revenue-sharing deals with AI cloud companies (WSJ)
Kevin Durant is set for 240x gain from Hugging Face exit (BR)
Big Tech firms call for defensive surge to defeat AI-driven hacks (RT)
Leopold promised to by his wife a galaxy before his fund blew up (NYP)
Thinking Machines Lab co-founder Barret Zoph joined Google (RT)
US diesel supplies hit a record low ahead of demand season (BBG)
Ex-Barclays CEO Jes Staley shared confidential JPMorgan client and deal relationships with Epstein (WSJ)
Harvard Business School explored Europe push amid White House clash (FT)
A Message from F2
Meet Adam. The top-bucket deal agent for private credit.
Bids are won on speed, but moving fast doesn’t have to mean cutting corners on the analysis. F2 built Adam to break that tradeoff, and he works inside your firm's own playbook:
Built on the best models from Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google, each routed to the work it does best
Embedded in Institutional Knowledge: Adam starts with every deal your firm has ever done
Deal Intelligence: Adam takes deals from data room to IC-ready memo in hours, with deeper, more defensible analysis
Adam is the #1 agent on SpreadsheetBench, tested on real private markets deals.
Get to the deal first, with analysis that holds up at IC.
Deal Flow
M&A / Strategic
US is in talks with Venezuela to take a major stake in oil fields
PE firm Advent and payments fintech Stripe abandoned their $50B take-private of PayPal
UK consumer goods giant Unilever will sell its Colman's mustard brand to resolve antitrust concerns amid a $45B merger of its food business with McCormick
Solstice Advanced Materials and Element Solutions mutually terminated their $14.5B merger
Apollo will acquire a co-controlling stake in private jet fixed-base operator Atlantic Aviation from KKR at a $10B valuation
Quant hedge fund AQR is pursuing an appraisal arbitrage trade in Permira and Warburg Pincus' $8.4B LBO of investment and accounting software maker Clearwater Analytics
Anthropic almost acquired AI startup MatX for $7B
SoftBank is in talks to buy a majority stake in OpenAI-backed humanoid robot startup 1X Technologies at a $6B valuation
EQT raised its $3.7B tender offer for Japanese price comparison website Kakaku by a negligible < 0.01¢/share despite activist Oasis Management rallying against deal terms
Japanese trading house Itochu Corp. offered to buyout $3.4B-listed Japanese IT services and consulting firm Dentsu Soken in a cash deal
Canadian energy company Enbridge formed a JV with KKR and Apollo to invest $2B to expand its British Columbia natural gas pipeline system
Swedish miner Boliden agreed to acquire Brazilian holding company Votorantim's controlling stake in Brazilian zinc producer Nexa Resources
Chinese conglomerate Fujia Group is considering selling its majority stake in Hexie Health Insurance
DigitalBridge Group, the data center PE firm being acquired by SoftBank, will acquire Australia's largest smart-meter provider PLUS ES from Ausgrid Group
Crypto custodian firm BitGo will buy NYDIG's institutional trading business
Rupert Murdoch plans to eventually merge Fox Corp and News Corp
VC
Identity verification startup Socure raised a $156M series E extension at a $5.2B valuation led by Summit Partners and will acquire agentic compliance/risk operations platform Fravity
Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is set to raise $7.4B in a new funding round at a $74B valuation from Monolith, Shixiang Capital, CATL, and others
RQD* Clearing, a clearing and custody firm, raised $74 million in a minority investment led by Bain Capital Tech Opportunities
Metriport, an open-source healthcare data infrastructure company, raised $26M in new funding led by Matrix
CivilGrid, an underground infrastructure data platform, raised a $26M Series A led by Spark Capital
Atorie, an AI-powered fashion startup, raised a $9.5M seed round from a16z Speedrun, Night Capital, and Jeremy Liew of Lightspeed
IPOs / Listings / Issuances / Block Trades
Anthropic will publicly file for its potential $100B IPO after Labor Day
Dubai-based private aviation group Vista Global is considering raising $1B at a $10B valuation in a Switzerland or Italy IPO
German auto parts maker Mahle is reviving plans for a $300M-$400M India IPO of its Indian business
Indian advanced thermal engineering solutions Tempsens Instruments surged 110% in its trading debut after raising $68M in India IPO
Debt
Moderna plans to raise $2B in a convertibles sale
France's TotalEnergies may be reimbursed $1.3B for loans to sanctioned Russian LNG venture Arctic LNG 2 as part of the transfer of its 10% stake to a subsidiary of Russian operator Novatek
Australian iron ore miner Fortescue is considering raising $445M in a debut panda bond sale
Madison Dearborn Partners-backed wealth management platform Wealthspire raised $300M in a debut junk bond sale
Uplifters Foundation plans to build new $3M houses in the fire-impacted Pacific Palisades neighborhood in LA by selling $250M in munis
Indian resources conglomerate Vedanta plans raise $105M in a third local FX bond sale this year
Funds / Secondaries
Swiss PE firm Partners Group got a $1B private credit mandate from Indonesian SWF Danantara
Real estate credit manager BridgeInvest raised $610M for its flagship fund
Private markets investment firm Siguler Guff is considering raising $350M-$400M CV for four Indian portfolio companies
Permanent Capital Ventures raised $200M for its second fund
Crypto Sum Snapshot
Bitcoin treasury companies have shed $80B in value as business model unwinds
UK-based crypto exec Manpreet Kohli is facing extradition to US for fraud
Crypto Sum compiles the most important stories on everything crypto. Read it here.
Exec’s Picks
The first US-listed MLCC & capacitor ETF is live. Every AI server runs on roughly 30,000 MLCCs, and $CAPA, the Defiance AI Capacitors Leaders ETF, puts the global MLCC and capacitor supply chain in one ticker. Learn more here.
A&M Crypto: Institutional Digital Asset Advisory
Alvarez & Marsal's crypto practice is the leading global digital asset advisory firm with 90+ offices, crypto-native operators, and clients spanning half the Fortune 500 to the largest crypto institutions. They offer strategy to hands-on implementation in stablecoins, tokenization/RWAs, custody and infrastructure, M&A, IPOs, and more. Looking for institutional guidance on your firm's crypto strategy? Talk to A&M Crypto.
WSJ published an extensive profile on the connections that helped propel Leopold Aschenbrenner to the top, before his hedge fund came crashing down.
Barry Ritholtz published an informative primer on what's causing the recent spike in yields.
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.
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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.