Lever Up the New President

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Good Morning,

Banks are running 'war rooms' to prepare for tariffs and trade ructions, hedge funds levered up by the most since 2010 on a new presidency, Goldman promoted several execs to guide the banks' future, and Trump pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht.

Tired of Excel eating up your day? It's midnight. Deadlines loom. You're still stuck formatting cells and triple-checking formulas. Sound familiar? Mosaic was built to end nights like these.

Let's dive in.

Before The Bell

As of 1/21/2024 market close.

Markets

  • US stocks rallied yesterday on bets that US tariffs will be softer than feared 

  • UK's FTSE 100 hit a third-straight ATH

  • Europe's Stoxx 600 hit a three-month high on recent gains in luxury goods

  • India's Nifty 50 fell 1.4% to its lowest since June, down 12% from its September ATH

  • Gold is trading near its ATH from early-November 

  • Canadian dollar hit a near Covid low on US tariff threats

  • Mexican peso also sunk 1.4% to the lowest since mid-2022 

  • Yesterday marked the first full trading day under a new president. Check out what the 'Einstein of Wall Street' had to say about it from the floor.

Earnings

  • Netflix soared 16% after beating Q4 earnings estimates and adding a record 19M subscribers to surpass 300M paid memberships; the company will raise prices (CNBC)

  • United Airlines beat Q4 earnings estimates and forecast strong Q1 earnings thanks to strong travel demand and preference for pricier seats (CNBC

  • Charles Schwab beat Q4 earnings estimates boosted by record inflows (BBG)

  • 3M beat Q4 earnings estimates and forecast profit growth for 2025 on successful efforts to revive sales and reduce costs (RT)

  • What we're watching this week:  

    • Today: P&G, Johnson & Johnson, GE Vernova, Discover

    • Thursday: GE Aerospace, American Airlines

    • Friday: Verizon, American Express 

  • Full calendar here

Prediction Markets

  • Trade your predictions on a range of events legally, only on Kalshi. Get a $20 bonus when you deposit $100 with code LIT on signup!

Headline Roundup

  • PE plans for more debt if IPOs, sales don't work (BBG)

  • Banks are running 'war rooms' to prepare for new US trade ructions (RT)

  • Wall Street banks rake in ECM revenue as IPO volume recovers (BBG)

  • Europe stock allocation hit the second-highest level this century (RT)

  • Hedge fund leverage is at the highest since 2010 amid new POTUS (RT)

  • UK long-term gilt sale smashed records with £119B of demand (BBG)

  • France saw record demand for bond sale after long absence (BBG)

  • Hedge fund industry asks for 'Day One' reprieve on SEC rules (RT)

  • Canada inflation slowed to 1.8% (WSJ)

  • Ray Dalio warned of a UK 'debt death spiral' (FT)

  • Goldman promoted several execs to reinforce Wall Street dominance (BBG)

  • Activist Saba settled with BlackRock funds after activist battle (FT)

  • Saudi Arabia's PIF ramps up efforts to tap ETF investors (FT)

  • Perella Weinberg feud goes to trial a decade after schism (FT)

  • UK ministers forced out the chair of UK's antitrust regulator (FT)

  • Tech leaders pledged $500B in US AI investments (WSJ)

  • Trust in CEOs is eroding (AX)

A Message from Mosaic

The Smarter Way to Build Models

Say goodbye to grunt work. Mosaic automates the tedious, giving you time back to focus on what matters - analyzing deals and making smarter decisions. Built by private equity pros who've been in your shoes, it's designed to handle the complexity of deal modeling without the chaos.

With real-time integrations for CapIQ and FactSet, Mosaic does the heavy lifting:

  • Pulls live market data seamlessly into your workflow

  • Delivers precision and speed in minutes - not hours

  • Reduces late-night revisions and formatting headaches

From Excel Fatigue to Industry Standard

Leading funds like CVC and Warburg Pincus turn to Mosaic for handling complex models with ease - delivering accuracy while freeing up time for deeper, more strategic analysis. It's not just about speed, it's about smarter decisions and better results.

The question isn't if Mosaic works. It's why you're still doing it the old way.

Deal Flow

M&A / Investments

  • $7B-listed mobile office solutions provider Willscot attracted takeover interest from PE firms

  • Bain Capital is in talks to acquire Mitsubishi Chemical Group's ​​pharmaceutical business Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma for $3.2B

  • ​​Saudi investment mining fund Manara Minerals plans to purchase a 10-20% stake in Barrick Gold's Reko Diq project in Pakistan from Pakistan for $500M-$1B

  • Blackstone agreed to buy NYC's Kimpton Hotel Eventi for $175M

  • Italian insurance giant Generali and Natixis Investment Managers, which is owned by French retail bank BPCE, agreed to merge their asset management units to create a European giant with $2T AUM

  • Stablecoin issuer Circle agreed to acquire tokenized treasury issuer Hashnote

VC

  • Highnote, a card issuance and program management startup, raised a $90M Series B led by Adams Street Partners

  • Render, a cloud application platform for developers, raised an $80M Series C led by Georgian

  • Mitiga, a SaaS and cloud security startup, raised a $30M Series B led by SYN Ventures

  • Business communication company LeapXpert raised a $20M Series B led by Portage

  • Qomodo, an 'all-in-one' payment methods aggregator for physical merchants, raised a $13.9M Series A led by RTP Global and LMDV Capital

  • AI-based platform for customer engagement and last-mile logistics Package.ai raised a $14M Series A led by Susquehanna Growth Equity

  • Construction tech platform Kraaft raised a $13.5M Series A led by Dawn Capital

  • Gravity, an enterprise carbon accounting and energy management platform, raised a $13M Series A led by Ansa Capital

  • Green Fusion, a startup digitizing and optimizing heating systems for apartment buildings, raised a $12.5M Series A led by HV Capital and XAnge

  • Belfry, a platform for physical security providers, raised a $12M Series A led by Base10 Partners

  • Karmen, a French startup building instant financing products, raised a $9.4M round led by Seventure Partners

  • Zynap, a Spanish startup using GenAI to fight cybercrime, raised a $5.9M round from Kibo Ventures and Kfund

  • Aviation DePIN network Wingbits raised a $5.6M round led by Borderless Capital and Bullish Capital

  • MoneyHash, an Egyptian fintech helping merchants in MENA manage complex payment stacks, raised a $5.2M pre-Series A led by Flourish Ventures

  • BPR Hub, a cloud-based compliance management system for manufacturing companies, raised a $2.6M seed round led by Accel and Kae Capital

IPO / Direct Listings / Issuances / Block Trades

  • Travel app Hopper is planning an IPO at a potential $10B valuation

  • French AI startup Mistral, last valued at $6B, is working towards an IPO

  • UK fintech Monzo, last valued at $5B, is weighing US and UK for a potential IPO

  • Smithfield Foods is seeking to raise $940M at a $10.7B valuation in its US IPO

  • Malaysia's Sunway Healthcare is planning a potential H2 IPO aiming to raise $900M at a $4.5B valuation in what could be Malaysia's biggest IPO in a decade

  • ​​Infinity Natural Resources is seeking to raise up to $278M at a $1.2B valuation in its US IPO

  • China's Ascentage Pharma is seeking to raise $149M at a $1.75B valuation in a US IPO

Debt

  • TD Bank Group is seeking to sell a $9B portfolio of residential mortgages to comply with a new asset cap from US regulators

Bankruptcy / Restructuring / Distressed

  • Country Garden's shares resumed trading following a nine-month suspension after the troubled Chinese developer pledged to agree to a debt restructuring deal with creditors

Fundraising

  • Thoma Bravo closed its third enterprise software-focused private credit fund at $3.6B

  • French PE firm Ardian raised $3.3B for its sixth mid-cap growth fund

Crypto Sum Snapshot

  • SEC will launch a crypto-focused taskforce

  • Trump pardoned Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht

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

Exec’s Picks

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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