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Good Morning,

Back to NYC for a few days! Making some exciting announcements soon.

Quick recap from Friday: Markets were up big on Friday, US VC funding fell 31% in 2022, Goldman is cutting 3,200 jobs this week, world food prices rose by 14.3% to a record high in 2022, Jack Ma will relinquish control of Ant Group, Salesforce aims to cut costs by $3-5B, Twitter made further staff cuts to its global content moderation team, and Vince McMahon will return to WWE's board.

Want to diversify your portfolio with an uncorrelated asset like fine art? Check out today's sponsor, Masterworks.

Let's dive in.

Before The Bell

Markets

• All three major US indexes climbed 2%+ as investors interpreted slowing wage growth as a sign of cooling inflation

  • The US labor market nonetheless remains tight, adding more jobs than expected in December as unemployment fell to pre-pandemic lows

• The pan-European Stoxx 600 rose 1.2% to its highest level since May 2022

• Global stocks also soared, with the MSCI All-World index leaping 2.1%

• On Thursday, we'll receive December's CPI followed by a slew of bank earnings on Friday

Earnings

• What we're watching this week:

  • Today: Jefferies

  • Tuesday: Bed Bath & Beyond 

  • Thursday: TSMC

  • Friday: JPMorgan, BofA, Citi, Wells Fargo, BlackRock

• Full calendar here

Headline Roundup

• US economy added 223k jobs in December, with unemployment falling back to 3.5% (AX)

• Goldman to cut ~3,200 jobs this week after cost review (BBG)

• Average hourly earnings growth slowed to 4.6% YoY in December (RT)

• US VC funding fell 31% YoY in 2022 (RT)

• US equity funds posted net outflows for a seventh straight week (RT)

• Global equity funds posted net outflows for a ninth straight week (RT)

• World food prices hit record high in 2022, up 14.3% YoY (RT)

• Hedge funds ramp up dollar shorts on bets for slower Fed hikes (BBG)

• Argentina and China formalized a currency swap deal, allowing Argentina to increase FX reserves (RT)

• Hedge fund fees have fallen to their lowest levels since 2008 (RT)

• Chinese real estate financing jumped 33% YoY in December (RT)

• Investment manager AQR posted its best year across several strategies in 2022 (RT)

• Founder Jack Ma will relinquish control of fintech giant Ant Group (RT)

• Salesforce aims to cut costs by $3-5B (FRT)

• Chinese Tesla owners protest against surprise price cuts they missed (RT)

• Twitter made further staff cuts in its global content moderation team (BBG)

• Houston Texans will buy carbon credits from Occidental Petroleum to offset emissions caused by team’s air travel (BBG)

• Ex-WWE CEO Vince McMahon will return to the company's board (RT)

A Message From Masterworks

Investment Platform Goes 9 for 9 with Profitable Exits in 2022

Last year was a bloodbath for the average retail investor. Adjusting for inflation, the S&P 500 plummeted 25%, while a Total Bond index declined 20.3% – the worst results in nearly 100 years.

Despite this dismal backdrop, one investment platform saw its best year ever.

You’ve heard me talk about the blue-chip art investing platform Masterworks for the last 2 years, not only because of its unicorn status, but also because of their impressive results. All 11 of their exits have been profitable, 9 of those in 2022, with the last 3 realizing +13.9%, +35.0%, and +10.4% net returns each.

The formula to their successful track record lies in the strength of the art market through downturns. Even through the dotcom bubble, and Great Financial Crisis, the art market was resilient.

By qualifying every offering with the SEC, Masterworks makes it easy for retail investors to stake their claim in the high-end art market. And as a trusted partner, Exec Sum readers can skip the waitlist to join here.

See important Regulation A disclosures.

Deal Flow

M&A / Investments

• US oil refiner Phillips 66 agreed to buy all publicly held units of natural gas company DCP Midstream at an $8.7B valuation (RT)

• The Mexican Government agreed to buy defunct airline brand Mexicana for $42.41M (RT)

• Cathie Wood’s ARK Fintech Innovation Fund sold 99% of its shares in cryptocurrency-focused bank Silvergate Capital after it was forced to sell assets at a steep loss as customers pulled out most of their deposits during Q4 (BBG)

• Finance in Motion, a German asset manager focused on ESG investing, is exploring a sale (BBG)

VC

• Indian fintech KreditBee raised a $100M Series D extension at a $680M valuation led by Advent International (TC)

• Synthekine, an engineered cytokine therapeutics company, raised a $100M Series C led by The Column Group (BW)

• Perceive Bio, a gene therapy startup focused on treating dry age-related macular degeneration, raised a $78M Series B led by JJDC (PRN)

• Doorstead, a property management startup which offers guaranteed rental payments to homeowners, raised a $21.5M Series B led by Avanta Ventures (TC)

IPO / Direct Listings / Issuances / Block Trades

• Ivory Coast raised $228M in the IPO of its stake in the local unit of telecom company Orange (BBG)

• WeDoctor, a Tencent-backed Chinese startup aiming to transform the country's healthcare system with advanced technology, plans to file for an IPO by the end of April and aiming its float for the second half of 2023 (BBG)

Bankruptcy / Restructuring

• Party City is preparing to file for bankruptcy within weeks (WSJ)

Fundraising

• New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced the launch of a $30M pre-seed and seed matching fund program; the program will invest between $50-250k in early-stage startups with matching funds from the private sector (NY)

Crypto Corner

• US subpoenaed hedge funds in probe of crypto exchange Binance (WP)

• DOJ and SEC are investigating transfers between Digital Currency Group and DCG subsidiary Genesis (CD)

• FTX teams in US and Bahamas agreed to coordinate crypto recovery efforts (RT)

• A US Trustee objected to FTX's plans to sell its digital currency futures and clearinghouse LedgerX and its units in Japan and Europe (RT)

• US prosecutors launched a website for SBF's fraud victims (RT)

• Crypto payment provider Wyre announced a change in rules that will limit customers to withdrawing no more than 90% of their account funds (TB)

Exec's Picks

• According to MIT News's David Chandler, we may now know why Roman concrete was so durable.

• Morgan Housel wrote a great piece on justifying optimism last week.

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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