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Good Morning,

A tourist vessel visiting the Titanic went missing, Intel is investing $33B in German plants, Alibaba has a succession plan, Virgin Galactic is launching its first commercial space tourism flight this month, Michael Jordan is selling his majority stake in the Hornets, and Airbus signed a record deal with IndiGo.

Plaid leadership is hosting a live webinar with industry leaders to discuss addressing fraud, accelerating payments, and the future of finance on June 22nd. Want to tune in? Reserve your spot here.

Let’s dive in.

Before The Bell

Markets

• The Nasdaq and S&P snapped six-day win streaks on Friday as comments from Fed officials curtailed optimism that the central bank is nearly done raising rates

  • The S&P notched its best week since March; it’s the indexes fifth green week in a row, the first such streak since November 2021

  • The Nasdaq had its best week since March and closed up eight weeks in a row for its best winning streak since 2019

  • The Dow had its third positive week in a row

  • US small-cap shares have outperformed their larger peers MTD

• US stock and bond markets were closed yesterday in observance of Juneteenth

• The pan-European Stoxx 600 shed 1.1% yesterday for its sharpest one-day decline this month

• Germany's DAX index dropped 1% after closing at a record high in the previous session

• All eyes are on Fed Chair Jay Powell as he prepares to testify before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday

Earnings

• What we're watching this week:

  • Today: FedEx, La-Z-Boy

  • Wednesday: KB Home, Winnebago

  • Thursday: Accenture, Darden Restaurants, FactSet

  • Friday: CarMax

• Full calendar here

Headline Roundup

• China cut key lending benchmarks to revive slowing demand (RT)

• Tourist vessel visiting Titanic went missing (WSJ)

• Xi tells Blinken that “very good” progress made on US-China ties (BBG)

• Investments in global ETFs hit a record $10.3T (FT)

• Alibaba names new chairman, CEO in surprise succession plan (BBG)

• Wall St bank job cuts are set to surpass 11k (FT)

• UBS faces hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties over Credit Suisse's mishandling of Archegos (RT)

• Intel will spend $33B in Germany in landmark expansion (RT)

• AstraZeneca plans to spin off its China business (RT)

• SVB clients who lost deposits remain on the hook for loans (WSJ)

• 'Great Resignation' continues as quarter of workers look to change jobs (RT)

• “Netflix Effect” lifts Korean content, but market control worries grow (RT)

• India's Byju's will cut up to 1k jobs (RT)

• Japan signed a critical minerals deal with the US (CNBC)

• US judge ordered Trump lawyers not to release evidence in documents probe (RT)

• Virgin Galactic set first commercial space tourism flight for June (CNBC)

A Message From Plaid

Don’t get mad, get Plaid

If you told us that some day, the future of finance would allow us to buy donuts with a tap of our phone, we’d have said…

1. You’re out of your friggin’ mind

2. Tell us more

Of course, with these breakfast-buying perks comes plenty of concerns (think fraud, privacy concerns, and technical issues) – exactly why Plaid has brought together the best and brightest minds to discuss it all at Plaid Threads 2023.

Register for the virtual event on June 22, 9AM PT right here.

Hear from Plaid leadership (including their CEO, CTO, and Chief Privacy Officer) as they sit down with industry leaders to discuss addressing fraud, accelerating payments, and where the future of finance will take us.

You don’t wanna miss it – reserve your spot here before it fills up.

Deal Flow

M&A / Investments

• Italy’s Telecom Italia is leaning toward entering talks with KKR over its $25B bid for its fixed landline network (RT)

• French multinational telecom Orange SA faces EU merger watchdog objections to its $19B bid to combine its Spanish operations with Masmovil Ibercom (BBG)

• Ball Corp, the world’s largest supplier of beer cans, is exploring a sale of its aerospace and national defense hardware unit for over $5B (RT)

• Abcam, a $5B life sciences firm whose founder is battling to remove some members of its board, has received multiple takeover approaches from suitors that include some of the largest US suppliers of life-science tools (BBG)

• Civitas Resources is nearing a deal to acquire oil and gas operations in the Permian basin from PE firm NGP Energy Capital Management for ~$5B, including debt (RT)

• nCino, a cloud banking vendor with a market cap of $3.6B, is exploring options including a potential sale after attracting takeover interest from PE firms (RT)

• A group led by Gabe Plotkin and Rick Schnall is purchasing Michael Jordan’s majority stake in NBA team Charlotte Hornets for $3B (BBG)

• Rocket Software is giving up its counteroffer for Software AG and is selling its 10% stake in the company to US PE firm Silver Lake, which has a $2.6B takeover bid for the company (RT)

• UK antitrust regulators approved Amazon’s $1.7B acquisition of vacuum robot maker iRobot (BBG)

• Buyout fund I Squared Capital and rival fund TDR Capital are evaluating a takeover bid for Spanish industrial testing company Applus Services, which has a market cap of $1.4B (RT)

• Media conglomerate Hearst Communications and rival PE firms BC Partners and Apax Partners are among bidders for data analytics firm Ascential’s $1B consumer trend unit WGSN (BBG)

• Crayon Group Holding, a $961M Norwegian IT consultancy, is exploring options including a potential sale (BBG)

• British asset manager abrdn will sell shares in India’s HDFC Asset Management Company worth up to $504M (RT)

• Italian bank UniCredit, Erste Group Bank and Banca Transilvania are among the parties interested in buying the Bucharest-based unit of OTP Bank in a potential $329M deal (BBG)

• Timken Singapore, the parent of tapered roller bearings manufacturer Timken India, will sell an 8.4% stake in the company for up to $231M (RT)

• CEO of SVB Securities Jeff Leerink and the Baupost Group entered into an agreement to buy SVB Financial Group’s IBD SVB Securities (RT)

VC

• Wavs AI, an AI music streaming platform, received a $20M investment from Regal Investments (FN)

• African solar pay-go startup Yellow raised a $14M Series B led by Convergence Partners (TC)

• DTE, a startup providing decision-making support for the metals production and manufacturing industry, raised a $10M Series A2 from Novelis, Metaplanet, and the European Innovation Council Fund (BW)

• Mach Industries, a hardware defense technology company, raised $5.7M in funding led by Sequoia Capital (FN)

IPO / Direct Listings / Issuances / Block Trades

• Michigan-based insurance broker Acrisure is looking to IPO in 2024 and is expected to be valued at well over $20B (BBG)

• E-commerce giant JD.com aims to create seven listed firms spanning logistics, health care, e-commerce and online finance with a market value of $14B each (BBG)

• The Shanghai Stock Exchange approved Chinese-owned seed giant Syngenta Group’s $9.1B IPO (BBG)

• Indonesia-based international courier company J&T Express is planning to raise $500M-$1B in a Hong Kong IPO (BBG)

• Gold miner PT Amman Mineral Internasional raised $715M in an upsized Jakarta IPO (BBG)

• Power firm Leader Energy Holdings is preparing an IPO in Malaysia and is seeking to raise up to $433M (BBG)

• German bus services firm Flix, the owner of the Greyhound and FlixBus bus brands, stepped up preparations for a possible IPO (RT)

• French Ligue 1 football club Olympique Lyonnais is weighing a direct listing in New York (BBG)

SPAC

• Metals Acquisition and Glencore closed the $875M purchase and sale of Glencore’s 100% interest in Cobar Management, the owner of an Australian copper mine (BW)

• K Enter Holdings, a diversified South Korean entertainment conglomerate, is merging with Global Star Acquisition in a $610M deal (GNW)

• Japanese PET chemical recycling company JEPLAN is merging with AP Acquisition Corp. in a $480M deal (MS)

Debt

• PE firms bidding for Subway are contemplating a $3B whole-business securitization to help fund the buyout (BBG)

• Peru raised $2.5B in a sustainable bond offering (LL)

Bankruptcy / Restructuring

• Cryptocurrency infrastructure provider Wyre is winding down after online checkout company Bolt Financial canceled its $1.5B acquisition of the firm a few months ago (RT)

• Cineworld top execs will be paid up to $35M to leave the British cinema operator after it emerges from Chapter 11 bankruptcy (RT)

• KKR is handing over ownership of Hilding Anders International to a group of creditors who will swap debt for equity and provide the distressed Swedish mattress maker with $22M cash (BBG)

• Music and video IP conglomerate GoDigital Media Group is planning to bid for Vice Media, which is planning to sell itself out of bankruptcy (CNBC)

Fundraising

• Dyal Capital, the investment unit owned by Blue Owl Capital, is seeking to raise $13B for its sixth investment fund (BBG)

• Tiger Global Management raised $2.7B for its latest private tech fund, 55% less than their $6B goal (TI)

• TDK Ventures launched a new $150M multi-LP Fund EX1 to expand climate-tech investments into Europe (YF)

Crypto Corner

• The IMF is working on a global platform for central bank digital currencies to enable transactions between countries (RT)

• Binance.US and the SEC struck a deal to keep US customer assets in the US until the SEC’s lawsuit is resolved (RT)

• Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon was sentenced to four months in jail by a Montenegro court for document forgery (CD)

Exec’s Picks

• Frederik Gieschen wrote a cool thread about how Susquehanna’s founders came to dominate the worlds of both finance and poker en route to building a trillion-dollar trading firm.

• Gideon Rachman covered how Europe is falling behind the US both academically and economically in this Financial Times piece.

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