Good Morning,

Monkeypox is a global health emergency, Musk had an (alleged) affair with Sergey Brin's wife, Snap got rekt after a poor earnings report, inflation is slowing down in Japan, and Volkswagen's CEO was fired.

Quick message from Lit: I'm always looking to partner with exciting companies that are building awesome products or delivering value to our target audience. If you want to explore partnerships, you can fill out a quick form here. If you're a startup looking for strategic capital on your cap table, send me a note at [email protected].

Let's dive in.

Before The Bell

Markets

• Stocks ended a three-day green streak on Friday after several earnings reports fell short of expectations

  • The S&P 500 and Dow posted their best weeks in a month, up 2.5% and 2% respectively, while the Nasdaq ended up 3.3%

  • Snap led Friday’s decline, falling 39% after posting its weakest quarterly sales growth since going public

• The Fed meets Tuesday and Thursday this week and is expected to raise interest rates by another 75 bps 

• Investors will pay close attention to another heavy earnings week that will see one-third of S&P 500 companies report Q2 results

Earnings

• Verizon experienced its biggest drop in 14 years, falling 6.7%, after releasing Q2 earnings mostly in line with expectations but lowering forecasts for the second straight quarter as the wireless carrier struggles to compete for subscriber growth (BBG)

• American Express beat expectations with Q2 revenue growing 31% as spending among cardholders continued to strengthen; its stock rose 1.9% on the day (WSJ)

• Twitter reported a surprising decline in revenue that the company blamed on advertising weakness and uncertainty caused by Elon Musk’s pending $44B acquisition; its stock rose 0.8% on the day (WSJ)

• What we’re watching this week:

  • Today: Whirlpool

  • Tuesday: UPS, Coca-Cola, General Motors, McDonalds, Alphabet, Microsoft, Visa, Chipotle

  • Wednesday: Shopify, Boeing, Spotify, Meta, Ford, Qualcomm

  • Thursday: Pfizer, Southwest, Apple, Amazon, Intel

  • Friday: ExxonMobil, Chevron

• Full calendar here

Headline Roundup

• Russia's central bank lowered its key interest rate to below pre-war levels, from 9.5% to 8% (WSJ)

• Russia and Ukraine agreed to resume exports of millions of tons of Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea for the first time since the Russian invasion (WSJ)

• Inflation in Japan declined to 2.4% in June, down from 2.5% in May, indicating inflation may have hit its peak in the country (WSJ)

• The World Health Organization declared monkeypox a global health emergency (WSJ)

• T-Mobile will pay $350M to settle a lawsuit over compromised data of 75M+ customers (RT)

• The advertising market is showing signs of decline as Snap and Twitter partly blame industry headwinds for poor quarterly results (WSJ) 

• More shoppers are buying store-brands over private-label foods as consumers tighten their budget (WSJ)

• US global business activity declined sharply in June, according to S&P Global (WSJ)

• Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess was fired from the company (BBG)

• Vince McMahon retired as WWE's CEO amid probes into alleged misconduct (CNBC)

• Elon Musk reportedly had an affair with the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin (BI)

• Max Verstappen cruised to victory at the F1 French GP after a costly blunder by Charles Leclerc (F1)

A Message From Litquidity

As the market continues to be a volatile place and companies continue to pull back on spending, it's worth remembering that effective marketing can result profitable growth.

Through years of experience and an analytical mindset, we can be an effective marketing partner to help you grow and meet your goals. If you're interested in partnering with us across social media, email newsletters, podcasts, and other mediums, fill out our intake form and we'll get back to you ASAP (assuming Karl isn't jammed up working on some live deals). Click the button below:

On another note, as a scout for Bain Capital Ventures, I'm always chatting with early-stage startup founders across the fintech, web3, ecommerce, SaaS, and creator economy verticals. If you're a founder looking for a strategic investor on your cap table, hit me up over email with your pitch at [email protected]. Let's build 🤝

Deal Flow

M&A / Investments

• Telecom companies Orange and Masmovil Ibercom reached a binding agreement to combine their Spanish businesses to create the country’s biggest telecommunication provider in a ~$19B deal (BBG)

• Food corporations Cargill and Continental Grain acquired chicken producing giant Sanderson Farms in ~$4.53B deal (RT)

• French satellite operator Eutelsat is nearing a deal to acquire UK satellite operator OneWeb for $3B+ (FT)

• Sovereign wealth fund Abu Dhabi Investment Authority acquired a significant minority stake in corporate-trust services provider TMF Group, which CVC Capital Partners previously acquired for $1.78B in 2017 (BBG)

• PE firms Carlyle Group, King Street Capital Management and Davidson Kempner Capital Management are considering a sale of the world's largest seaplane operator Trans Maldivian Airways at a potential $700M valuation (BBG)

• PE firm Global Emerging Markets Group plans to invest $450M in lithium startup EnergyX (RT)

• Private equity firm Sixth Street acquired a 15% stake in Football Club Barcelona's LaLiga media rights for ~$317M, following its 10% stake acquisition in June for $217M (BBG)

• Malaysian financial services group AMMB Holdings is weighing a sale of its asset management unit AmInvest that could be valued at ~$300M (BBG)

• Chain, which offers developers cloud services to build blockchain-based applications, is acquiring decentralized data exchange economy Measurable Data Token for $100M (TB) 

• Crypto trading platform FTX is in advanced talks to buy South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb (BBG)

• Telecom giant Nokia is weighing a sale of its managed services business (BBG)

VC

• IQM Quantum Computers, a European startup in building superconducting quantum computers, raised a $128M Series A2 led by World Fund (BW)

• Duckbill, a Chinese digital container logistic platform, raised a ~$48.9M Series C led by SAIC-CICC (PRN)

• Theator, an AI platform that analyzes videos of surgeries, raised a $24M extension of its Series A led by Insight Partners (PRN)

• Parfait, an AI-powered wig customization platform, raised a $5M seed round led by Upfront Ventures (TC)

• Fairbanc, a BNPL startup that allows small businesses to take out short-term credit to purchase fast-moving consumer goods, raised a $4.8M pre-Series A led by Vertex Ventures (TC)

• Cardinal, a Solana-based infrastructure protocol that aims to improve the utility of NFTs, raised a $4.4M seed round co-led by Protagonist and Solana Ventures (TB)

• Copper, a startup providing custody, prime broking, and settlement services to institutional investors deploying money into crypto assets, is in finalizing a round of funding that will include Barclays as one of the investors (SKY)

IPO / Direct Listings / Issuances / Block Trades

• Lithium battery materials maker Ningbo Shanshan kicked off its first Swiss GDR sale which is expected to raise ~$200M (BBG)

• Chinese building materials manufacturer Keda Industrial Group kicked off its first  Swiss GDR sale which is expected to raise ~$175M (BBG)

• Bitcoin mining giant Core Scientific will issue up to $100M of shares over the next two years to investment bank B. Riley (BW)

SPAC

• Blank check pioneer Martin Franklin is in exploratory talks to list a new SPAC in London called Admiral, targeting at least $500M of investor commitments. Unlike US-style SPACs, Admiral won't give founders free shares or redemption rights to investors (BBG)

Debt

• Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies is seeking to raise $593M from its fourth onshore bond sale this year (CG)

• A group of lenders led by Deutsche Bank and UBS lost ~$200M on the financing for PE firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice’s buyout of commercial real estate developer Cornerstone Building Brands, as they struggled to offload the debt to investors (BBG)

Bankruptcy / Restructuring

• The German government agreed to provide a ~$15B bailout to struggling utility giant Uniper and take a 30% stake in the company (RT)

Fundraising

• Hedge fund Atreides Management plans to raise a fund dedicated to opportunistic venture investments (BBG)

Crypto Corner

• Crypto trading platform FTX offered to bail out bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital's customers in a joint liquidity proposal (BW)

• The founders of bankrupt crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital came out of hiding to address the collapse of their firm (BW)

• Game developer Mojang Studios banned NFT integrations and blockchain technology in the widely popular Minecraft video game (CT)

• Crypto exchange Coinbase blasted the SEC over their insider trading case, saying none of the tokens it lists are securities (CNBC)

• Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission is reportedly looking to ban the use of credit cards to purchase crypto (CD)

Exec's Picks

• Heading to the Hamptons, Nantucket, Amalfi Coast, or Nice this Summer? Need to freshen up your swim shorts game? Check out Meriggi, the premium men's swimwear brand inspired by the Mediterranean lifestyle and aesthetic. Their swim shorts are some of the absolute cleanest in the game. You'll also get free shipping if you use this link.

• Jack Raines wrote a wild piece about how FedEx only exists today thanks to a hot streak on a Vegas blackjack table 50 years ago. Check out Good Luck 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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