US stocks closed mostly flat yesterday as traders prepared for 'a whole civilization to die' 

Physical oil prices hit $150/bbl in Europe and Asia 

Levi Strauss issued a Q1 beat-and-raise on the back of higher prices and strong growth in D2C sales, which accounted for over 50% of sales for the first time (CNBC)

What we're watching this week: 

Full calendar here

Civilization saved??

Trade event contracts on Polymarket, the world's largest prediction market

US paused Iran strikes subject to Hormuz Strait opening (CNBC)

Hedge funds are shorting European stocks by the most in history (FT)

Quant hedge funds outshined macro traders in volatile march (BBG)

Family offices are ditching VCs for direct AI startup bets (TB)

Hot money is increasingly dominating EM financing (RT)

CitSec sees retail exodus setting stage for S&P run (BBG)

State Street also filed to launch a Nasdaq-100 ETF (BBG)

SpaceX listing could suck the oxygen out of fragile IPO market (RT)

Moody's revised private credit BDC outlook to negative (BBG)

Anthropic overtook OpenAI in revenue metrics (BBG)

Anthropic won't release latest model due to how powerful it is (NYT)

Intel joined Musk's Terafab AI chip project (TC)

Musk is seeking to remove OpenAI CEO Sam Altman ahead of trial (BBG)

Musk requested all $150B lawsuit damages go to OpenAI's nonprofit (WSJ)

OpenAI urged states to investigate Musk's 'anti-competitive behavior' (RT)

H.I.G. Capital named Brian Schwartz as its first non-founder CEO (BBG)

Simpson Thacher hired three partners in a sports dealmaking push (BBG)

Supermicro launched an independent probe after criminal case against co‑founder (RT)

Kanye West was banned from entering UK (FT)

An integrated financial modeling environment

The ability to preview and define assumptions and workflows upfront, so outputs aren't a black box 

A new 'Global Agent' that connects insights across the entire deal platform

A dedicated 'Databook' to track structured, Excel-native analyses that are fully source-linked, editable, traceable, and actually defensible in IC

$40B-listed German lender Commerzbank does not see merits in recent merger talks with Italian peer UniCredit 

Gilead Sciences agreed to buy German cancer biotech Tubulis in a $5B deal 

Canada's Eldorado Gold won shareholder support for its $2.7B cash-and-stock bid for Foran Mining despite activist pressure against the deal

A consortium of Blackstone and industrial investor Tinicum agreed to take-private UK aerospace parts supplier Senior for $1.9B 

$900M UK-listed Gamma Communications is in preliminary talks with a number of potential suitors

Blackstone made a $290M investment in Bulgarian renewables firm Sunotec

Sixth Street agreed a acquire the women's team of UK soccer club Sunderland via its Bay Collective subsidiary

An investor group led by PGA star Bryson DeChambeau will acquire Sportsbox AI, a startup specializing in AI tech and 3D motion capture for coaching applications

Hermeus, a defense aviation company developing high-Mach unmanned aircraft, raised a $350M Series C at a $1B post-money valuation led by Khosla Ventures

AI networking startup Aria Networks raised a $125M Series A from Sutter Hill Ventures, Valor Equity Partners, and others 

Starfish Space, an on-orbit servicing startup, raised a $100M+ Series B led by Point72 Ventures, Activate Capital and Shield Capital  

Modus, an AI-native audit platform, raised an $85M combined seed and Series A led by Lightspeed

Mappedin, a digital indoor mapping platform, raised a $24.5M growth round led by Edison Partners

Natter, an AI-native conversation intelligence platform for enterprise, raised a $23M funding round led by Renegade Partners

Golden Analytics, an AI-native business intelligence startup, raised a $7M seed round led by NEA and Madrona

INXY Payments, a stablecoin payments infrastructure startup, raised a $7M seed round led by Flashpoint 

Australian data center firm Firmus raised $505M at a $5.5B valuation in its final pre-IPO round led by Coatue and is targeting a $2B Australia IPO this summer

Mexican digital bank unicorn Plata is preparing for an IPO

Bill Ackman's hedge fund Pershing Square is seeking to combine $42B Amsterdam-listed record label Universal Music Group with a US-listed SPAC at a $65B valuation

PIMCO is in talks with Bank of America to help provide $14B of debt ​financing to build an Oracle data center in Michigan

RBC is leading a $1.1B loan financing to support Energy Capital Partners' $2B re-takeover of nuclear services company EnergySolutions from TriArtisan Capital Advisors

UBS's investment arm Unified Global Alternatives is packaging $500M worth of private credit LP stakes into debt that's 75% backed by an insurance company

Brazil is sounding out investors for its first euro bond sale in a decade

Elliott-affiliate Amber Energy's $5.9B bid for control of Venezuela's Citgo Petroleum has gotten bogged down amid US concerns over price and political risk

Garnet Capital Advisors closed of a $2.9B loan portfolio sale on behalf of the Chapter 7 trustee overseeing the bankruptcy of debt-buyer Collins Asset Group

Mozambique's $900M dollar bonds fell to a three-year low amid plans to seek restructuring talks with creditors

A judge delayed a sale of twelve brands by bankrupt auto parts supplier First Brands to give auto parts maker NOCO a last-minute chance to bid

Prateek Gupta, the businessman who defrauded Trafigura off $600M, was named as the ultimate beneficiary of toxic loans that led to the collapse of Mauritius lender Silver Bank

Blackstone raised $10B for its fifth opportunistic credit fund

Some Korean brokerage firms are considering launching a $1.3B VC secondaries fund as VC firms struggle to exit

Mubadala Capital, the external asset manager of Abu Dhabi SWF Mubadala, raised $1B for its third Brazil fund

Canadian climate VC Evok Innovations is seeking to raise $400M for its third fund

Crypto hedge fund Split Capital is winding down as its founder joins stablecoin startup Plasma

Americans lost $11B to crypto scammers last year

JPMorgan says tokenized RWA market could grow to $13T by 2030

Morgan Stanley's spot Bitcoin ETF will begin trading today

Gregory Clark shared some super interesting insights on the persistence of generational wealth. It's not just financial.

Professor Tyler Cowen shared an excerpt from his latest "book" discussing if financial economics is still economics. A interesting piece, especially for the academically inclined.

WSJ published an inside look at OpenAI and Anthropic's finances ahead of their IPOs.