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Good Morning,

Stocks closed green Friday but finished the week negative, Finland and Sweden are set to join NATO, India is restricting wheat exports, Ford dumped some Rivian shares, the euro is sliding towards dollar parity, investors keep betting on Cathie Wood, and CEOs got PAID in 2021.

🎟️ Quick reminder that Friday Beers & Litquidity are co-hosting a three day bender this Memorial Day Weekend. If y'all are in NYC on Saturday, come kick it at Schimanski and meet the teams. Tix available here

Let's dive in.

Before The Bell

If you want to learn more about crypto trading strategies and the world of DeFi, check out our Foot Guns newsletter.

Markets

• The major averages were positive Friday, but it wasn’t enough to overcome another red week for the market

  • Gains in the S&P 500 were led by strong performances from consumer discretionary and information technology stocks, but the comeback was market-wide, with ~95% of the S&P 500 ending the day green

• Meme stocks made a return last week with AMC and GameStop closing up 5.5% and 9.9% respectively on Friday

Earnings

• What we’re watching this week:

  • Mon: Wix, Warby Parker

  • Tues: Walmart, Home Depot

  • Wed: Target, Lowe’s

  • Fri: John Deere, Foot Locker 

• Saudi Arabia's Aramco said its net income rose more than 80% to a record high of $39.8B in Q1 (WSJ)

• Full calendar here

Headline Roundup

• Goldman’s Lloyd Blankfein says US should prepare for recession (BBG)

• Goldman Sachs says senior staff can take as much time off as they want (FT)

• China's economy contracts sharply as covid zero cuts output, keeps key interest rate unchanged (BBG)

• Finland, Sweden set to seek NATO entry in historic shift (BBG)

• Euro is sliding toward dollar parity for first time in 20 years (BBG)

• CEO pay packages rose to $14.7M in 2021 (BBG)

• World’s food problems piling up as India restricts wheat exports (BBG)

• Walmart woos college grads with $210K future as store bosses (BBG)

• Nine arrested after police clash with protestors in London (BBG)

• Ford unloads further 7M shares of EV startup Rivian (WSJ)

• Borrowing costs soar as home constructions are delayed (WSJ)

• Cathie Wood just keeps buying Coinbase and getting more inflows (BBG)

• Jeff Bezos criticizes Joe Biden in twitter spat over inflation (WSJ)

A Message From Outer

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Deal Flow

M&A / Investments

• Indian conglomerate Adani Group agreed to buy Ambuja Cements, the Indian operations of Swiss company Holcim, in a $10B deal (BBG)

• Walgreens Boot Alliance is giving bidders more time to lodge final offers for its potentially $8.5B+ international drugstore arm Boots (BBG)

• Emirates Telecommunications Group agreed to buy a 9.8% stake in telecom giant Vodafone for $4.4B (BBG)

• HG Vora Capital Management offered to buy truck fleet operator Ryder System for $4.4B (RT)

• Carlyle Group is in advanced talks to buy US government contractor ManTech International in a ~$4B deal (BBG)

• CD&R is nearing a deal to buy a majority stake in Roper Technologies’ process-technology unit at a potential $3B valuation (BBG)

• French energy company Total Energies and power company Engie are eying the acquisition of the renewable energy unit of French retailer Casino, which could be valued at ~$1.6B (RT)

• PE firm GTCR agreed to buy a majority stake in laboratory services company PathGroup in a $1.2B deal (BBG)

• XPO Logistics is considering a sale of its freight forwarding unit for up to $600M (BBG)

VC

• SkySpecs, a startup producing drones to detect future wind turbine issues, raised an $80M Series D led by Goldman Sachs (TC)

• Crypto trading platform Elwood Technologies raised $70M in a funding round with participation from Goldman Sachs and Barclays (BBG)

• Crypto startup TipTop raised a $23M Series A from a16z - Marc Andreessen also joined the board (TC)

• StartPlaying, the largest online platform to find tabletop role-playing games and professional Game Masters, raised a $6.5M seed round led by a16z (PRN)

Debt

• Apollo Global Management is planning to lend ~$1B to developers in India this year, betting on a recovery in the residential property market as the pandemic eases (BBG)

Crypto Corner

• New York crypto company CEO arrested by FBI, charged with fraud (TBC)

• South Korean president’s plan to raise crypto tax threshold hits snag (TBC)

• What happened to Terra’s Bitcoin reserve as UST and LUNA crashed (DC)

Exec's Picks

• Galois Capital's Kevin Zhou called the Terra collapse months ago, and yesterday he joined Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast to break down how and why it happened. Check out Kevin's episode 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've got 40+ jobs spanning IB, S&T, VC, tech, private equity, DeFi, crypto, CorpDev and more. We sift through all the noise on LinkedIn, Indeed, Monster, etc. so you don't have to.

• Featured Job Listing: For anyone considering a career change, Stirlingshire, a startup looking to fix the full-service broker-dealer model, is looking to hire new brokers and advisors. Stirlingshire is offering a 100% payout, 100% WFH, and equity to all first-year hires. Interested? Check out their posting on our job board 🤝

Meme Cleanser

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