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Good Morning,

The New York Times published the fluffiest of fluff pieces on Sam Bankman-Fried, Berkshire went on a stock buying spree last quarter, the global population topped 8 billion, emissions are likely to reach an all-time high this year, Amazon will lay off 10k workers, NYC building owners are banning e-bikes amid battery fires, Tom Ford is about to get acquired, and a more than a dozen crypto funds have confirmed their exposure to FTX so far.

Want to track all of your sports betting accounts in one place and have access to industry-wide betting data? Check out today's sponsor, Juice Reel.

Let's dive in.

Before The Bell

Markets

• All three major US averages closed lower in choppy trading yesterday as investors turned their focus to upcoming retail earnings this week

• Chinese property stocks and bonds surged on announcement of China's 'most comprehensive' rescue package

• Oil settled lower on surging China Covid cases and a firmer dollar

Earnings

• Nubank posted a near 3x jump in Q3 revenue on rapid customer growth in its key LATAM market, boasting 70M plus users with a record-high 82% activity rate; their stock surged 15%+ in AH trading (YH)

• Tyson Foods missed Q4 EPS estimates but beat on revenue on continued strength in consumer demand despite high inflation (BRN)

• What we're watching this week:

  • Today: Walmart, Home Depot

  • Wednesday: Tencent, Nvidia, Victoria's Secret

  • Thursday: Alibaba, Gap

  • Friday: JD.com

• Full calendar here

Headline Roundup

• Inflation expectations rose to 5.9% in October on record-high jump in gas outlook (CNBC)

• US voters approved 83% of all state-level bond sale measures in elections (BBG)

• Investors poured record sums into leveraged and inverse ETFs this year (FT)

• US fixed income mutual funds experienced $480B in outflows YTD (FT)

• Biden and Xi Jinping hope to stabilize US-China relations (WSJ)

• Global population hit 8 billion (AX)

• Emissions likely to reach an all-time high this year (AX)

• OPEC cut oil demand growth forecast again (RT)

• Swiss National Bank may raise rates again: Chairman (RT)

• Wall Street banks are raising outlook for emerging market bonds (RT)

• Amazon will lay off ~10k employees or 3% of corporate staff (NYT)

• Google will pay ~$400M to settle US illegal location-tracking allegations (RT)

• Berkshire Hathaway disclosed a $4.1B stock purchase of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (RT)

• Credit Suisse started cutting senior banking jobs in Asia as it begins to overhaul its business globally (BBG)

• NYC building owners are banning e-bikes amid battery fires (AX)

• Crypto lending firm BlockFi has tapped advisors to 'explore all options' in fallout of FTX blowup (TI)

A Message From Juice Reel

They're not a sportsbook. They're how you make money sports betting. 

Avid Exec Sum readers have seen us mention Juice Reel before - the bet tracking and analytics app that lets you link in any of your betting account and your bet history automatically syncs into the app (and we mean any of your betting accounts: from the DraftKings and FanDuels of the world down to Bovada or your bookie's sketchy website)

We were hyped about the analytics, Expedia-like odds comparisons, and insights Juice Reel offers -- all for free -- but things escalated and this is newsworthy.

Think about this:As you bet, you create betting data (aka a list of your open and closed bets). Analyzing tens of thousands of people's betting data allows for some pretty amazing things.

Juice Reel automatically and anonymously puts top performing bettors' picks up for sale to be unlocked by the rest of the community. This turns everyone into an "anonymous betting advice salesman" (as opposed to the fake handicappers shilling betting advice on twitter). And because it's completely anonymous and performance-based, only truly profitable bettors' picks will sell. So every Juice Reel user gets access to the very best (and trustworthy) picks, while highly profitable bettors essentially have Juice Reel automatically monetizing their betting data for them and while they sit back and passively be rewarded for giving good picks to the Juice Reel Community.

Juice Reel also uses the pool of data that the whole Juice Reel Community synced into the app to give insights on what the best and worst historical bettors are doing so you can follow winners while simultaneously fading (aka betting against) historical losers at scale. If you're thinking "how much can data really help you win", these guys put out 2 free picks a day to their instagram and are now 207-136.

Juice Reel is exploding in the betting community and I highly recommend this app if you bet on sports -- the fact that it's totally free makes it even better.

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Deal Flow

M&A / Investments

• France’s Despature Family is considering a deal to buy Paris-listed building products company Somfy; it has a market value of ~$4.5B (BBG)

• New York cosmetics giant Estée Lauder is nearing a deal to buy Tom Ford for ~$2.8B (WSJ)

• Equipment rentals firm United Rentals agreed to buy smaller rival Ahern Rentals for ~$2B (RT)

• Fosun International is considering strategic options for French luxury resort chain Club Med at a potential ~$1.5B valuation (BBG)

• Financial services firm Ant Group’s consumer finance unit is raising $1.49B in a capital boost from investors after China Cinda Asset Management unexpectedly backed out of its investment plan this year (BBG)

• Singaporean state investor Temasek is exploring selling medical devices firm Advanced MedTech at a potential ~$1B valuation (RT)

• Italian banking company Intesa Sanpaolo plans to sell its 5.1%, ~$655M stake in payments group Nexi (RT)

• Saudi's PIF and BlackRock signed an agreement to jointly explore Middle East infrastructure projects (RT)

• Australian software company Nitro Software’s board recommends the ~$335M offer from software firm Alludo to be “superior” to an earlier bid from Potentia Capital Management (RT)

• Retail company Frasers Group is in talks to buy tailor and menswear retailer Gieves & Hawkes (BBG)

• Poland will take over Russian gas company Gazprom’s Polish assets (RT)

VC

• Loans-as-a-service fintech startup Lentra raised a $60M Series B at a $400M+ valuation led by Bessemer Venture Partners and SIG (TC)

• Cell-based meat company Vow raised a $49.2M Series A led by Blackbird and Prosperity7 Ventures (TC)

• Owl Labs, a startup developing AI-powered meeting hardware, raised a $25M Series C led by HP Tech Ventures (TC)

• Logistics management platform GoFreight raised a $24M Series A led by Flex Capital and Headline (TC)

• Impact, a professional network for the entertainment industry, raised a $15M Series B led by Shasta Ventures (PRN)

• Real-time streaming data startup Quix raised a $12.9M Series A led by MMC Ventures (TC)

• Digital health and remote care company Validic raised a $12M round led by Kaiser Permanente Ventures (PRN)

• Nymbl Science, a digital balance training platform for seniors, raised a $12M Series B led by Cobalt Ventures (BW)

• All-in-one food wholesale operating system Butter raised a $9M Series A led by Gradient Ventures (PRN)

• Joepegs, a NFT marketplace on the Avalanche blockchain, raised a $5M seed round led by FTX Ventures and Avalanche Foundation (TC)

• Curavit, a virtual contract research organization, raised a $5M Series A led by Osage Venture Partners (PRN)

• Thallo, a blockchain-based carbon credit exchange platform, raised a $2.5M seed round led by Arcan and Friendly Trading Group (BW)

IPO / Direct Listings / Issuances / Block Trades

• Saudi Arabia’s PIF is considering an IPO of oil and gas driller ADES at a potential ~$5B valuation (BBG)

SPAC

• Solar battery storage company Electric Power agreed to merge with TLG Acquisition One Corp in a $495M deal (RT)

Debt

• A group of banks led by Citigroup and Bank of America are preparing to fund ~$5.4B of debt to help finance Apollo’s purchase of auto parts maker Tenneco (BBG)

Bankruptcy / Restructuring

• Germany will nationalize gas importer Sefe (formerly Gazprom) to protect it from bankruptcy and force Russia out of the company (RT)

• FTX named a slate of new independent directors to oversee the collapsed crypto empire and is speaking with the US Attorney's Office and dozens of US / international regulatory agencies (BBG)

Fundraising

• MVM Partners, a growth stage healthcare/life science investor, closed a $500M sixth fund (BW)

Crypto Corner

• DoJ, SEC and CFTC prosecutors are investigating FTX's handling of customer funds (RT)

• Binance pledged to create crypto industry recovery fund (RT)

• Crypto.com said its balance sheet is strong and firm is not in trouble (RT)

• Visa terminated its global debit card agreements with FTX (RT)

• BlockFi has significant exposure to FTX (RT)

• 12 crypto firms have provided information about their exposure to FTX so far (RT)

• ECB warned European regulators will struggle to supervise crypto groups (FT)

Exec's Picks

• Affinity is hosting a webinar today where they'll be speaking to Eden Global Partners and Solganick & Co about the strategies they’re using to maintain momentum in the M&A market throughout the end of 2022—and how they’re planning to source the best deals into 2023 and beyond. Save your seat

• Twitter user @PetrifyTCG resurfaced a thread written by former Alameda Research CEO Sam Trabucco that explained their descent to riskier activities. In hindsight, the warning signs were very obviously there. Check it out

• The Litquidity Christmas Collection 2022 just dropped. We've got designs on inflation, Kim Kardashian LBOs, Pelosi Capital Management, and more. Check them out

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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