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Intel will partner with Apple on US chip design, Apple will raise prices due to the memory chip shortage, JPMorgan blocked Claude access for Hong Kong staff, TD Bank will use software to monitor employee work, and USA beat Australia to advance to the knockout stage.

A slow weekend on the headline front but deal activity nonetheless came in hot…

Everyone's chasing tech. Meanwhile, film bridge loans deliver double digit yields backed by tax credits. Short duration. Hard collateral. Worth a look.

Let's dive in.

Before The Bell

As of 6/18/2026 market close.

Learn more about the Litquidity portfolios and subscribe to the strategies on Autopilot.*

Markets

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

  • US stocks rallied on Thursday to end the shortened trading week on a high following an earlier selloff that stemmed from hawkish Fed sentiment 

Earnings

  • Kroger missed Q1 earnings estimates as rising inflation curbs consumer spending (RT)

  • What we're watching this week:  

    • Tuesday: FedEx, Cerebras

    • Wednesday: Micron, Jefferies

    • Thursday: McCormick, FedEx Freight 

  • Full calendar here

Prediction Markets

  • Massively slept on. We're going all the way🇺🇸

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

Headline Roundup

  • JD Vance is leading US-Iran talks in Switzerland (AX)

  • BoE held rates steady at 3.75% (CNBC)

  • Debt deal hangovers are derailing fast-track bankruptcies (WSJ)

  • Soaring EM profits builds case for a raging bull market (BBG)

  • Trump says Anthropic is no longer a national security threat (AX)

  • 'Mass affluent' are replacing wealth managers with AI (BBG)

  • Wars triggers $12B VC rush into defense tech (FT)

  • SpaceX's mega fundraising campaign for AI has only just begun (BBG)

  • JPMorgan became second to block Claude access for Hong Kong staff (FT)

  • Intel will partner with Apple on US chip design (CNBC)

  • Charles Schwab entered prediction markets (WSJ)

  • Apple will raise prices due to the memory chip shortage (WSJ)

  • TD Bank will use software to monitor some employees work (RT)

  • Two Google AI execs left to OpenAI and Anthropic (BBG)

  • Hollywood is having its best box office since Covid (WSJ)

  • USA beat Australia to advance to knockout stage (ESPN)

A Message from alts.co

Film studios wait on tax credits, you get paid

Everyone's chasing the next AI trade. Meanwhile, a quieter corner of the market keeps delivering – film bridge lending.

Studios sit on millions in approved tax credits, signed distribution contracts, and completion bonds they can't access yet. Bridge lenders step in, fill the gap, and get repaid when the credit clears or the deal closes. Short duration. Hard collateral. No correlation to public markets.

These aren't complicated structured products. They're simple, asset-backed loans to productions that are already green lit. The kind of boring that quietly works.

If you're an accredited investor looking for yield that doesn't move with the S&P, this is worth your attention.

See current deals →

Deal Flow

M&A / Strategic

  • Italy's UniCredit secured over 42.5% of $50B-listed German rival Commerzbank as part of its hostile bid

  • KKR and Canada's La Caisse are among 10 bidders interested in acquiring Germany's $23B-listed nationalized utility Uniper

  • Germany will acquire a 40% stake in Franco-German tank maker KNDS from the founding family at a ~$20B valuation ahead of its IPO

  • European PE firm EQT agreed to acquire UK product testing firm Intertek for $12.4B

  • German energy company RWE is nearing a deal to acquire a 41% stake in transmission system operator Amprion from owner Swiss Life and a German medical pension AEBG at an $11.5B valuation

  • Pharma giant AbbVie is nearing a deal to buy anti-inflammatory-focused Apogee Therapeutics for $11B cash at a 60% premium

  • Brookfield, DigitalBridge, KKR, and Vauban Infrastructure Partners were shortlisted as bidders to acquire a controlling stake in Altice and OMERS-backed French fiber optic company XpFibre at a potential $9.4B valuation 

  • Building materials group CRH is set to acquire rival Arcosa for over $8B, including debt

  • BTS-Most Holding will acquire a 67% stake in Russian gold miner Yuzhuralzoloto from Russia for $1.3B at half the asking price

  • Israel's Fattal Hotel Group's $1.25B talks for Netherlands-based PPHE Hotel fell through after shareholder opposition 

  • Biogen will acquire biotech RayThera for ‌up to $1B

  • KKR is ​in advanced talks to buy a majority stake in the Indian hospitals unit of Sweden's ‌Medicover for over $1B

  • Japanese construction firm Obayashi will acquire Multiplex, the UK construction company that built London's Wembley Stadium, from Brookfield for $650M

  • Deluxe, one of the largest paper-check producers, will acquire payment-processing company Celero Commerce for $625M cash

  • Canada's MDA Space will acquire Blue Canyon Technologies in a $620M all-cash deal

  • PIF-backed King Abdullah Financial District is in talks to sell its district cooling business for $500M

  • EQT acquired German SpaceX-satellite launch partner Exolaunch for reportedly ~$400M

  • Hyundai plans to buy SoftBank's remaining 9.65% ​stake in robotics firm Boston Dynamics for $325M

  • India developer Prestige Estates Projects is considering raising $300M in a stake sale of its Prestige Hospitality Ventures unit instead of an IPO

  • The FTC is ‌requiring India's Aurobindo Pharma to divest four different generic drug products to complete ​its $250M acquisition of Lannett ​Company

  • Turkish home appliance maker Arcelik agreed to buy Whirlpool's remaining 25% stake in Beko Europe for $82M to take full ownership

  • KKR-owned sports PE firm Arctos Partners held talks to invest in PIF-backed UK soccer club Newcastle United 

  • Qatar's QIA-backed district cooling companies Qatar Cool and Marafeq are weighing a merger and eventual IPO

  • Channel Capital will merge with Challenger's Fidante unit to create a $100B Australian fund manager 

  • UK PE firm Pollen Street Capital will acquire ​financial software company Finastra's global core banking ‌software business Universal Banking 

  • French cosmetics giant L'Oreal will acquire a majority stake in Indian beauty startup Innovist

  • UK-based gambling group Entain is exploring a sale of its CEE JV

VC

  • AI inference startup Baseten is in talks to raise a $1.5B Series F at a $13B valuation

  • Articul8, an enterprise industrial GenAI platform, raised a Series B at a $500M pre-money valuation  

  • General Intuition, an AI startup developing foundational models for spatial and temporal agent movement, raised a $300M funding round at an over $2B valuation from Jeff Bezos, Eric Schmidt, Khosla Ventures, and General Catalyst

  • Evoken, an AI creative-content platform, raised a $300M Series B+ at a $2B post-money valuation co-led by Granite Asia, Tencent and Shunwei Capital

  • Dream, a sovereign AI and cyber defense company for governments and critical infrastructure, raised $260M in funding at a $3B valuation co-led by Bicycle Capital and Group 11  

  • Prem AI, a Swiss sovereign AI infrastructure startup, raised a $100M Series A at a $500M valuation from Jim Breyer, Index Ventures, and others 

  • HyperLight, a thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) photonics company, raised an $80M Series C led by MediaTek

  • American Perpetuals Exchange Corporation, the new derivatives exchange of Senator Gillibrand's son Theodore Gillibrand, raised $30M at a $300M valuation

  • Architect Labs, a foundational lab to accelerate custom silicon development, raised a $24M seed round led by Kindred Ventures

  • Aether AI, a frontier AI company building Causal World Models, raised a $20M seed round led by MPCi

  • HUD, a platform for building post-training datasets, raised a $16M Series A from Standard Capital, Y Combinator, and others

Access the complete VC deal flow and data on Fundable

IPOs / Listings / Issuances / Block Trades

  • Jio Platforms, the telecoms unit of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, filed for India's biggest IPO ever to raise ~$4B at a ~$150B valuation

  • UniCredit had sounded out Delfin, the holding company behind eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica, to more ​than double its stake in $75B-listed insurer Generali to 20%

  • Cardio-focused biotech Kardigan surged 38% in its trading debut after raising $400M for a $2B market cap in an upsized IPO priced above a marketed range

  • DSC Holdings, a provider of OS for used car dealers in China, is seeking to raise $55M at a $900M valuation in a US IPO

  • Enhanced Group, a telehealth and consumer health platform, raised $50M in a private placement led by Apeiron Investment Group and CEO Maximilian Martin

  • Standard Nuclear, a maker of fuel for nuclear reactors, filed for an IPO

  • Car dealer operator Global Auto Holdings is exploring a Canada IPO

  • Celebrity-favorite retailer Reformation is preparing to file confidentially for an IPO

Debt

  • SpaceX is in talks to sell $20B of investment grade bonds for a bridge loan refinancing 

  • Japan's SMBC is in talks for two SRTs tied to $4B of LatAm corporate loans and $1.8B of infrastructure loans

  • Jio Platforms plans to use some IPO proceeds to repay $3B of its telecom unit's external commercial borrowings 

  • Blackstone-backed data center operator AirTrunk is in talks for a $3B loan

  • State Bank of India, Axis Bank, Bank of Baroda, and Power Finance Corp. plan to raise a combined $2.5B in bond sales via central bank swaps

  • Banks led by Bank of Montreal are offering an 8¢ discount at a 450 bps premium on a $775M loan for HIG Capital-backed software firm Pellera Technologies that has been hung for over a year

  • Investment firm Hillhouse Investment is in talks for a $600M loan to fund its investment in data center operator DayOne Data Centers

  • Italian internet provider Eolo is in advanced talks with Apollo for a $575M private credit package to refinance liabilities

Bankruptcy / Restructuring / Distressed

  • Netflix is under contract to buy Radford Studio Center for $400M after lenders including Goldman Sachs repossessed the property; the deal will wipe out two-thirds of $1.1B in debt that current owner Hackman Capital Partners defaulted on

  • A junior tranche on a European CLO managed by Bain Capital defaulted in Europe's first since 2008

Funds / Secondaries

  • The Chainsmokers' VC firm Mantis Ventures is raising $100M for its fourth fund

Crypto Sum Snapshot

  • Illinois became first US state to tax crypto transactions

  • Fed proposes payment stablecoin issuer identification program

  • Wall Street stares down crypto-style 24/7 trading 

Crypto Sum compiles the most important stories on everything crypto. Read it here.

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*DISCLAIMER: Investment advice provided by Autopilot Advisers, LLC ("Autopilot"), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Investing carries risks, including loss of principal. As always, be smart out there. Litquidity is compensated to promote AutoPilot. Compensation details available upon request.

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