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Good Morning,

Zuck accepted Musk’s challenge to a cage fight, the FTC sued Amazon over ‘manipulative’ enrollment tactics, short bets against US stocks hit their highest level in more than a year, China unveiled a $72B tax break for EVs, and an ex-Goldman banker was convicted of passing insider tips to his squash buddy.

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Let’s dive in.

Before The Bell

Markets

• Stocks finished lower as Fed Chair Jerome Powell indicated to Congress there could be more rate hikes this year

• All three major US indexes fell for a third-straight day, with the Nasdaq Composite seeing the largest loss and sliding 1.21%

• Markets in Hong Kong, mainland China, and Taiwan are closed for a holiday Thursday

• Crypto prices surged in the last 24 hours, with bitcoin breaking above the $30K mark for the first time since April 26th

• Oil prices gained as US corn and soybean prices raced to multi-month highs, raising expectations that crop shortfalls around the globe could lower biofuels blending and increase oil demand

Earnings

• KB Home beat Q1 expectations after the company posted a 3% rise in its quarterly revenue, helped by strong demand amid tight supply of homes (RT)

• What we're watching this week:

  • Today: Accenture, Darden Restaurants, FactSet

  • Friday: CarMax

• Full calendar here

Headline Roundup

• Mark Zuckerberg is ready to fight Elon Musk in a cage match (TV)

• Chipmaker Intel restructures manufacturing business (RT)

• Tech companies including Google gripe about unfair cloud practices (RT)

• Singapore central bank fines DBS, Citibank, OCBC, Swiss Life over breaches (RT)

• Retail army bets record $1.5B on single stocks in a week (BBG)

• Short bets on US stocks hit $1T, most since April 2022 (BBG)

• Uber to lay off 200 employees in recruitment division (RT)

• SoftBank’s Vision Fund to start job cuts as soon as this week (YF)

• China unveils $72B tax break for EVs, other green cars to spur demand (RT)

• PGA Tour plans to testify at Senate hearing on LIV merger (CNBC)

• JPMorgan commercial bank enters Singapore, Israel in global push (RT)

• US companies held hostage by the whims of TikTok (WSJ)

• FTC sues Amazon over ‘manipulative’ tactics to enroll users in Prime (WSJ)

• US tracked ZTE, Huawei workers at suspected Chinese spy sites in Cuba (WSJ)

• Home listings plummet as high mortgage rates tie owners down (BBG)

• Ex-Goldman banker convicted of passing insider tips to squash pal-turned-informant (BBG)

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Deal Flow

M&A / Investments

• International satellite service provider Intelsat has ended $10B merger negotiations with satellite telecom provider SES (RT)

• Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System is purchasing a stake in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, a sports and commercial RE company that owns the Toronto Maple Leafs of the NHL and Toronto Raptors of the NBA, from minority owner Larry Tanenbaum at an $8B valuation (BBG)

• Telecom Italia is restarting efforts to sell a minority stake in its enterprise unit potentially valued at over $6.6B (BBG)

• Bain Capital is buying a 20% stake in IMS Nanofabrication in a deal that values the Austrian Intel subsidiary at $4.3B (BBG)

• Midea Group has dropped its pursuit of $3.9B Electrolux after the Swedish home appliance maker and its top shareholder Investor AB sought regulatory assurances (BBG)

• Book publisher Simon & Schuster, whose $2.2B sale to Penguin Random House fell through due to antitrust, has received a buyout bid from Richard Hurowitz backed by Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala (RT)

• Blackstone has invested another $1B into clean energy provider Invenergy Renewables Holdings, raising the PE firm’s total investment to $4B (RT)

• Japanese telecommunications provider KDDI Corporation is buying Allied Properties Real Estate Investment Trust’s urban datacenter portfolio for $1B (RT)

• CVC Capital Partners is considering options including a sale of its significant minority stake in Philippine logistics company Fast Group in a deal that could value the company at ~$1B (BBG)

• Bahrain’s state investment fund Mumtalakat is buying $510M worth of McLaren preferred stock and warrants from Saudi Arabia’s PIF and Ares Management (RT)

• Swedish bank SEB is buying Lufthansa’s AirPlus payments subsidiary for ~$491M (RT)

• Abu Dhabi National Energy Company plans to buy Sustainable Water Solutions Holding Company for $463M (RT)

• Brazilian lender Itau Unibanc will acquire a minority stake in a power plant complex owned by energy company Eneva for $210M (RT)

• Canal+, a French broadcaster owned by Vivendi, bought a 26.1% stake in over-the-top video streaming service Viu for $200M (BBG)

• Rivian acquired Swedish EV route planning app maker Iternio to add to its technology to Rivian pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles (RT)

• Egypt's Suez Canal Authority is selling a 20% stake in subsidiary Canal Company for Mooring and Lights (RT)

VC

• Aledade, a primary care network, raised a $260M Series F led by Lightspeed Venture Partners (FN)

• HighFive Healthcare, a dental partnership organization focused on endodontics and oral surgery, raised $100M in funding from Norwest (PRN)

• Patient demand and care access platform DexCare raised a $75M Series C led by ICONIQ Growth (BW)

• Volt, an open banking fintech for payments and more, raised a $60M Series B at a $350M+ valuation led by IVP (TC)

• Biotherapeutics company Attovia Therapeutics raised a $60M Series A led by Frazier (FN)

• Japanese no-code AI platform FLUX raised a $32M Series B led by DNX Ventures (PRN)

• Intelligent automation platform System Initiative raised $18M: $3M in seed funding led by Amplify Partners and $15M Series A led by Scale Venture Partners (BW)

• Digital healthcare startup Caraway raised a $16.8M Series A led by Maveron and GV (FN)

• Healthcare administrative burden startup Outbound AI raised a $16M seed round led by Madrona Venture Group and SpringRock Ventures (BW)

• Fero Labs, a manufacturing process optimization software company, raised $15M in funding led by Climate Investment (PRN)

• Retail platform Leap raised $15M in funding led by BAM Elevate and Costanoa Ventures (PRN)

• Sollis Health, a members-only medical concierge service, raised a $15M extension of its Series A led by Torch Capital, Strand Equity, Arkitekt Ventures, and more (BW)

• beehiiv, the newsletter platform powering our very own Exec Sum, raised a $12.5M Series A led by Lightspeed Venture Partners (TC)

• Augmenta, a startup automating building design for the construction industry, raised an $11.8M seed extension led by Eclipse (BW)

• Electronic court notice management platform ECFX raised $7M in funding led by Growth Street Partners (PRN)

• Alvys, a Solana Beach-based provider of a cloud-based transportation management system for small to midsized trucking companies, raised a $6.3M seed round led by Bonfire Ventures (FN)

• BetterBrand, a food tech startup known for creating “The Better Bagel,” raised a $6M Series A at a $170M valuation led by Verso Capital (TC)

• Altis Labs, a computational imaging company focused on accelerating clinical trials, raised a $6M seed round led by Benchstrength and Debiopharm Innovation Fund (BW)

• Cargobot, an international digital freight company, raised a $6M Series A led by BPBI (FN)

• Aktos, a startup building a software platform for debt collections agencies, raised a $4.4M seed round led by 8VC and Crew Capital (BW)

IPO / Direct Listings / Issuances / Block Trades

• Thyssenkrupp Nucera will be valued at more than $3.3B in its planned IPO (RT)

• Abu Dhabi will take a 7% stake and a board seat in Chinese EV maker Nio through a purchase of $739M of newly issued shares (BBG)

• Appliance maker Midea is considering a relisting of its German robotics firm Kuka on an Asian stock exchange (BBG)

SPAC

• Financials Acquisition Corp. will seek shareholder permission for more time to create a $1.3B insurance undertaking (RT)

Bankruptcy / Restructuring

• Bankrupt SVB Financial Group is still evaluating strategic alternatives for SVB Capital, its venture capital and credit investment arm (RT)

• Steinhoff International received approval from a Dutch court on a debt restructuring plan (RT)

Fundraising

• An Indian climate-focused VC firm Avaana Capital raised $70M in its first funding round to invest in clean energy and climate technology (RT)

Crypto Corner

• Bitcoin bonanza on tap if BlackRock ETF approved (RT)

• $1.4T investment management company Invesco reapplied for a Bitcoin ETF in conjunction with digital asset firm Galaxy Digital (CD)

• Binance.US now only accounts for 1.5% of total weekly trading volume in the US, down from 8.2% at the start of the year (BBG)

• The Fed sees payment stablecoins as a form of money and argued for central-bank oversight over stablecoin regulations (CD)

Exec’s Picks

• Remember the four-week-old AI startup that raised $100M+ despite not having a working product? Sifted shared their pitch deck here.

• Ben Carlson wrote a good piece on how financial advice has evolved over time.

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