Ray Doomio Goes off the Perc

Together with

Good Morning,

Investors are abandoning hedges to chase soaring stocks, GameStop is considering withdrawing its $56B bid for eBay, PE is sitting on 33,000 unsold businesses, Ray Dalio celebrated his 77th birthday at an Ibiza rave, and Iran is reportedly stonewalling a deal until Trump's term ends in 2029.

F2 is helping Wall Street's biggest funds underwrite thousands of deals in a fraction of the time and manual effort. Their platform is specifically built to optimize every step in your firm's underwriting process, no matter how complex. Try a demo!

Let's dive in.

Before The Bell

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

Markets

• US stocks closed lower yesterday as expectations of a US-Iran deal faded

• Gold climbed to a nine-week high

Earnings

• What we're watching this week:

  • Today: CoreWeave, Supermicro, CAVA

  • Wednesday: Cerebras, Nebius, Cisco

  • Thursday: Applied Materials, JD.com

• Full calendar here

Prediction Markets

• Iran is trying to stonewall a deal until after Trump's term ends lmao

• Deposit $10 and get a $20 bonus with code LIT on signup, only on the Polymarket US app

Headline Roundup

• Hopes of any Iran deal are fading (BBG)

• Kevin Warsh sold all promised stakes (BBG)

• Trump downplayed talks with Warsh amid Fed independence doubts (BBG)

• PE is stuck with 33,575 unsold businesses (NYT)

• Private credit is under growing strain despite upbeat industry tone (WSJ)

• Investors are abandoning hedges to chase soaring stocks (BBG)

• EM stock valuations are new less than half of S&P 500's (BBG)

• SEC exempts data center bonds from key securitization rules (BBG)

• BlackRock signed a deal with labor unions for AI construction jobs (BBG)

• Meta launches new AI model as Zuck champions open-weight push (RT)

• OpenAI's head of ethics quit in less than one year since joining (FT)

• India's Gautam Adani won dismissal of US securities fraud charges (BBG)

• Mamdani invited ex-Lazard and UBS bankers to his new business panel (BBG)

A Message from F2

Smarter underwriting, faster.

Every private credit firm has years of deal history hidden across investment memos, credit files, financial models, and the memory of individual team members.

The challenge isn't collecting more data, it's building systems that put your deal history to work.

F2 is the agentic operating system for private markets transforming your firm's historical deals into a structured, queryable knowledge layer that informs every financial workflow.

Why firms are adopting F2:

• Underwrite deals and monitor portfolios with the full context of your firm's own history

• Conduct second and third-order analysis on robust proprietary data sets

• Stay model agnostic while keeping your data secure and under your control

• Make every deal smarter than the last with compounding intelligence

Every deal should strengthen the next. That's the power of compounding intelligence.

Learn how F2 helps private credit firms turn their deal history into a competitive advantage. Request a demo today.

Deal Flow

M&A / Strategic

• GameStop is considering withdrawing its $56B bid for eBay and may propose a partnership or JV instead

• Nvidia will invest up to $3B for a 30% stake in Blackstone-backed ​power infrastructure developer Lancium

• Guotai Haitong Securities,the Chinese parent of international brokerage Guotai Junan ​International, offered to take the unit private at a $3.65B valuation for a 45% premium

• Gold miner Newmont agreed to pay rival Barrick $1.95B in a deal which will see both firms contribute assets to their Nevada JV to pave way for Barrick's planned IPO of its North America gold assets

• Blackstone-backed ‌Safe Harbor Marinas is nearing a deal to acquire peer MarineMax for $1.5B, including debt, at a 45% premium

• Jazz Pharmaceuticals will acquire epilepsy-focused Actio Biosciences in ​a $1.3B deal

• Morgan Stanley-backed German renewable project developer PNE is struggling to fetch bids at its desired 41.5B valuation

• Industrial conglomerate Teledyne Technologies will buy X-ray firm Varex Imaging for $1.1B, including debt, at a 50% premium

• I Squared Capital agreed to acquire Australian outdoor advertising company oOh!Media at a $635M equity valuation after a bidding war against Pacific Equity Partners, Bain Capital, ​and Oaktree

• Purvah Green Power, a unit of Indian conglomerate RPSG Group, will acquire some solar from ReNew Solar Power at a $510M enterprise valuation

• Packaged food company Flowers Foods is seeking to divest its baked goods business ​Tastykake for potentially $350M

• Australian betting company Tabcorp agreed to acquire wagering technology provider BetMakers Technology Group at a $190M valuation

• Web comics platform Webtoon Entertainment will acquire a 60% stake in a Korean gaming studio RI Games Holdings for $100M

• Archer Aviation will acquire the Wisk, SkyGrid, and Insitu units, which develop technology for flying taxis and drones, from Boeing in exchange for a 20% stake

• ​Trinidad and Tobago's state-owned National Gas Company will acquire a 20% stake in the Venezuelan portion of the Cocuina-Manakin natural gas field from BP

• Beyonce​ acquired full control ‌of the SirDavis whisky brand two years after acquiring it from LVMH

VC

• OpenAI bought back $7B worth of employee shares at an $852B valuation

• Erebor Bank, the Thiel-backed tech-focused bank of Palmer Luckey, is set to raise $1.5B at an $8B valuation from 8VC, Lux Capital, Valor Equity Partners, a16z, and others

• UK low-cost drone startup Cambridge Aerospace raised a $300M Series C at a $3.4B valuation led by DFJ Growth

• Pro Padel League raised a $15M Series A led by CD&R president and Charlotte Hornets owner Rick Schnall

• Corma, an AI cybersecurity startup, raised a $60M seed round led by Sequoia

• VibeIQ, an AI-native product decision platform for apparel and consumer goods, raised $22.5M in growth financing led by Volition Capital

• Baselayer, an AI-driven business verification company, raised a $20M in a Series A led by Koro Capital and M13

• Discovered Materials, an AI agents startup for discovering and accelerating new materials for semiconductor chips, raised a $9M seed round led by Lightspeed India Partners

Access the complete VC deal flow and data on Fundable

IPOs / Listings / Issuances / Block Trades

• Intel is planning a $15B share sale

• Duke Energy Corp. plans to raise $1.75B in a share sale

• Trive Capital-backed Sensor technology company Lyntris is seeking to raise $530M at a $2.5B valuation in an IPO

• Vietnamese media and entertainment group DatVietVAC is pursuing a local IPO at a $232M valuation

Debt

• Apollo, Blackstone, BlackRock, Brookfield, KKR, and Goldman Sachs are in talks to partner with Nvidia on a $500B AI infrastructure investing package

• Cloudflare is seeks to sell $2.2B of convertible notes

• IBM raised $2B in a Canadian bond sale

• BlackRock private credit BDC TCP Capital Corp. is selling a $523M portfolio of private credit investments to shore up its balance sheet

• AI infrastructure startup Global AI raised $440M in debt financing led by JPMorgan

• Indian auto parts manufacturer Gabriel India is in talks with foreign banks for a local-FX bond sale to fund two acquisitions worth a combined $330M

• The Colburn School, a performing arts school in Los Angeles, plans to raise $117M in the biggest munis sale by a private school in two years

Bankruptcy / Restructuring / Distressed

• A consortium including Glencore proposed a rescue deal for troubled Canadian miner Sherritt International

• Troubled luxury yacht maker The Italian Sea Group launched a sale process as part of its restructuring efforts

• Fraud-marred sports-focused PE firm 777 Partners filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy weeks after creditors sought to liquidate remaining assets

Funds / Secondaries

• Mido Capital, the new VC firm of ex-a16z partner Bryan Kim, plans to raise $100M for a debut fund

Crypto Sum Snapshot

• NYSE is developing an on-chain settlement platform for tokenized securities

• The AI trade is stealing crypto's thunder

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

Exec's Picks

• Zuck published a 6,500-word manifesto on his vision for AI. Support for open-source, open-weight models seems to be a strong theme. Read it here.

  • You can also check out Bloomberg's five takeaways from Zuck's manifesto if you want a quick summary.

• Hopefully this doesn't involve any of you but some parents (especially from the Northeast NYC/NJ/CT area) are paying upwards of $12,000 dollars for sorority rush coaches for their daughters who are enrolling in SEC schools. Absurd but intriguing nonetheless.

Financial Services Recruiting

If you're a junior banker looking for your next career move, check out Litney Partners, a recruiting firm established by Litquidity and Whitney Partners (the oldest purely financial services executive search and consulting firm).

We aim to place strong candidates across private equity, hedge funds, venture capital, growth equity, credit, and investment banking.

We're currently seeking talent for some incredible roles. Head over to Litney Partners to drop your resume / create your profile and we'd love to get in touch!

Meme Cleanser

Merch Store: Visit our merch store to shop our latest apparel, shoes, bags, accessories and more.

Litquidity Ventures: Accredited investors & qualified purchasers within the Litquidity community can gain access to alternative investments such as venture, late-stage growth, and private equity through Litquidity Ventures. Interested? Fill out this form.

☎️ Book a call with Lit: Want to pick Litquidity's brain on business advice, insights, or just chat to say what's up? Buy his time here.

Launch your own newsletter: Have great content ideas and looking to launch your own publication? We highly recommend beehiiv to get started.

*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.