Jake Paul Sets up Shop in Dallas

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Jake Paul launched a family office, Jensen Huang made his Twitter debut, SpaceX successfully completed its first Starship test flight since going public, a PE founder pleaded guilty to a $50M fraud, and Shemara Wikramanayake will retire after making her mark as the world's highest paid woman banking CEO.

Mizuho published some interesting insights into the evolving investing landscape in the rapidly-growing aerospace and defense sectors. Read it here.

Let's dive in.

Before The Bell

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Markets

• US stocks closed mixed on Friday as the Iran situation and chip selloff continued to weigh

Earnings

• What we're watching this week:

  • Today: Whirlpool

  • Tuesday: Boeing, UPS, PayPal, Visa, Coca-Cola

  • Wednesday: Microsoft, Meta, Qualcomm, Robinhood, Chipotle, P&G

  • Thursday: Apple, Amazon

  • Friday: ExxonMobil, Chevron

• Full calendar here

Prediction Markets

• George Russell bottling his only shot at a championship against a rookie teammate. Who would've guessed??

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

Headline Roundup

• Jensen Huang made his Twitter debut (X)

• Jake Paul launched a family office (DN)

• The 'Trump Trade' is turning out to be loser (BBG)

• Earnings are beating a high bar and traders still aren't enthused (BBG)

• Big Tech earnings to test market's revolt over AI spending (BBG)

• Big Tech debt flood is taking over risk In market (BBG)

• Momentum crash hits YOLO traders' returns by most in four years (BBG)

• Europe's stock market rally is the most concentrated in years (BBG)

• CME will launch single-stock futures on 50 biggest companies (BBG)

• Euronext is weighing a private securities marketplace to rival UK (BBG)

• Brazil ETF market triples in boom for new LatAm funds (BBG)

• Vitol Group paid out $5.9B to traders despite profits halving (BBG)

• Macquarie CEO exits as one of world's highest-paid female bankers (BBG)

• Blackstone private credit co-CEO Jonathan Bock quit (BBG)

• Samsung and SK Hynix signed $1T in AI capex deals (BBG)

• SpaceX successfully completed first Starship test flight since IPO (CNBC)

• PE founder pleaded guilty to $50M fraud (BBG)

• Over 250k people flee wildfires ravaging France and Spain (BBG)

A Message from Mizuho

The post-Cold War era of relative stability has given way to a period of increased volatility, where the risk of military conflict is no longer an anomaly but a defining feature of the landscape. In parallel to this geopolitical shift, we are witnessing a transformation in the conduct of military operations driven by the adoption of new technologies, evolving tactics and the reassessment of long-held assumptions. As the technological environment evolves, the strategies for investing in the defense and space sectors are keeping pace.

Deal Flow

M&A / Strategic

• Paramount will pause its $110B merger with Warner Bros until as late as June 2027 after twelve states sought to block the merger on antitrust grounds

• United Airlines approached Delta last year about a potential $100B merger

• Germany's $50B-listed Commerzbank is ready for takeover talks after Italian peer UniCredit secured a 48% stake in a hostile bid

• French warehouse specialist Argan and Belgian peer WDP will merge in an all-stock deal to form a $14.8B logistics real estate company

• Payments fintech Stripe is in talks to acquire LLM API startup OpenRouter for potentially $10B; the startup is valued at $1.3B

• Carlyle and Bain Capital are competing to acquire RIA rollup Wealth Enhancement from TA Associates and Onex for $7B

• Jeff Bezos is in talks to join the consortium of Amit Bhatia, the son-in-law of steel giant ArcelorMittal's founder, to acquire a 30% stake in Liverpool FC from Fenway Sports Groups at a $6B valuation

• Canadian engineering consulting firm WSP Global made an improved $5.4B offer for Dutch peer Arcadis at a 30% premium

• Bain Capital and LY Corp. are considering making a fresh joint offer for $4.5B-listed Japanese price comparison website Kakaku.com to challenge a tender offer from EQT

• Devon Energy is exploring a sale of its Eagle Ford and Powder River shale assets which could fetch a combined $4B

• German insurance giant Allianz will acquire HSBC's Singapore life and health insurance business for $2.1B

• Bain Capital agreed to acquire UK vitamins company Vitabiotics from Tej Lalvani for $1.2B

• Blackstone, Donerail, and Centerbridge are the final bidders to acquire yacht retailer MarineMax for $1B

• Japan's Seven & i Holdings ended talks to invest $1B in Polish convenience store operator Zabka Group

• Amancio Ortega's family office Pontegadea Inversiones acquired the Capital 8 business center in Paris from Invesco for $912M

• Tech PE firm Ridgeview offered to acquire UK's Pinewood Technologies for $726M at a 42% premium

• SoftBank is considering acquiring Germany-based Gravis Robotics for over $500M

• Renewables-focused PE firm ⁠Qualitas Energy and Wren House, the infrastructure arm of Kuwait's SWF KIA, is in advanced talks to acquire BP's solar business Lightsource

• Russian consumer goods manufacturer Arnest ‌Management will acquire UK consumer goods giant Reckitt's Russian hygiene ​business; Reckitt will take a $230M loss

• AI lab Midjourney acquired popular astrology app Co-Star

VC

• Chinese AI startup DeepSeek paused its second fundraising rounds seeking a $70B valuation after founder Liang Wenfeng was caught roasting China's tech inferiority to US

• Musk's tunneling startup The Boring Company is in talks to raise a $4B round at a $20B valuation

• Etched.ai, an AI chip startup focused on specialized chips for model inference, raised a $300M round at a $10.3B valuation led by Sequoia

• Underdog, a fantasy sports platform, raised a $35M Series B at a $485M valuation led by BlackRock and Acies Investment

• Inference, a startup that distills large AI models into smaller specialized models, raised an $11.8M seed round led by Multicoin Capital and a16z crypto

• Wellumio, a provider of a portable brain imaging solution for point-of-care stroke detection, raised a $9.75M in pre-Series A led by Nuance Connected Capital

Access the complete VC deal flow and data on Fundable

IPOs / Listings / Issuances / Block Trades

• Chinese chip firm CXMT is set to become China's most valuable company after raising $9.8B in a historic China IPO

• TPG and Temasek-backed Indian hospital operator Manipal Health is seeking to raise $960M at a lower $8B valuation in its India IPO

• Lilly-backed heart disease-focused biotech Scribe Therapeutics surged 44% in its trading debut after raising $130M for a $380M market cap in an upsized IPO priced at the top of a marketed range

• Malaysian SWF Khazanah sold $340M worth of shares in state-owned power firm Tenaga Nasional at a 5% discount

• Canadian gold miner Cadillac Mines raised $273M for a $4.2B valuation in an upsized Canada IPO

• THL Partners-backed robotics software firm Brooks Automation is considering an IPO

• Trive Capital-backed defense tech Lyntris filed for an IPO

Funds / Secondaries

• Singapore SWF GIC will allocate $30B to hedge funds in the next three years

• Swiss PE firm Partners Group raised $5.5B for its debut infrastructure secondaries fund

• Meridiem Capital Partners, the equity L/S hedge fund that Millennium pulled $1.5B from two years ago, is set to hit $2B in AUM this year with backing from Schonfeld

Crypto Sum Snapshot

• Robinhood eyes partnership with Crypto.com to rival Kalshi markets

• BitMEX, the crypto exchange that pioneered 100x Bitcoin leverage, shut down

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

Exec's Picks

• Bloomberg highlighted the evolving nature of the content creation and influencer space, where the rise of micro-influencers is giving rise to a new middle class.

• Also, just how much are corporates spending on ultra-luxury executive perks?

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!

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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.