Zuck Doing What He Does Best

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Good Morning,

M&A is having its best year ever, McKinsey is shaking up its board, hedge funds gained double-digits in H1, SpaceX shorts are coming under pressure, Trump made $1.4B of stock purchases in 2025, and Zuck is following in Musk's footsteps with plans for a cloud business to sell AI compute.

5 of the 10 biggest PE firms use Mosaic's software to build financial models in minutes. They've now expanded their platform to banking and private credit. Try Mosaic here.

Let's dive in.

Before The Bell

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Markets

• US stocks dipped yesterday as chip stocks continued to weigh

• Aluminum fell to the lowest since February as a rising dollar pressures commodities

• EM FX erased YTD gains

Earnings

• General Mills beat Q4 earnings and revenue estimates and expressed FY optimism as it aims to win back budget-conscious shoppers by cutting costs and adding more products (WSJ)

• Full calendar here

Prediction Markets

• Hear me out: Goldman Sachs TMT

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

Headline Roundup

• Kevin Warsh vows 'no changes' to Fed independence (FT)

• Trump made $1.4B of stock purchases in 2025 (FT)

• US won't renew USMCA trade deal with Canada and Mexico (CNBC)

• Global M&A topped $2.5T in H1 (BBG)

• Mega deals fuel record M&A as boards dream big on takeovers (RT)

• Foreigners are raiding UK companies at record-shattering pace (RT)

• Activist investors make bigger push for campaigns and M&A in H1 (RT)

• Secondaries investors grow more comfortable with fund financing in CVs (SI)

• PIMCO says private credit 'confidence gap' will reveal weak funds (BBG)

• Musk's best friend Antonio Gracias eyes AI, energy, and space after $100B SpaceX windfall (BBG)

• Millennium and Point72 are up double-digits in H1 with rivals right behind (FT)

• SpaceX short interest is at a whopping 30% (RT)

• Micron will donate $250M to Trump Accounts for children (NYT)

• Alphabet's $2T gain turns 'rock star' into question mark (BBG)

• Bending Spoons IPO turns Italian college pals into billionaires (BBG)

• CEO of BlackRock's troubled private credit fund will resign (BBG)

• Meta is building a cloud business to sell excess AI compute (BBG)

• Apple readies new iPad Pro and entry MacBook Pro for 2027 (BBG)

• Defense startups raid auto and fracking sectors for parts to speed output (RT)

• McKinsey shakes up board after scandals over past work with clients (WSJ)

• Australia weighs break-up of Big Four accounting firms after scandals (RT)

• Swedish court orders Google to pay $1.5B to Klarna in antitrust damages (RT)

A Message from Mosaic

Complex financial modeling, in minutes

Since 2021, Mosaic has been building proprietary, deterministic, rules-based software to help PE firms crank out complex industry-grade models in minutes. And while they're expanding their scope across Wall Street, they've also embedded critical features to meet the demands of every deal team.

Their deal-modeling software now offers:

• Guaranteed 100% accuracy in math, accounting, logic, linking, and auditing

• The option to fully format in your firm's styles and templates

• The ability to export to Excel with dynamic, auditable formulas

• An industry-leading library of models to construct anything from integrated DCFs to 'special situations' like div recaps and earnouts

• Integrations with your existing tools like FactSet and Cap IQ

• An AI-driven ecosystem to upload and feed data by simple drag and drops

If you've ever dreaded building a financial model, you must try out Mosaic. They're already trusted by 5 of the 10 biggest PE firms for automating end-to-end modeling in minutes.

Deal Flow

M&A / Strategic

• JPMorgan Asset Management emerged as the lead bidder to acquire French heating and cooling network operator Idex from Antin Infrastructure Partners for potentially $4.5B, including debt

• UK's National Grid will invest $1.75B to take a 35% stake in power plant developer Joulent

• Aussie asset manager Perpetual rejected a $1.7B takeover offer from European PE firm EQT despite a 40% premium

• Kroger agreed to acquire Midwest grocery chain Giant Eagle for $1.65B

• French shipping giant CMA CGM Group will acquire a supply chain subsidiary of FedEx at a $1.4B valuation

• Barclays acquired a Canary Wharf office tower for its London HQ for $990M in Europe's biggest office deal in four years

• French pharma company Ipsen agreed to buy Swiss biotech Memo Therapeutics in an $800M deal

VC

• Autonomous driving software company Wayve Technologies filed to sell shares on London's new Private Securities Market; the startup is valued at $8.6B

• AI neocloud Together AI raised an $800M Series C at an $8.3B valuation led by Aramco ​Ventures

• Addi, a Colombian commerce and financial services platform, raised an $85M Series D led by Citius and BTG Pactual

• Venice, a privacy-first AI platform, raised a $65M Series A at a $1B valuation led by Dragonfly

• Aligned, an AI B2B deal execution workspace, raised a $60M Series B led by PeakSpan Capital

• CarbonSix, a physical AI manufacturing company, raised a $40M Series A co-led by DSC Investment and LB Investment

• OXMIQ, a unified GPU and AI architecture company, raised a $35M Series A co-led by Fundomo and Samsung Catalyst Fund

• Integral, an independent privacy layer for the real-world data economy, raised $25M in funding from Venrex, The General Partnership, Array Ventures, and others

• 10Beauty, a robotics company behind the first full-service robotic manicure, raised a $23.5M led by Story Ventures

Access the complete VC deal flow and data on Fundable

IPOs / Listings / Issuances / Block Trades

• Italian app investor Bending Spoons jumped 40% in its trading debut after raising $1.7B for a $26B valuation in a US IPO priced above a marketed range

• Fintech Plaid is considering an IPO; the startup was valued at $8B this year

• Oman India Fertiliser is set to raise $680M in an Oman IPO after drawing over $12B in orders

• Dien May Xanh Investment, the electronics retailer of Vietnam's Mobile World Investment Corp., raised $505M in a Vietnam IPO

• Tank maker KNDS postponed its IPO due to defense sector market volatility

Debt

• SoftBank ​restarted talks for a $10B margin loan backed by OpenAI shares

• Honda is exploring selling $2.5B of euro-denominated bonds

• Daniel Kretinsky, the Czech billionaire and to-be largest shareholder of UK soccer club West Ham United, is considering making a $130M loan for the club to buy players

Bankruptcy / Restructuring / Distressed

• Czech distressed debt investor APS Holding is eyeing 42 portfolios with a $3.75B face value

• Creditors of Dutch bike maker Accell Group are preparing to offload assets to Singaporean investment firm Dutech Holdings months after they took control in a restructuring

• Modella Capital-backed struggling UK retailer TGJones won court approval for a financial restructuring that will shutter more than 100 stores and slash rents to stave off insolvency

• Struggling Florida high-speed rail Brightline staved off a formal default for the last time with future uncertain as creditors fight for control

Funds / Secondaries

• Abu Dhabi's sovereign AI fund MGX raised $49B for the biggest ever fund dedicated to AI deals

• Czech distressed debt investor APS Holding is seeking to raise $340M for a special opportunities fund to focus on non-performing loans, special situations, and private credit

• Ashton Kutcher is leaving Sound Ventures to set up a new VC firm with NFX GP Morgan Beller

Crypto Sum Snapshot

• Trump's $1.4B haul makes him biggest US crypto moneymaker

• Robinhood unveiled flurry of new products and updates in crypto push

• Binance stock trading surpassed $1B AUM in just 30 days

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

Exec's Picks

• Larry Swedroe wrote an insightful piece on what exactly 'semi-liquid' entails in the world of private credit. Read it here.

• Also, here's a humble reminder from a16z in case you think your product is not ready for launch. Check it out.

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.