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Chirayu Rana re-filed his 'sex slave' lawsuit with witness statements, OpenAI president Greg Brockman's diary exposed some serious hypocrisy* against Musk, and GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen had the most awkward response to being asked about how he intends to finance the $56B eBay offer.

*Hypocrisy = $30B in magical personal wealth + a stake in Sam Altman's family fund + personal confessions of 'stealing' from Musk

By now I'm sure you've heard of F2's AI platform for private markets and today they released their biggest update yet: Institutional Knowledge. Go beyond AI's promise of automated DD and build a persistent intelligence layer specifically around your firms deal history, only with F2 👀

Let's dive in.

Before The Bell

As of 5/4/2026 market close.

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

Markets

  • US stocks retreated from ATHs yesterday as investors monitored Iran developments and braced for another major earnings stretch

  • EM stocks rose to a fresh ATH on the back of tech

Earnings

  • Palantir issued a Q1 beat-and-raise as strong US military demand and rapid growth in its enterprise data-crunching software business led to record profit and revenue as it struggles to keep up with demand (WSJ)

  • Paramount Skydance beat Q1 earnings and revenue estimates on growth in its Paramount+ streaming business and reaffirmed its FY outlook ahead of its $110B merger with Warner Bros (CNBC)

  • What we're watching this week:   

    • Today: AMD, Supermicro, PayPal, Shopify, KKR, Pfizer

    • Wednesday: Walt Disney, Uber, Kraft Heinz, Snap, CVS

    • Thursday: McDonald's, Coinbase, CoreWeave

  • Full calendar here 

Prediction Markets

  • 16% chance of a 100% chance of 50% stock and 50% cash

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

Headline Roundup

  • Chirayu Rana re-filed his 'sex slave' lawsuit with witness statements (NYP)

  • Chirayu Rana faked his dad's death to get family leave during which he compiled his lawsuit (NYP)

  • OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman disclosed a $30B stake and deep financial ties to Altman as diary entries expose for-profit hypocrisy (FT)

  • US and Iran trade fire in threat to four-week ceasefire (WSJ)

  • S&P 500 buyback plans hit a record high this year (BBG)

  • Cost gap drives some borrowers from private credit to syndicated loans (RT)

  • PJT CEO says retail investors will stop fueling private credit growth (BBG)

  • PIMCO's international clients seek to diversify away from US (BBG)

  • SEC is investigating allegations of fraud in private credit firms (BBG)

  • Electronic munis trading hit a record high in Q1 (BBG)

  • GameStop's $56B eBay bid raises financing doubts among investors (RT)

  • GameStop's 'highly confident' $20B letter from TD echoes Drexel (BBG)

  • 'Big Short' investor Michael Burry sold his entire GameStop position (BBG)

  • Citigroup set a new rewards structure for banking and wealth referrals (FT)

  • Musk sought a settlement with OpenAI days before trial (RT)

  • Musk will settle his Twitter disclosure lawsuit versus SEC for $1.5M (WSJ)

  • Citadel's ex-CTO Umesh Subramanian will join Motive Partners (BBG)

  • Demand for active-shooter insurance spikes amid rising political violence (FT)

A Message from F2

Turning your deal history from a graveyard to an edge

Your firm has years of judgment buried in IC memos, financial models, diligence notes, and IC scars.

Then the next deal hits and everyone is back on square one…memos in random folders, models titled vFinal_v7_realfinal.xlsx, and actual lessons lost somewhere between a diligence note and an unrecorded IC debate

Today, F2 launched Institutional Knowledge to change that.

F2 turns your firm's deal history into a persistent intelligence layer, so teams can instantly find relevant precedents, compare against prior underwriting, and surface risks, mitigants, comps, and lessons learned when they actually matter.

IK brings your firm's prior judgment into diligence, underwriting, and portfolio monitoring, so every deal makes the next memo, model, and portfolio decision sharper.

If your team keeps relearning the same expensive lessons, it's time you check it out.

Try a free demo

Deal Flow

M&A / Strategic

  • eBay is reviewing GameStop's unsolicited $56B 'half cash, half stock' takeover offer

  • Shareholders of Italian lender UniCredit approved the issuance of new shares to finance its $40B hostile bid for German rival Commerzbank

  • Australian gold miner Regis Resources agreed to merge with Vault Minerals in a $7.7B all-stock deal 

  • General Atlantic-backed investment and technology firm Long Lake will take-private American Express Global Business Travel in a $6.3B ‌cash deal at a 60% premium 

  • Electrical components-focused industrials firms Hubbell agreed to acquire industrials rollup NSI Industries from Sentinel Capital Partners for $3B

  • Lattice Semiconductor will acquire firmware company AMI from THL Partners in a $1.65B cash-and-stock deal

  • Canadian CRE investor Hazelview Investments will combine its listed real estate business with that of Presima Securities to add more than $370M in listed real estate assets to its platform

  • Spanish PE firm Henko Partners is exploring a sale of its 49.5% stake in Portuguese engineering consultant Quadrante at an over $350M valuation

  • Blue Owl-backed Aussie investment firm Navigator Global will acquire a portfolio of revenue-share interests in 17 alternative asset managers from Stable Asset Management in a $195M cash-and-stock deal

  • MBK Partners is considering selling its stake in Belgian luxury chocolate brand Pierre Marcolini for $100M

  • Carlyle acquired a majority stake in healthcare RCM firms Knack RCM and EqualizeRCM

  • Poland's biggest insurance company PZU agreed to buy MetLife's Ukrainian unit

  • Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. will acquire HSBC's retail and wealth assets in Indonesia

  • Biva, Mexico's second-largest stock exchange backed by LIV Capital, received 'serious' interest from potential bidders in a sale process that kicked off last year

  • Recreational-vehicle suppliers LCI Industries and Patrick Industries terminated merger talks

VC

  • Chinese humanoid robotics startup Linkerbot will seek a $6B valuation ​in its next funding round, double the valuation from its Series B+ last week

  • Sierra, an enterprise AI startup focused on agentic customer experiences, raised a $950M Series E at an over $15B post-money valuation led by Tiger Global and GV 

  • Panthalassa, a startup developing ocean-based data centers powered by waves, raised a $140M Series B at a $1B valuation led by Peter Thiel

  • AI-native third-party administrator Reserv raised a $125M Series C led by KKR 

  • Smartness, an Italian startup applying AI to hotel and vacation-rental management, raised a $55M Series B led by United Ventures and CDP Venture Capital

  • Enzo Health, an AI-driven platform for home health and post-acute care, raised $20M Series A led by N47

  • Barocal, a solid-material heating and cooling startup, raised a $10M seed round from World Fund, Breakthrough Energy Discovery, and others

  • LakeFusion, a Databricks-native master data management (MDM) platform, raised a $7.5M seed round led by Silverton Partners 

Access the complete VC deal flow and data on Fundable

IPOs / Listings / Issuances / Block Trades

  • Apollo-owned auto parts supplier Tenneco picked banks for an IPO that could fetch a $14B valuation 

  • Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust is seeking to raise $1.75B in an IPO

  • Geothermal energy developer Fervo Energy is looking to raise $1.33B at a $6.5B valuation in an IPO

  • $24B-listed small ceramic electronic components maker Three-Circle aims to raise $1B in a Hong Kong listing

  • KKR-backed emergency medical services firm GMR Solutions is seeking to raise $800M at a $4.7B valuation in an IPO

  • Permian Basin landowner EagleRock Land is seeking to raise $346M at a $2.6B valuation in an IPO

  • Immune system-focused biotech Odyssey Therapeutics is seeking to raise $240M at an $810M valuation in an IPO

  • Medical device-maker Mobia Medical is seeking to raise $160M at a $530M valuation in an IPO

SPAC / SPV

  • SingAuto, a Singaporean developer of green cold-chain logistics tech and smart commercial EVs, will merge with Blueport Acquisition in a $1.2B deal

Debt

  • Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan are leading a $13B financing package for a Meta data center in Texas

  • Banks kicked off a $2.3B junk bond sale to help finance Carlyle and SWF QIA's $9.1B LBO of German chemical giant BASF's coatings business

  • Genstar-backed First Eagle Investments is looking to sell $575M of junk-bonds to help fund its acquisition of boutique asset manager Diamond Hill Investment

  • Goldman Sachs Asset Management-backed insulation tech firm Boyd Corp. is offering a $530M loan at a steep discount for a refinancing following a recent $9.5B divestiture of its liquid-cooling business to Eaton

  • Bolivia is gauging investor interest for its first dollar bond sale in four years 

Bankruptcy / Restructuring / Distressed

  • Creditors holding $1.8B of bonds in Fortress-backed struggling high-speed rail Brightline West extended a deadline for the firm to raise more cash for its LA-to-Vegas project

  • PE firm KPS Capital Partners is buying chunks of $585M of debt in its own building materials firm Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope for 50¢ 

  • Spirit Airlines will liquidate in Chapter 7

  • Saks Global sent its bankruptcy plan to creditors for ​a vote for a restructuring that ‌would wipe out all equity and hand control over to senior lenders

Funds / Secondaries

  • Carlyle raised $8.5B in a structured financing to seed its next flagship buyout fund and repay LPs in some older vintages

  • MM PE pioneer THL Partners raised $6.35B for its tenth fund

  • OpenAI raised over $4B from investors including TPG, Brookfield, Advent, and Bain Capital for The Deployment Company, a $10B JV to equip portfolio companies with its AI tools

  • Anthropic formed a $1.5B JV with Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, Hellman & Friedman, Apollo, General Atlantic, Sequoia, Leonard Green, and Singapore SWF GIC to equip portfolio companies with its AI tools

  • Crypto VC Haun Ventures raised $1B for two new early and late-stage blockchain and AI funds 

Crypto Sum Snapshot

  • Trump family's World Liberty Financial sued backer Justin Sun for defamation

  • SEC delayed review of over two dozen prediction market ETFs

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

Exec’s Picks

  • The last distressed cycle minted careers. The practitioners who made theirs are leading the next cohort of Wharton Online's Restructuring & Distressed Investing Certificate. Starts June 8. Use code LITQUIDITY before May 11 to save $500.

  • GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen had the most awkward response to being asked how he intends to finance his $56B eBay offer. It's the most brutal 120 seconds I've ever watched.

  • Ken Griffin once rescinded a Citadel job offer from a Harvard grad after he said he would quit and climb mountains if he made $10 million. Watch Ken Griffin's explanation here.

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!

Get Hired 🤝

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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.