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Good Morning,

Tom Brady may or may not have retired, the Twitter mob is mad at Spotify and Joe Rogan, Apollo PE staff can work remote all August, Nadal won the Australian Open, fake covid passes are the new fake IDs, and Genesis is accepting NFTs as collateral for loans (Can't wait for Christian Bale to short JPEGs in The Big Short 2).

New: with all of the news surrounding cryptocurrencies, the asset class being worth $1T+ and DeFi continuing to disrupt traditional financial markets, we have decided to add a small dedicated section to the newsletter going forward called "The Crypto Corner". Let us know if you have feedback on what you'd like to see here.

Attn accredited investors: we've got two private investment opportunities with live deal rooms right now. If you're on our accredited investor distribution list, be sure to check your emails for info re: timing (in case it may have gone to "promotions" or "junk" folders). If you have any questions or want to be included, email [email protected]

Let's dive in.

Before The Bell

As of 1/28/2022 market close.

If you want to learn more about crypto trading strategies and the world of DeFi, check out our Foot Guns newsletter.

Markets

  • The three major averages closed green Friday after a roller-coaster week in the markets

    • Big tech led the rebound after a big earnings week that will continue on Tuesday with Alphabet and Paypal reporting

  • The Fed announced their initial plans to start raising rates in 2022 which will add to the volatility in the markets as they price in the new information

  • January has been a rough month for the S&P 500 and the Dow, with both of them set to have their worst months since March 2020 and October 2020, respectively

    • The Cboe Volatility Index (i.e. the market’s fear gauge) shot to its highest level since October 2020 and traded above 30 earlier in the week 

Earnings

  • What we’re watching this week: 

    • Tues: Alphabet, PayPal, Starbucks, ExxonMobil, AMD

    • Weds: Meta, Spotify

    • Thurs: Amazon, Ford

    • Full calendar here

Headline Roundup

  • Spotify publishes content policy in response to Rogan controversy (WSJ)

  • Samsung Austin plant spilled acid waste for months, probe shows (BBG)

  • Swiss court seeks $45M in Credit Suisse laundering case (BBG)

  • Saudi wealth fund rakes in $5B as demand for stocks booms (BBG)

  • Apollo gives PE staff a work-from-anywhere August in nod to flex time (BBG)

  • Pentagon says Putin still adding Russian troops around Ukraine (BBG)

  • Nadal wins Australian Open for record 21st major title (BBG)

  • Turkey asks people to ditch dollars for Lira savings (BBG)

  • Blackstone tees up $11B in fresh capital for Asia deals (BBG)

  • Iran’s Khamenei orders crackdown on smuggled luxury goods (BBG)

  • UniCredit walks away from Russia bank deal on Ukraine risk (BBG)

  • CVC Capital co-founder plans to step back amid IPO preparations (BBG)

  • Drugmakers raised prices by 6.6% on average early this year (WSJ)

  • Two New York nurses charged with forging Covid vaccine cards to earn $1.5M+ (CNBC)

  • Confusion reigns following conflicting reports that legendary Super Bowl champion Tom Brady is retiring (CNBC)

  • Rikers Island inmates plot hunger strikes over poor conditions ahead of Biden’s NYC visit (NYP)

A Message From Alts

Analyzing the heck out of alternative investments

Inflation is rampant, and J Pow said it’s finally time to raise rates.

Growth stocks are down. Value stocks are down. You tried buying Bitcoin to diversify your portfolio, but even crypto is down.

What if you could invest in something that was actually uncorrelated? Something like… farmland. Or domain names. Or watches. Or even islands.

It turns out that you can! Where do I go for the best information on these alternative investments? Alts.

Alts is a newsletter that covers dozens of alternative assets, from comics, to video games, to cars.

Stefan and Wyatt provide original research and insights across these alternative investments to help you find new assets that fit your portfolio.

Subscribe to Alts for free

The Crypto Corner

  • Crypto lender Genesis to accept NFTs as collateral for loans (FT)

  • President Joe Biden is going after bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies and NFTs (Forbes)

  • Binance restricts Nigerian crypto accounts on security concern (BBG)

  • Wonderland, the DeFi protocol and Olympus DAO fork behind $TIME / $MEMO, voted out its treasury manager "Sifu" after it was revealed that he was a convicted co-founder of failed Canadian crypto exchange QuadrigaCX. The DAO is also voting on potentially shutting down (The Block)

  • Wall Street banks are expanding crypto sell-side research, with Jefferies and Credit Suisse currently on the hunt for crypto talent (The Block)

  • OpenSea refunds $1.8M in Ethereum to users who lost NFTs from 'inactive listing' exploit (Decrypt)

  • Arizona considers making bitcoin legal tender (BW)

Deal Flow

M&A / Investments

  • Elliott Management and Vista Equity Partners are nearing an agreement to buy cloud-computing company Citrix Systems for $13B (WSJ)

  • German chemicals maker Lanxess and Advent are preparing a joint bid for Dutch chemicals maker DSM’s plastic business in a potential $3.34B deal (RT)

  • AEA Investors is considering a sale of Danish transport company Scan Global Logistics in a potential $1.5B deal (BBG)

  • Appliance makers Electrolux Professional and Middleby are among those competing to acquire ice machine maker Manitowoc Ice that could sell for ~$1.2B in auction (BBG)

  • Banker Jaime Gilinski is offering to buy up to $1.1B of shares in foodmaker Grupo Nutresa and up to $289M in financial conglomerate Grupo de Inversiones Suramericana (BBG)

  • Bank DBS agreed to buy Citigroup’s consumer business in Taiwan for $706.6M (RT)

  • Activist investor Cevian Capital has built a stake in British telecoms company Vodafone (BBG)

VC

  • Instant grocery delivery startup Zapp raised a $200M Series B led by Lightspeed, 468 Capital, and BroadLight Capital (TC)

  • No-code AI technology startup CausaLens raised a $45M round led by Dorilton Ventures and Molten Ventures (TC)

  • SlateSafety, a startup building a connected safety platform, raised a $1.7M seed round led by RFSI (PRN)

IPO / Direct Listings / Issuances / Block Trades

  • Italian commercial refrigeration systems maker Epta is considering seeking an up to $2B valuation in an IPO (BBG)

  • Construction unit Hyundai Engineering cancelled their potential $1B IPO after global markets tanked (BBG)

SPAC

  • Digital healthcare company ETAO International agreed to merge with Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp III in a $2.5B deal (RT)

Exec's Picks

  • You know the Spanish laughing guy meme? In this popular meme format, a Spanish man cackles while telling story in an interview that is captioned in English to tell a completely different, but even funnier, story. Trung Phan wrote an excellent piece on Juan Joya Borja, the man behind the meme. Check it out here.

  • If you are worried about inflation killing your savings, check out ZeFi – a Y Combinator-backed company with an app to save, spend and earn up to 8% APY on your deposits. How is 8% APY possible? The answer is DeFi protocols. Sign up here and get started for free in just a few minutes.

  • Last week, Morgan Housel wrote a great article about how most extraordinary skills are actually just powerful combinations of ordinary skills. Check out Big Skills.

  • Wombo is a website that uses AI to turn written prompts into artwork. Type a phrase like "New York City", pick from 18 different art styles, and hit "create" to generate an image. Check out Wombo here.

The Hiring Block

If you're looking to break into finance, lateral, or move out, check out our job board on Pallet, where we curate highly relevant roles for you. We've got 30+ jobs spanning IB, S&T, VC, tech, private equity, DeFi, crypto, CorpDev and more. We sift through all the noise on LinkedIn, Indeed, Monster, etc. so you don't have to.

Meme Cleanser

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🗣 ICYMI: Lit and Mark hosted the "face and hair" of FinTwit, Doug Boneparth, on Big Swinging Decks last week. Catch the latest episode of our Big Swinging Decks podcast on Spotify and Apple Music 🤝