🧃 Geopolitics in a Hoodie

Someone's always left cleaning up the mess.

A Free Lunch newsletter archive of June 4, 2026

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🇬🇧 United Kingdom
🇺🇸 United States

Good morning!

It takes a particular kind of nerve to turn down the Pentagon. Or a particular kind of naivety. Dario Amodei manages both, in ratios his own investors are struggling to model. Anthropic, valued at $965bn at its latest round and now worth more than OpenAI, has just been labelled a « national supply chain risk » by the Trump administration, a designation previously reserved for Chinese firms and pariah regimes. Within days, OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Elon Musk’s xAI were cleared for classified use instead, confirming once again that Silicon Valley splits neatly into two camps: those who have principles, and those who have customers.

Anthropic’s two red lines: no mass surveillance of American citizens, no fully autonomous weapons. Phrased that way, it sounds like garden-variety democratic common sense. Except Amodei himself, back in January, likened selling Nvidia chips to China to « selling nuclear weapons to North Korea and bragging that Boeing made the casings », which makes the current pose somewhat acrobatic. Here is a man who deploys the nuclear metaphor to win his geopolitical fights, then expresses surprise when the state treats his models as strategic infrastructure to be controlled. If AI really is the bomb, Amodei has just decided that an unelected San Francisco CEO should keep his finger on the button. That isn’t alignment. It’s geopolitics in a hoodie.

The response from Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, is worth its weight in incoherence. Banning every military supplier from working with Anthropic would catch AWS, Google Cloud and Nvidia, whose Pentagon contracts run into the tens of billions. Legally fragile, economically suicidal, logically absurd: the same press release classifies Anthropic as both a security risk AND a technology essential to national defence. Both claims sit side by side without anyone flinching, which says as much about the administration’s intellectual range as it does about the strength of its case.

What remains, once the theatre subsides, is the only question that matters: whom does one actually trust? American telcos rolled over for the NSA without a murmur after 9/11, and it took Snowden, years later, for anyone to find out. Defence contractors do not lose sleep over how their kit ends up being used. Anthropic, at least, does. Almost respectable, really. Except Amodei’s argument ultimately boils down to: trust me. And choosing between a Trumpist general and an AI messianist who casts himself as humanity’s guardian leaves only a preference between two fears.

🧃 Geopolitics in a Hoodie

🗞️ Top Story

  • 🇵🇹 All Systems Stop. Portugal faces widespread disruption as a general strike shuts down public transport and services in defiance of the government’s labor reform agenda. (Die Zeit)
  • 🇪🇺 Green Light District. The has given preliminary approval to restart Ukraine’s stalled membership talks, finally bypassing Hungary’s long-standing veto and opening the door to formal negotiations. (Le Parisien)
  • 🇺🇦 Past Imperfect. President Zelensky presides over the reburial of nationalist leader Andriy Melnyk in Kyiv, sparking outrage from Israel and Poland over his controversial legacy. (Le Monde)
  • 🇷🇺 Friend Request. The Kremlin confirms that Gerhard Schröder, Germany’s ex-chancellor and Putin’s loyal ally, has landed in Russia for a visit. (Spiegel)
  • 🇺🇸 Spy Hard. and Five Eyes intelligence agencies issue a rare joint alert about China exploiting job platforms to extract secrets from global security experts. (Washington Post)
  • 🇺🇸 Call of Duty. Donald Trump confirmed he called Netanyahu « effing crazy » over Israeli strikes in Lebanon, complicating US-Iran talks and exposing deep White House frustration. (BBC)
  • 🇺🇸 Screw Loose. The deadly screwworm parasite is back in the, endangering cattle herds and sending the livestock industry scrambling for solutions. (Bloomberg)
  • 🇺🇸 Monkey Business. NIH virologists Vincent Munster and Claude Kwe were indicted after US authorities caught them at Detroit airport with 113 vials, including deactivated monkeypox, raising questions about their travel souvenirs and their future freedom.
  • 🇻🇪 Capital Gains. General Dan Caine’s arrival in Caracas marks the highest-level US military visit since Maduro’s removal, as the US courts Venezuela’s new leadership. (Le Monde)
  • 🇰🇵 Power Trip. Kim Jong Un announces North Korea has finalized a program to exponentially increase its nuclear strength, insisting the country’s arsenal is now bigger and here to stay. (Ouest-France)
  • 🇮🇷 Gulf Course. Tehran launches drone attacks on Kuwait and Bahrain, accusing them of enabling US strikes and using their vulnerability as a warning to the West. (Les Echos)
  • 🇸🇴 Friendly Fire. Former Somali prime minister Hassan Ali Khaire claims government forces attacked him in Mogadishu, just before an opposition protest against the president’s extended mandate. (Le Monde)
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
  • 🇬🇧 Textual Healing. Darren Jones privately comforted Peter Mandelson after his US ambassador firing, while also requesting his input on cabinet moves, leaked messages show. (The Guardian)
  • 🇬🇧 After the Storm. Southampton residents face lingering trauma as the city recovers physically from violent anti-police riots over the Henry Nowak case. (The Guardian)
  • 🇬🇧 Mind the Gap. The RMT union confirms another 24-hour Tube strike on Thursday, forcing Londoners to navigate a capital city with fewer trains and more chaos. (The Guardian)
🇺🇸 United States
  • 🇺🇸 Power Move. The House passes a resolution to curb Trump’s authority on Iran, with some Republicans joining Democrats in a rare bipartisan pushback. (New York Times)
  • 🇺🇸 Solo Act. Karen Bass moves on to the L.A. mayoral election, with voters still waiting to learn who will share the stage. (New York Times)
  • 🇺🇸 House of Cards. Senator Thom Tillis torches Trump’s pick for intelligence chief, Bill Pulte, calling him unqualified and predicting zero chance of Senate confirmation. (Cnbc)

🏛️ Economy

  • 🇫🇷 Bracket Science. The OFCE unveils its own approach to taxing fortunes over €100M, challenging both the left’s Zucman tax and the right’s rejection of reform. (Le Monde)
  • 🇵🇱 Chicken Run. Polish poultry producers brace for a Mercosur agreement that could send a surge of Brazilian and Argentinian chicken into Europe, putting local giants on edge. (Le Monde)
  • 🇪🇺 Deal or No Deal. The accuses the US of breaking the spirit of their 2025 Turnberry accord with threatened tariffs, calling for dialogue instead of escalation. (Le Temps)
  • 🇪🇺 Budget on a Leash. The Commission grants member states extra fiscal room for energy and defense, but only if the spending cuts fossil fuel use and stays tightly capped. (Les Echos)
  • 🇪🇺 Race Against Time. The scrambles to regain industrial sovereignty as leaders warn that without urgent action, Europe faces a slow economic decline. (Le Figaro)
  • 🇪🇺 Growth Pains. The OECD has trimmed its global GDP forecast for 2026, citing Middle East conflict and rising costs as key drags on household and business demand. (Boursier)
  • 🇪🇺 Gigaflop. The EU’s ambition for five AI megacenters stumbles early, with only two sites likely to get funding and the bidding process postponed. (Thenextweb)
  • 🇨🇺 Card Blockade. Cuba suspends all Visa and Mastercard payments after US sanctions force a foreign bank to cut ties, leaving residents cash-strapped by executive order. (France Info)
  • 🌏 Wake-Up Call. ASEAN Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn warns that the Middle East war exposes the bloc’s vulnerability on food security and energy, urging urgent cooperation. (Bloomberg)
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
  • 🇬🇧 Universal Credit. The UK government pledges £1.3B of taxpayer money to help Universal Studios 🇺🇸 build its first European theme park in Bedfordshire, ensuring Hollywood gets a British sequel. (The Guardian)
  • 🇬🇧 Ashes to Ashes. England enters the New Zealand Test series still reeling from their Ashes defeat, with Brendon McCullum’s regime under scrutiny and the debt to supporters overdue. (BBC)

🏢 Real Estate

  • 🇭🇰 Block Party. Mainland Chinese buyers are snapping up property in Hong Kong’s trendiest new districts, reshaping the city’s real estate map one block at a time. (Bloomberg)
🇺🇸 United States
  • 🇺🇸 House Arrest. Nearly 6% of home listings vanished from the market in April, matching pandemic-era levels as sellers retreat from stubborn buyers. (Cnbc)
  • 🇺🇸 Home and Away. Bill Pulte’s surprise move from housing czar to intelligence chief means his big plans for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are likely on indefinite pause. (New York Times)

🔗 On-chain

  • 🇺🇸 HODL the Door. Long-term bitcoin believers have started selling off billions, with $2.4B leaving wallets this week as the price keeps falling. (Cnbc)
  • 🇺🇸 Sell High, Slide Low. Bitcoin plunged below $70,000 after Strategy 🇺🇸 broke its « never sell » vow, triggering $594M in long liquidations and rattling crypto markets. (Cnbc)
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
  • 🇬🇧 Gift Aid. Keir Starmer accuses Nigel Farage of avoiding answers about the £5M gift from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, now under parliamentary investigation. (The Guardian)
  • 🇬🇧 Pound and Prejudice. The House of Lords tells the Bank of England its proposed stablecoin limits may stifle innovation and leave Britain trailing global rivals in crypto regulation. (FinExtra)

💱 Listed Markets

  • 🇫🇷 Ice Age. Valeo 🇫🇷 saw its stock jump 18% as analysts claimed its battery cooling tech could ride the AI wave straight into investor euphoria. (Les Echos)
  • 🇺🇸 Chip Happens. Broadcom 🇺🇸 lost over $300B in market value after its AI revenue forecast disappointed investors who had bet on endless chip-fueled growth. (Financial Times)
  • 🇺🇸 VOO Who? Vanguard’s S&P 500 ETF just became the first exchange traded fund to hit $1T in assets, leapfrogging rivals as passive investing goes supermassive. (Financial Times)
  • 🇯🇵 Son Also Rises. After SoftBank’s disastrous startup bets left Masayoshi Son in tears, his $52B AI investment spree has him back in the global spotlight. (Wall Street Journal)
  • 🇦🇺 Like and Dislike. Meta 🇺🇸 denounces Australia’s draft law requiring tech firms to compensate news publishers, insisting the measure is « malformed » and fundamentally unjust. (Le Figaro)
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
  • 🇬🇧 Cherry Picking. Nissan 🇯🇵 has signed a preliminary deal to assemble cars for China’s Chery 🇨🇳 at its Sunderland plant, aiming to protect UK jobs and bring Chinese mass-market vehicles to Britain for the first time. (The Guardian)
  • 🇬🇧 Access All Areas. The UK’s national data guardian demands answers after NHS England quietly gives Palantir staff unlimited access to identifiable patient data, contradicting official assurances. (Financial Times)
🇺🇸 United States
  • 🇺🇸 Store and Steady. Macy’s 🇺🇸 posted better-than-expected results and lifted its forecast, crediting new merchandise and marketing for its ongoing recovery. (Wall Street Journal)

🛎️ Big Deals (M&A)

  • Marechale Capital 🇬🇧 acquires Stanford Capital 🇬🇧, a UK SME-focused corporate finance and broking firm, Blubird Global 🇬🇧, a revenue-generating tokenisation platform with over $32B of institutional-grade assets on its registry, and NJC Capital Management 🇬🇧, an alternative investment fund manager.
  • KNDS 🇫🇷🇩🇪 prepares a simultaneous Paris and Frankfurt IPO as the German state enters its capital and the Bode‑Wegmann families sell their stake.
  • Aequita 🇩🇪 acquires Rheinmetall Power Systems 🇩🇪 for €350M. Adds to its Automobile division, boosting pro forma revenue to about €5B.
  • Entravel Group 🇪🇸 acquires Moca Traveltech Group 🇪🇸, a Barcelona-based B2B travel startup. Deal involves AI-native travel infrastructure, reservation/supply/payment systems.
  • Littlejohn & Co. 🇺🇸 acquires Milrose Consultants 🇺🇸, a national consulting, engineering and architecture services provider based in New York City.
  • Asana 🇺🇸 acquires StackAI 🇺🇸 for $75M, a no-code agent developer. Founders Tony Rosinov and Bernard Aceituno join Asana and StackAI’s product will continue under its own brand. StackAI had raised just under $20M (Series A $16M).
  • Sherwin-Williams 🇺🇸 and Nippon Paint 🇯🇵 drop their €12.49B ($14.5B) takeover bid for AkzoNobel 🇳🇱. Shares plunged after the bid was withdrawn.
  • OpenFX 🇺🇸 acquires Embed 🇳🇱, marking its first regulated presence in the EEA and UK. Brings Embed’s payments stack (virtual IBAN issuance, multi‑party balance accounts, SEPA/UK FPS/Swiss bank connectivity) into OpenFX’s platform. OpenFX previously raised a $94M Series A and claims $45B in annualized payment volume.
  • Vincent Tan 🇲🇾 sells shares in Berjaya Corp. 🇲🇾 for $29M, cutting his holding to about 15%.

🧳 Private Markets & VC

  • 🇫🇷 Open Invitation. Emmanuel Macron extends a G7 invite to Sam Altman, hoping OpenAI’s CEO can teach world leaders a thing or two about artificial intelligence.
  • 🇫🇷 Fine Print. French authorities hit Shein 🇨🇳 with €22M in new fines for failures on product traceability, environmental disclosures, and delivery information, pushing its total French penalties past €210M. (Le Temps)
  • 🇨🇭 Exit Strategy. Partners Group 🇨🇭 invoked its right to limit withdrawals from its European private equity fund after outflows surged, proving the only easy exit is on paper. (Financial Times)
  • 🇺🇸 Partner in Code. Kirkland & Ellis 🇺🇸 signs a multiyear deal with Palantir 🇺🇸 to embed senior partner expertise into AI, aiming to make private equity fundraising faster and less reliant on human touch. (Financial Times)
  • 🇺🇸 Locked In. Hedge fund DE Shaw 🇺🇸 is extending investor lock-up periods to as long as four years, betting strong returns will keep everyone happy. And captive. (Financial Times)
  • 🇺🇸 Trust Fall. The White House unveils a voluntary AI review order, with Trump skipping the ceremony and regulators hoping companies will play along. (Thenextweb)
  • 🇺🇸 Space Oddities. NASA taps California startup Vast, with astronaut Thomas Pesquet and Arnaud Prost on board, to train commercial crews for private space stations after the ISS retires in 2031. (Libé)
🇺🇸 United States
  • 🇺🇸 Alpha Bet. Investors pile into AlphaSense, boosting the market research startup’s valuation to $7.5B and fueling IPO speculation in the AI gold rush. (Wall Street Journal)

Fundraising

  • Megaport 🇦🇺 (Networking): A$827.3M
  • NewLimit 🇺🇸 (Longevity): $435M
  • AlphaSense 🇺🇸 (AI): $350M (Vitruvian Partners, Accenture Ventures, J.P. Morgan Asset Management, D. E. Shaw Ventures, Pinegrove Opportunity Partners, CapitalG, Goldman Sachs Alternatives, Viking Global Investors)
  • Perk 🇪🇸 (Travel): $300M (Neuberger Speciality Finance, Blue Owl Capital Inc., Hercules Capital Inc., Liquidity)
  • Cyera 🇺🇸 (Cybersecurity): $300M
  • Oxford Quantum Circuits 🇬🇧 (Quantum computing): £260M (Bullhound Capital, British Business Bank, Fynveur, Cofides, Alpha Edison, Fulcrum Asset Management, Pentland Ventures, Magdalen College Oxford, Oxford Science Enterprises, SBI, Chevron Technology Ventures)
  • OQC 🇬🇧 (Quantum): £260M
  • Mal (Fintech): $230M
  • Coralogix 🇮🇱 (Observability): $200M (Advent, CPPIB, Greenfield, Brighton Park Capital)
  • Twinco Capital 🇪🇸 (Fintech): €165M (FMO, Bankinter, other international investors)
  • Factorial 🇪🇸 (HR software): $150M (General Catalyst, Atomico, Four Rivers)
  • IQM 🇫🇮 (Quantum computing): $146M
  • XCENA 🇰🇷 (Semiconductors): $135M (Atinum Investment, IMM Investment, Corstone Asia, SBI Investment, Mirae Asset Capital)
  • Quobly 🇫🇷 (Quantum): €115M (Bpifrance, SEALSQ, STMicroelectronics, European Innovation Council, Blast, Air Liquide Venture Capital (ALIAD), Innovacom, CEA, CNRS, Quantonation, Supernova Invest)
  • Fonoa 🇭🇷 (TaxTech): $110M
  • ZutaCore 🇮🇱 (Cooling): $100M (Mitsubishi Electric, Carrier Ventures, Samsung Ventures)
  • Wordsmith 🇬🇧 (Legal): $70M (Highland Europe, Index Ventures)
  • Town 🇺🇸 (AI): $55M (Andreessen Horowitz, Forerunner Ventures, First Round Capital, Alt Capital, Conviction)
  • BibliU 🇬🇧 (Edtech): $55M (BlackRock, Stonehage Fleming, and others)
  • Layup Parts 🇺🇸 (Composites): $42M (Marlinspike, Cerberus Ventures, Pinegrove Venture Partners, Founders Fund, Lux Capital)
  • Forage 🇺🇸 (Fintech): $40M (Mouro Capital, Nyca Partners, PayPal Ventures, Long Journey Ventures, Intuit Ventures, NextLadder Ventures, Pivotal Ventures, FJ Labs)
  • Opal 🇺🇸 (Consumer hardware): $40M
  • Centrical 🇺🇸 (Workforce): $39M (Leeds Illuminate, Kingfisher Investment, JVP, other existing investors)
  • Findigs 🇺🇸 (Proptech): $32M (RPM Ventures. Marc Weiser, Nyca Partners, Frontier Venture Capital, Western Technology Investment)
  • Apoha 🇬🇧 (Deep tech): £26.7M
  • Sekai 🇺🇸 (AI): $26M (Khosla Ventures, Connect Ventures, 359 Capital, Parable VC, 645 Ventures, Mayfield, a16z speedrun, A*, MVP Ventures, Cherubic Ventures)
  • Gigaton 🇬🇧 (Industrial): $26M (Plural, 2150, Semapa Next, Planet A Ventures, Cambridge Enterprise Ventures, UCL Technology Fund managed by AlbionVC with UCL Business, Clean Growth Fund)
  • Unastella 🇰🇷 (Space): $24M (Altos Ventures, Korea Development Bank (KDB), Strong Ventures, Hana Ventures, KDB Capital, Woori Venture Partners, Samho Green Investment)
  • Terra AI 🇺🇸 (Geoscience): $20M (Khosla Ventures, BHP Ventures)
  • Invisix 🇳🇱 (Semiconductor): €20M (Hitachi Ventures, Transition Ventures, imec.xpand, Doosan Investment Co.)
  • Board 🇺🇸 (Gaming): $20M
  • Tavo Biotherapeutics 🇺🇸 (Biotech): $17M (Pureos Bioventures, Polaris Partners, Tau Capital)
  • Arpio 🇺🇸 (Cybersecurity): $15M (S3 Ventures, Paladin Capital Group, Draper Associates, Uncorrelated, Valor Ventures, CreativeCo Capital, Lookout Ventures)
  • Ingenix 🇵🇱 (Biotech): €13M (Sofinnova Partners, Inovo VC, OTB VC)
  • Flok Health 🇬🇧 (Healthcare): $12.5M (Albion VC, Eka VC, Form Ventures, Mercia Ventures)
  • Shifters 🇺🇸 (Robotics): $10.2M (Ace Capital Partners, Aurelius Capital Management, Corner Ventures, Arkin Capital, STEP World, Fresh Fund)
  • ZeroDrift 🇺🇸 (Compliance): $10M (a16z speedrun, Reign Ventures, PitchDrive Ventures, U&I Ventures, Active Capital, Geek Ventures, Converge Ventures, Atlas SGR, Founders Future, and others)
  • Plot 🇺🇸 (Marketing): $10M (XYZ Venture Capital, Mischief Ventures, Seven Seven Six, Acme Capital)
  • 701x 🇺🇸 (Agtech): $10M (local investors from North Dakota and Minnesota, rancher-customers across the United States)
  • DEScycle 🇬🇧 (Cleantech): €10M+
  • Archestra.AI 🇺🇸 (AI): $10M (20VC)
  • WasabiCard 🇸🇬 (Payments): $10M (Vernal Capital, Avenir Group, Vision Plus Capital, 01VC)
  • Tekst 🇬🇧 (Fintech): £9.96M
  • Moritz 🇺🇸 (Legal): $9M
  • Elonroad 🇸🇪 (Mobility): €8M (HICO Investment Group, Tamar Ventures, Butterfly Ventures)
  • Alitheon 🇺🇸 (Optical-AI): $8M
  • Kodesage 🇬🇧 (Enterprise software): $6.6M
  • NP COMPANY 🇫🇷 (AI): €6M (Cofounders of Mistral AI, Founder of Dataiku)
  • INXM 🇩🇪 (Process automation): €5.7M (Cherry Ventures, Redstone, Angel Invest, Linden Capital, business angels)
  • Atlantic 🇺🇸 (AI): $5M (Galata Business Angels, Arif Akdağ, Kaan Boyner, Bülent Çelebi, Uğur Şeker, Ahu Büyükkuşoğlu Serter, Görkem Güven, Ata Uzunhasan)
  • Go Swag 🇬🇧 (Corporate gifting): $5M (Mercia Ventures, Techstart Ventures, other angel investors)
  • Paypercut 🇧🇬 (Fintech): €5M (Concentric, Passion Capital, Araya Ventures)
  • Oplane 🇸🇪 (Cybersecurity): €4.5M (Seed Capital, Icebreaker.vc, Emil Eifrem, Robert Lagerström, Joakim Nydrén)
  • StratusGrid 🇺🇸 (Cloud): $3M (Dogwood Ventures, Market Square Ventures, LaunchTN, VentureSouth, Service Provider Capital, strategic angel investors)
  • Flipflow 🇪🇸 (Retail): €3M (4Founders Capital, Decelera Ventures, Secways)
  • Upstream 🇫🇷 (AI): $3M (Y Combinator, Connect Ventures, Koen Bok, Jorn van Dijk, Nicolas Dessaigne, Julien Lemoine, Linda Tong, Jean-Charles Samuelian, Charles Gorintin, Xavier Niel (Kima Ventures))
  • Zazume 🇪🇸 (Proptech): €2.5M (Nordstar, GTV Capital)
  • Everyday^ 🇪🇺 (Proptech): €2.5M
  • HLRBO 🇺🇸 (Proptech): $2.5M (Mairs & Power Venture Capital, individual and angel investors)
  • Kopa.ai 🇱🇹 (E-commerce): €2M
  • Molfar Defence Technologies 🇵🇱🇺🇦 (Defense): €1.5M

Fund Watch

  • EQT 🇸🇪: $24.4B (7th flagship infrastructure fund, target $24.4B)
  • Blackstone 🇺🇸: $13.1B (3rd and largest Asia PE fund)
  • Benchmark Capital 🇺🇸: $2B (two new funds, combined commitments)
  • NextEnergy Capital 🇬🇧: $975M
  • Mike Schroepfer / Gigascale 🇺🇸: $250M (2nd fund, early-stage climate tech. Energy, grids, critical minerals, physical AI)
  • Version One Ventures 🇨🇦: $108M (5th pre-seed & seed fund; 3rd opportunities fund)
  • Longwall Ventures 🇬🇧: £50M (Fund 4, early-stage deep tech. Commitment from British Business Bank)
  • Cliffwater 🇺🇸: N/A (flagship private credit fund, capped redemptions at 5% after investors tried to pull 17%)

🔔IPO

  • Median Technologies 🇫🇷 (Medtech): completed a €50M capital increase (€40M public/placement + €10M reserved to guarantors) at €5/share.
  • Smag Mobile Antenna Masts 🇩🇪 (Defense): backed by Aequita and considering a Germany IPO.
  • vVardis 🇨🇭 (Dental): backed by Apollo and sisters-led, valued at $1B and preparing a US IPO.
  • Liftoff 🇺🇸 (Aerospace): raised $437M in a revived IPO backed by Blackstone.
  • Quantinuum 🇺🇸 (Quantum): Honeywell-backed Quantinuum raised $1.68B in an upsized IPO.
  • Sunshine Silver 🇺🇸 (Mining): raised $270M in a IPO to restart its mine.
  • SpaceX 🇺🇸 (Aerospace): Morningstar valued it at $780B, about half its IPO target.
  • CopperTech Metals 🇺🇸 (Metals): Vedanta-owned integrated copper and cobalt producer filed for a IPO.
  • Alphabet 🇺🇸 (AI): completed an $85B equity raise earmarked to fund massive AI spending.
  • Boutiqaat 🇰🇼 (E‑commerce): Goldman Sachs is preparing a Kuwait IPO that could fetch a $1B valuation in its first Kuwait IPO mandate.

🧳 Debt

  • DBT 🇫🇷: raised €500k via two €250k convertible bond tranches (100 OCEANE of €5,000, 24‑month, zero‑coupon).
  • UBS 🇨🇭: sold $1.5B of dollar AT1 bonds.
  • JPMorgan 🇺🇸: arranging sale of $2.5B debt package to back Long Lake’s $6.3B LBO of Amex GBT.
  • Elk Grove Village Property 🇺🇸: sold $900M of junk bonds.
  • Blue Owl Capital 🇺🇸: sold $500M of investment-grade bonds from a private credit fund.
  • WhiteFiber 🇺🇸: received a $20M senior secured advance under a $100M delayed-draw term loan.

❌ Failures

  • Merlin Entertainments 🇬🇧: facing pressure on its debt as it seeks to refinance over $800M of junk bonds.
  • Cenpa 🇫🇷: liquidated after 18 months of redressement judiciaire, 50 jobs lost; 2023 revenue €33M and net loss €1.9M.
  • MWH of Sweden 🇸🇪: filed for bankruptcy after securing only SEK 2.8M (had sought SEK 7–10M); 2025 revenue SEK 5M and operating loss SEK 3M.
  • Direct Carbon 🇸🇪: filed for bankruptcy after 2024 revenue of ~400,000 SEK and a loss of 4.4M SEK.
  • Pace Gallery 🇺🇸: cuts 50 artists and 50 staff amid a challenging art market.
  • Brightline 🇺🇸: after failing to secure a buyer, the Florida high-speed rail operator is weighing bankruptcy loan offers from its largest creditors.
  • Braskem 🇧🇷: the Brazilian petrochemical giant is seeking restructuring to lower payments and secure grace periods.
  • Brazil 🇧🇷: reached a deal for a $1.2B loan to support struggling state-run lender BRB.
  • Venezuela 🇻🇪: retained Hogan Lovells for its $170B sovereign debt restructuring.

🎯 For a Few More Minutes…

  • 🇬🇧 Cheat Sheet. Ofqual warns that smartglasses and invisible earpieces could make exam cheating in England much harder to detect, putting GCSE and A-level credibility at risk. (The Guardian)
  • 🇬🇧 Script Block. Tom Holland admits his dyslexia kept him from hosting SNL, prompting advocates to applaud his candor about the hidden hurdles of stardom. (BBC)
  • 🇫🇷 Thread Count. The Bayeux Tapestry, a millennium-old embroidery, is set for a rare loan to the British Museum in 2026 despite outcry over its extreme fragility. (Le Monde)
  • 🇫🇷 Code Free. French developers like Louis Chirol now rely on AI assistants to handle complex coding tasks, slashing project times from days to hours and making manual coding optional. (Le Monde)

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