🥂 Past the Caviar

Ethics left at the door with the empty champagne flutes.

A Free Lunch newsletter archive of May 29, 2026

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Good morning!

The Pacific Heights mansion, which the Atlantic puts at $45M and 22,000 square feet of French limestone, hosted a June 2024 Trump fundraiser that pulled in $12M at $50,000 to $300,000 a head. On his podcast the week before, the host, David Sacks, had said he hoped the event would trigger a « preference cascade. » Sacks is a venture capitalist whose previous résumé includes an investment in a car-wash app named Cherry that lasted twelve months, and a Marie Antoinette-themed 40th birthday with Snoop Dogg as the entertainment. Three years before, he had called January 6 « absolutely outrageous » and pronounced Trump « disqualified » from national politics. By August 2024 it had been downgraded to a thing that « wasn’t great. » Today it is a « fake coup. » Six months after that, he became the White House AI and Crypto Czar.

The interesting part is not Sacks. Plenty of libertarians have traded principles for proximity, and most have done it with less style. The interesting part is the tunnel that was dug to fit him through. As a « special government employee, » he was permitted to keep running Craft Ventures, his own VC firm, while writing federal policy on the two industries it invests in, provided he capped his public service at 130 days a year. Two ethics waivers were required. Both were signed by White House Counsel David Warrington, Trump’s former personal lawyer, shortly after the Senate-confirmed head of the Office of Government Ethics had been fired. The waivers argued, essentially, that Sacks’s portfolio was so vast that any individual conflict counted as rounding error.

That argument has not aged well. The New York Times noted in November that Craft owns 7.8% of BitGo, a stablecoin custody firm; that Sacks championed the GENIUS Act, the first federal stablecoin framework, signed in July 2025; that BitGo welcomed the law as « a defining moment » and filed to go public two months later. Sacks has sued the Times for defamation. He has not contested the figures. The same libertarian who demanded a federal bailout for SVB’s uninsured depositors in 2023 also brokered, last May, a 500,000-chip-a-year sale to the UAE, two weeks after the Witkoffs announced Abu Dhabi would route $2B into Binance via the Trump family’s USD1 stablecoin. BitGo, in passing, services USD1.

Sacks’s 130 days are up. He has moved to a co-chair seat at PCAST, a body that recommends rather than decides. The mechanism stays. The OGE remains decapitated, the inspectors general quietly retired, the personal counsel still writing the waivers. The next 130-day czar need not be a venture capitalist. He need only know which counsel writes the waiver, and which office no longer has the standing to object. The infrastructure is in place. Sacks was the test case. The audit will be conducted by his successors.

🥂 Past the Caviar

🗞️ Top Story

  • 🇬🇧 Blair Witch. Former PM Tony Blair slams Labour for launching a leadership war with no policies on offer, accusing Keir Starmer and rivals of fighting over nothing at all. (El Pais)
  • 🇪🇸 Party Pooper. Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez faces calls for early elections after police raided his Socialist Party HQ over alleged dirty tricks against judges.
  • 🇷🇴 Drone Alone. For the first time, a Russian drone hit a Romanian residential building in Galati, causing minor injuries and major diplomatic outrage from this NATO member. (Le Monde)
  • 🇪🇺 Nuclear Neighbors. Norway has agreed to join France’s new “advanced nuclear deterrence” group, tightening security cooperation with Paris but leaving the nuclear button firmly in French hands. (Le Monde)
  • 🇨🇭 Known Wolf. Swiss authorities classify the Winterthur train station stabbing as a terror attack after a known radical injured three people before being arrested. (Die Zeit)
  • 🇺🇸 State of Confusion. Jill Biden says she feared Joe Biden was having a stroke during his disastrous 2024 debate with Trump, marking a turning point in the campaign. (Le Monde)
  • 🇺🇸 Bullionaire. David Rush, once a top CIA technologist, is busted for stashing 300 gold bars at home, raising $40M worth of questions for the agency’s hiring department. (Le Parisien)
  • 🇺🇸 Probe Pause. AP reports a hold on Miami probe of Delcy Rodríguez to smooth investment talks. DEA flagged her since 2018, though DOJ claims no case existed. (Spiegel)
  • 🇺🇸 Sixty Days Later. The and Iran pause tensions for 60 days, giving Trump just enough time to decide if he wants a legacy or a headline. (Bloomberg)
  • 🇬🇹 Friendly Fire. Guatemala asked for U.S. advising and assistance for strikes inside its territory to target drug gangs, part of a wider regional push. (New York Times)
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
  • 🇬🇧 Summer’s Risk. The UK heatwave has claimed 11 lives in water-related incidents, with two teenage boys found dead in Kent and Oxford. (The Guardian)
  • 🇬🇧 Trust Issues. Nicola Sturgeon says she was deceived and betrayed by her ex-husband Peter Murrell, who admitted to embezzling over £400K from the SNP. (The Guardian)
  • 🇬🇧 No Time Machine. Keir Starmer rebuffs Tony Blair’s critique, saying Labour’s approach is tailored for 2026, not a rerun of 1997. (The Guardian)
🇺🇸 United States
  • 🇺🇸 Money Down. Billionaire Tom Steyer is spending millions each week in a bid to win the California race, proving that persistence comes with a hefty price tag. (Bloomberg)
  • 🇺🇸 Tank You, Next. A massive chemical tank collapse at Nippon Paper’s Washington plant killed 2 and left 9 missing, highlighting industrial safety’s missing pages. (Wall Street Journal)
  • 🇺🇸 Speechless. Federal prosecutors are now deploying legal tools to unmask anonymous voices criticizing ICE online, putting digital privacy rights in the spotlight. (Bloomberg)
  • 🇺🇸 Lone Star Duel. James Talarico launched his Senate campaign against Ken Paxton at a packed Houston rally, setting up a Texas-sized clash for November. (New York Times)
  • 🇺🇸 Total Recall. Gavin Newsom plans a 100% California tax on payments from Donald Trump’s $1.776B compensation fund for alleged political persecution. The fund arose from Trump’s IRS deal, and Sacramento aims to make every resident payout disappear. (Spiegel)

🏛️ Economy

  • 🇩🇪 Social Climbing. Germany’s council of economic experts warns that social security contributions could hit nearly 50% of income by 2040, threatening growth and squeezing both workers and employers. (Les Echos)
  • 🇪🇺 Trade Wounds. The is ramping up talk of painful measures to curb Chinese imports, warning that economic “chemotherapy” may be needed to break its dependence. (New York Times)
  • 🇪🇺 Decade Deal. Banks are issuing AT1 securities to secure funding for up to ten years, chasing cheap financing while markets clamor for paper. (Bloomberg)
  • 🇪🇺 Power Play. The plans to grant itself the right to commandeer semiconductor supplies in an emergency, forcing chipmakers to serve the bloc first. (Financial Times)
  • 🇺🇸 Wage Against the Machine. As companies celebrate a 2.7% profit jump, workers see only a 0.8% pay rise, deepening the disconnect between boardrooms and break rooms. (Wall Street Journal)
  • 🇺🇸 Token Gesture. Amazon scrapped its “Kirorank” AI usage scoreboard when staff gamed the system by generating needless AI tasks, boosting expenses instead of productivity. (Financial Times)
  • 🇺🇸 Byte Club. semiconductor stocks surge to two-decade highs, with the sector soaking up $725B in Big Tech investment and minting money on relentless AI demand. (Financial Times)
  • 🇨🇦 Oil Tested. The Bank of Canada claims lenders have fortified their balance sheets and can handle an extended period of high energy prices without flinching. (Wall Street Journal)
  • 🇻🇪 Crisis Manager. French banker Matthieu Pigasse secures the prestigious and politically charged contract to advise Venezuela on restructuring up to $200B in debt through Centerview 🇺🇸, while rivals watch from the lobby. (Le Monde)
  • 🌎 Heat Check. Economists warn that El Niño could disrupt global markets in 2024, as extreme weather threatens crops, supply chains, and inflation forecasts everywhere. (Wall Street Journal)
  • 🇨🇳 Chain Reaction. A Chinese coal catastrophe threatens to hit domestic steelmakers, power plants, and chemical producers as supplies tighten fast. (Bloomberg)
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
  • 🇬🇧 Decline and Fall. UK Treasury minister Lucy Rigby warns that failing to accelerate AI adoption in public services means choosing national decline, vowing to make digital transformation a top priority. (Financial Times)
  • 🇬🇧 Idle Hands Club. Over 1M UK youths aged 16 to 24 are now classified as Neet, with government advisers demanding schools and welfare overhaul as detachment becomes the new normal. (Financial Times)
🇺🇸 United States
  • 🇺🇸 Keep Mark. Massachusetts officials pitch Boston to AI entrepreneurs, hoping alumni like Mark Zuckerberg might choose local startups over Silicon Valley riches. (Bloomberg)
  • 🇺🇸 Core Score. Core PCE rose 3.3% year over year in April as expected, 0.2% monthly reading keeps the Fed waiting. (Cnbc)
  • 🇺🇸 Raid Night. Fidelity Investments 🇺🇸 reports average 401(k) balances fell 4% to $141,000 as more workers take loans and hardship withdrawals. (20 words) (Cnbc)
  • 🇺🇸 Grant Control. The White House plans to impose stricter oversight on $1T in federal grants, signaling less freewheeling and more paperwork for recipients. (Bloomberg)

🏢 Real Estate

🇬🇧 United Kingdom
  • 🇬🇧 House Arrest. The boss of Barratt Redrow declares this the toughest era for young UK buyers since 2008, as home ownership drifts further out of reach. (The Guardian)
🇺🇸 United States
  • 🇺🇸 Home Alone. new home sales fell to 622K in April, missing forecasts and dropping 6.2% from March, leaving builders with emptier houses than expected. (Boursier)

🔗 On-chain

  • 🇺🇸 Click and Steal. Authorities say Google’s Michele Spagnuolo cashed in $1.2M by wagering on Polymarket using privileged search trends no one else could see. (Wall Street Journal)

💱 Listed Markets

  • 🇬🇧 Manifold Denial. Ex-chair Albert Manifold blasts « lies » about his removal from BP 🇬🇧, which cited governance, oversight, and conduct concerns. He touts perk-free habits and a tough style. (New York Times)
  • 🇺🇸 Golden Hour. The price of gold remains above $4,500 as Iran deal speculation soothes inflation worries and gives US investors a rare moment of calm.
  • 🇺🇸 Ctrl+Kid Shows. Amazon MGM Studios 🇺🇸 launches three children’s series using AI-generated content, promising faster productions and igniting fresh worries in Hollywood about humans becoming obsolete. (Le Figaro)
  • 🇺🇸 Chip Happens. Snowflake 🇺🇸 just signed a $6B, five-year deal with Amazon Web Services to power its AI push using AWS’s Graviton CPU chips, leaving Nvidia watching from the sidelines. (TechCrunch)
  • 🇺🇸 Friends with Benefits. Dell lands a $9.7B Pentagon deal to provide military software, not long after Michael Dell’s $6.25B pledge to « Trump accounts. » (Cnbc)
  • 🇺🇸 Profit, Interrupted. Salesforce 🇺🇸 topped earnings estimates and grew revenue, yet its weaker annual guidance made future growth look less assured. (Cnbc)
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
  • 🇬🇧 Cashmere Goals. CEO Joshua Schulman is in line for £12.2M under Burberry’s new bonus plan, while the company relaxes its climate commitments for the foreseeable future. (The Guardian)
🇺🇸 United States
  • 🇺🇸 Fleet Street. Waymo has registered 577 autonomous vehicles in Texas, leaving Tesla trailing with just 42 and confirming Alphabet’s robotaxi lead is not up for debate. (TechCrunch)
  • 🇺🇸 Ellison Wonderland. The Ellison family is seeking $49B in debt to fund the $110B Warner Bros. Discovery buyout, forcing bond markets into a high-stakes reality check. (Bloomberg)
  • 🇺🇸 Game Plan. Best Buy 🇺🇸 beat top and bottom estimates as gaming, computing and ads drove 2% comps, Corie Barry will step down this fall. (Cnbc)

🛎️ Big Deals (M&A)

  • Shell 🇬🇧 cède son réseau de stations‑service 🇫🇷, opération de désengagement du marché de la distribution.
  • Hg 🇬🇧 agreed to buy Rightsline 🇺🇸, a California rights and royalties management company, for $500M including debt.
  • Carbonfact 🇫🇷 acquires Vaayu 🇩🇪, French fashion lifecycle measurement platform absorbs its German rival amid financial distress; deal done in equity, Carbonfact had raised $15M two years ago, Vaayu raised $11.5M in 2022 and its brand will disappear with ~100 clients migrated.
  • Groupe Échelle Internationale 🇫🇷 acquires SHQ Solutions 🇨🇦, maker/distributor of access and fall-protection equipment (Groupe: 240 employees, 54 points de vente, 2025 revenue €49M; SHQ: 2025 revenue €4M).
  • FN Browning Group 🇧🇪 acquires Accuracy International 🇬🇧, a Portsmouth‑based maker of high‑precision sniper rifles used in Afghanistan and Iraq; deal terms not disclosed; Accuracy to retain its brand and continue production.
  • Arla 🇩🇰 acquires Deutsches Milchkontor (DMK) 🇩🇪, EU Commission approves without remedies; will unite >12,000 farmers, total ~€19B revenue and ~28,700 employees, merged company to be named Arla.
  • Uber 🇺🇸 increases its stake in Delivery Hero 🇩🇪 to nearly 37% after buying Aspex Management’s 14.6% at just under €40 per share, valuing Delivery Hero at about €12B and holding 24.99% of voting rights.
  • DigitalBridge 🇺🇸 acquires ArcLight Capital Partners 🇺🇸 for up to $1.05B; ArcLight founder Daniel Revers will join DigitalBridge’s board as vice‑chair and the combined firms will manage >$150B in assets.
  • Fertitta Entertainment 🇺🇸 acquires Caesars Entertainment 🇺🇸 for $17.6B (includes about $11.9B assumed debt), $31/share, casino and leisure operator.
  • Union Pacific 🇺🇸 to merge with Norfolk Southern 🇺🇸 in a $71.5B railroad deal; the Surface Transportation Board has paused its review, imperiling the timetable.
  • SpaceX 🇺🇸 to merge with Tesla 🇺🇸 in a ~$3.5T deal following SpaceX’s IPO.
  • Alpine Investors 🇺🇸’s Apex Service Partners 🇺🇸 nearing minority stake sale at $10B valuation, including debt.
  • CoStar Group 🇺🇸 is nearing a deal to acquire Zonda 🇺🇸 from MidOcean Partners for $800M, a housing‑market data provider.
  • Sixth Street 🇺🇸 acquires Park Hyatt Beaver Creek Resort & Spa 🇺🇸 from Braemar Hotels & Resorts 🇺🇸 for $176M, Colorado resort in the hospitality sector.
  • Asana 🇺🇸 acquires StackAI 🇺🇸 for $75M, a no-code agent-builder and workflow-automation company; founders Tony Rosinol and Bernard Aceituno join Asana.
  • Visa 🇺🇸 invests in agentic software creation platform Replit 🇺🇸.
  • Brazil’s government 🇧🇷 may relaunch privatization of Copasa 🇧🇷 after two bids for a 30% stake came in below the minimum price.
  • JD.com 🇨🇳’s $2.6B takeover move for Ceconomy 🇩🇪 faces an in-depth EU probe over potential competition distortion.
  • Wonderful Group of Companies 🇨🇳 acquires a 55% stake in a lime and cement venture 🇿🇲 for $25M.
  • Nippon Paint 🇯🇵 and Sherwin‑Williams 🇺🇸 offer $14.6B cash for AkzoNobel 🇳🇱; the bid, which would break up the business, is rejected.
  • Bharti Enterprises 🇮🇳 would be blocked from raising its stake in BT 🇬🇧 above 25% after moving to 24.95% (it bought 24.5% in 2024); such an increase would trigger a formal review under the National Security and Investment Act.
  • Fattal Hotels 🇮🇱 approaches to acquire PPHE Hotel 🇬🇧 for $1.24B.

🧳 Private Markets & VC

  • 🇫🇷 Model Citizens. French AI startup Mistral has signed deals with BMW 🇩🇪 and Airbus 🇫🇷 to supply sector-specific large language models for industrial engineering, aiming to make “industrial AI” more than a buzzword. (Sifted)
  • 🇺🇸 Blast Delivery. A Blue Origin 🇺🇸 rocket exploded during testing at Cape Canaveral, giving Bezos a fiery setback and a “very rough day.” (Wall Street Journal)
  • 🇺🇸 Ground Control. SpaceX must halt Starship launches as the FAA demands an inquiry into the V3 booster’s failure during its May 22 flight, with IPO timing now in doubt. (TechCrunch)
  • 🇺🇸 Claude Nine. Anthropic has raised $65B, pushing its valuation ahead of OpenAI and making it the world’s most valuable AI lab for now. (Financial Times)
  • 🇺🇸 Gene Jeopardy. California Attorney General Rob Bonta is suing 23andMe’s successor, claiming the company misled the public about the true scale of its 2023 data breach. (BBC)
  • 🇨🇳 Double Tap. MiniMax 🇨🇳 reported sales doubled as it races to ship a new AI model, a boost that pleases backers and analysts alike. (Bloomberg)
🇺🇸 United States
  • 🇨🇦 Private Credit. BCI 🇨🇦 expands into lending to private equity managers, filling a financing gap as deal volumes dry up and yields fall. (Bloomberg)

Fundraising

  • Anthropic 🇺🇸 (AI): $65B (Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks, Sequoia Capital)
  • Cognition 🇺🇸 (AI): $1B+ (Lux Capital, General Catalyst, 8VC, Elad Gil, Soma Capital, Omri Casspi, Founders Fund, Ribbit Capital, Atreides, Layer Global)
  • Stark 🇩🇪 (Defence): €300M (Peter Thiel, Nato Innovation Fund, In-Q-Tel, Sequoia Capital)
  • Calicéo 🇫🇷 (Wellness): €240M+ (Ekkio Capital, LGMH, GF Investissement, BNP Développement, Bpifrance, Carvest, CIC Private Debt, LGT, Crédit Agricole regional caisses, LCL, Caisses d’Épargne régionales, Arkéa)
  • Focused Energy (Energy): $240M (RWE, EIC, and others)
  • Capchase 🇺🇸 (Fintech): $200M (01 Advisors, Caffeinated Capital, Thomvest Ventures, Scifi VC, Bling Capital, Invesco, others)
  • Panavision 🇺🇸 (Film): $130M (Siena Lending Group, Hilco Global)
  • Corgi 🇺🇸 (Insurtech): $106M (TCV, Prime Capital, Zone 2 Ventures, Oliver Jung, Leblon Capital, Kindred Ventures, Quadri Ventures, First Order Fund, Vocal Ventures, Nordstar, GSBackers, Repeat Ventures, 8188 Capital, other strategic investors)
  • Thea Energy 🇺🇸 (Fusion): $100M (US Innovative Technology Fund (USIT), General Innovation Capital Partners (GICP), Linse Capital, Calm Ventures, Climate Capital, Divergent Capital, Emerald Technology Ventures, Gaingels, Idemitsu Kosan, Overlay Capital, Timescale Ventures, Whatif Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Hitachi Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital, Mercator Partners, Orion Industrial Ventures, Prelude Ventures, Starlight Ventures)
  • Garner Health 🇺🇸 (Healthcare): $100M (Index Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Redpoint, Thrive, Sequoia, Founders Fund, Kaiser Permanente Ventures)
  • Thea Energy: $100M
  • Airis Labs (Defense): $60M
  • Reactor 🇺🇸 (AI): $59M (Lightspeed Venture Partners, WndrCo, Amplify Partners, Sky9 Capital, FPV Ventures, Abstract Ventures)
  • ClearNote Health 🇺🇸 (Biotech): $52M (Mattias Westman, a global, large, long-only active manager, Sandy Weill, Dr. Stephen Quake, a large Seattle-based family office, other U.S. and international institutional investors)
  • Inherent 🇬🇧 (AI): $50M (Index Ventures, Radical Ventures)
  • Daloopa 🇺🇸 (Fintech): $47M (Brighton Park Capital, Squarepoint Capital, Touring Capital, Nexus Venture Partners)
  • Pace 🇺🇸 (Insurtech): $46M (Thrive Capital, Sequoia Capital, Emergence Capital, Pruven Capital)
  • Pace 🇺🇸 (Insurtech): $46M (Thrive Capital, Sequoia)
  • Pivot 🇺🇸 (Procurement): $40M (Forestay Capital, Notion Capital, Greyhound, Hedosophia, Visionaries Club, Emblem)
  • H1 🇺🇸 (Healthcare): $40M
  • Secretome Therapeutics 🇺🇸 (Biotech): $30M
  • NavigateAI 🇺🇸 (AI): $25M
  • Triomics 🇺🇸 (Healthcare): $22M (Battery Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners, Lightspeed, Y Combinator, Oncology Ventures, Precision Health Informatics)
  • Tensormesh 🇺🇸 (AI): $20M (AMD Ventures, CoreWeave, NVentures, Valley Capital Partners, Laude Ventures)
  • Signos 🇺🇸 (Healthcare): $20M (GV, Dexcom, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama)
  • CasaPerks Technologies, Inc. 🇺🇸 (Proptech): $15.8M (Longevity Equity, institutional investors, top real estate operators)
  • RevEng.AI 🇪🇺 (Cybersecurity): $15M
  • Slamcore (Spatial intelligence): $14M
  • Itera (Hardware prototyping): $12M (Upfront Ventures, Costanoa Ventures, Colle Capital)
  • Ember LifeSciences 🇺🇸 (Cold chain): $10.5M (Amgen Ventures, TDF Ventures)
  • Protuoso Biosciences 🇺🇸 (Biotech): $9.5M (Taya Venture, Darwin Ventures, NSG Ventures, SEEDS)
  • Psilera 🇺🇸 (Biotech): $8.8M
  • vorteX-io 🇫🇷 (Hydrology): €8.5M (Blue Forward Fund, Seventure Partners, Banque des Territoires, Daphni)
  • SOND 🇺🇸 (Sleeptech): $7M (E14 Fund, Crosslink Capital, Ubiquity Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Meach Cove Capital, John Abele)
  • Blulabs 🇺🇸 (Supply chain): $7M
  • Kubera Health 🇺🇸 (Healthcare): $6.5M (Upfront Ventures, Company Ventures, Dria Ventures, SemperVirens)
  • Rep AI 🇮🇱 (ecommerce): $6.2M (Silicon Road Ventures, Osage Venture Partners, Flashpoint Venture Capital, Zendesk)
  • Reprogram Biosciences 🇺🇸 (Biotech): $6M (Unshackled Ventures, 1517 Fund, Narya)
  • Canyon Code 🇺🇸 (AI): $5M (Cota Capital, Newbuild Venture Capital, Blackhorn Ventures)
  • Fields Good 🇺🇸 (Food): $1.8M
  • Jinka 🇫🇷 (Proptech): €1M (Bpifrance, CIC)
  • Biotech One 🇫🇷 (Biotech): €1M (Région Sud, Caap Création (Crédit agricole))

Fund Watch

  • Bridgepoint 🇬🇧: €5B
  • ProLogium Technology 🇹🇼: $3.8B (merger with Translational Development Acquisition Corp, SPAC deal)
  • Actis 🇬🇧: $2.5B (energy fund, first close)
  • Newcleo 🇫🇷 : $2.4B (SPAC merger with NewHold Investment Corp III, $2.4B pre-money valuation)
  • CE Industries 🇪🇺: $230M (family office fund, expansion capital)
  • Transition Ventures 🇬🇧: $150M (climate VC fund focused on power, AI, robotics, critical materials)

🔔IPO

  • Eramet 🇫🇷 (Mining): plans a €500M rights issue in H2 2026 to bolster equity.
  • Mastrad 🇫🇷 (Housewares): issued 49,261,716 new ordinary shares by converting unpaid bonds, bringing capital to €1,131,565.57 across 226,312,912 shares.
  • Delivery Hero 🇩🇪 (Food Delivery): Uber bought Aspex’s stake at an $11.6B valuation to raise its holding to 37% as it pursues a takeover.
  • Electrolux 🇸🇪 (Appliances): approved a $1B share issue to fund a North America tie-up with China’s Midea.
  • ClickHouse 🇺🇸 (Database): has $250M in annualized revenue and a $15B valuation after a $400M Series D, eyeing an IPO within the next few years.
  • Entrata 🇺🇸 (Proptech): filed for a IPO with offering size and terms undisclosed.
  • Quilla Resources 🇨🇦 (Mining): exploring a Canada IPO as it weighs expansion plans in Peru.
  • Apotex 🇨🇦 (Pharma): preparing a Toronto IPO, signaling a potential thaw in Canada’s public markets.
  • Viewtrix Technology 🇨🇳 (Semiconductors): listed in Hong Kong with a HK$10.9B market cap after shares priced at HK$20.81 and opening at HK$25.48.
  • ChangXin Memory Technologies 🇨🇳 (Semiconductors): received approval to raise $5B in China’s biggest IPO since 2022.
  • Life Insurance Corporation of India 🇮🇳 (Insurance): set to formally market a $1B share sale valuing LIC at $50B.

🧳 Debt

  • Valeo 🇫🇷: placed €600M of bonds due Feb 3, 2033 (coupon 4.875%).
  • Gecina 🇫🇷: raised €500M via a 5-year green bond maturing June 2031, 3.5x oversubscribed.
  • SCOR SE 🇫🇷: placed €500M of Tier 2 subordinated notes due 2056.
  • Carrefour 🇫🇷: raised €750M via a sustainability-linked bond (3.875% coupon), maturing June 2034.
  • OSE Immuno 🇫🇷: securing up to €19.3M via a flexible equity bridge with IRIS (€2M initial, up to 4M BSA/≈17% of capital).
  • PolarDC 🇪🇺: sold $930M of high-yield bonds in the largest such deal in the Nordic market.
  • Ukraine 🇺🇦: ratified a €90B loan from the EU to bolster defense (€3.2B due next month).
  • WhiteFiber 🇺🇸: secured a $100M delayed-draw term loan facility, expandable to $150M.
  • Warner Bros. Discovery 🇺🇸: sold $15B of investment-grade loans to refinance debt ahead of its $110B acquisition by Paramount Skydance.
  • Paramount 🇺🇸: Ellison family privately pledged to step in to rein in leverage after the Warner Bros. takeover.
  • Arixa Capital 🇺🇸: closed a $200M residential transition loan securitization (issued $180M notes; retained $20M).
  • Alan Allman Associates 🇨🇦: secured a C$200M syndicated credit line (15‑yr), drawing C$80M so far.
  • Mumbai 🇮🇳: planning a $1B munis sale.

❌ Failures

  • Michelin 🇫🇷: announced a voluntary departure plan in France to cut up to 1,500 jobs over three years.
  • Green Corp Konnection (GCK) 🇫🇷: placed in receivership in mid‑May and seeking a buyer after raising €50M in 2024 but accumulating losses on €37.5M revenue.
  • Casino 🇫🇷: creditors extended consents for Term Loan B, RCF and Quatrim until July 26, 2026, and pushed operational financing maturity to July 29, 2026.

🎯 For a Few More Minutes…

  • 🇫🇷 Ransomware. French police untangle the kidnapping of a crypto influencer’s father, tracking a $1.7M ransom from rural Sarthe to Venezuelan crypto wallets and beyond, exposing the global maze of digital laundering. (Le Monde)
  • 🇩🇪 Monkey Business. Six rhesus monkeys escaped from a Witten animal sanctuary by digging mortar from a wall, prompting a low-key police response and a citywide monkey watch. (Die Zeit)
  • 🇮🇹 Cosa Nostra Inc. After a global investigation, Italian police uncovered eight companies, prime real estate, and gold linked to Matteo Messina Denaro’s $230M criminal fortune. (New York Times)

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