The Chirayu Rana Saga Continues

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Good Morning,

Fanatics is planning its own prediction market platform, Fitch upgraded Jane Street to investment grade, Nvidia announced $750B in new deals, CXMT's founder will give 40% of his $14B wealth to workers, and Chirayu Rana re-filed a new lawsuit against JPMorgan and others, this time providing evidence.

CME just launched single-stock futures on some of the biggest names and NinjaTrader is allowing you trade them risk-free on their NinjaTrader SIM platform. Worth a peek if you're into derivatives.

Let's dive in.

Before The Bell

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

Markets

• US stock closed mostly higher despite a pullback a chip names as the Iran situation cooled

• UK's FTSE 100 hit its highest level since March, just 1% off its ATH

• US munis hit their cheapest level since March

Earnings

• What we're watching this week:

  • Today: Boeing, UPS, PayPal, Visa, Coca-Cola

  • Wednesday: Microsoft, Meta, Qualcomm, Robinhood, Chipotle, P&G

  • Thursday: Apple, Amazon

  • Friday: ExxonMobil, Chevron

• Full calendar here

Prediction Markets

• Chip stocks may be down but there's gotta be some alpha in Ukrainian table tennis

• Deposit $10 and get a $20 bonus with code LIT on signup, only on the Polymarket US app

Headline Roundup

• Ex-JPMorgan banker Chirayu Rana re-filed a new lawsuit (NYP)

• US paused Iran strikes amid 'good chance' of an Iran deal (CNBC)

• Crisis-level swings are a new normal in 2026 stock market (BBG)

• Hedge fund exposure to US healthcare stocks is near a 5-year high (RT)

• Big banks are wading back into CRE lending (WSJ)

• Fund managers are on track to launch a record number of ETFs this year (FT)

• Asian private credit fundraising sunk to a 12-year low (FT)

• Hong Kong stock exchange relaxes listing rules to compete with US (FT)

• PIMCO is embracing the AI boom on its own terms (BBG)

• Fitch upgraded Jane Street to investment grade BBB- (BBG)

• AI companies spend record sums on lobbying efforts (FT)

• Nvidia announced $750B in new deals (BBG)

• CXMT founder to give 40% of $14B wealth to workers after record IPO (BBG)

• HSBC will hire 100 AI specialists in Singapore (RT)

• SEC probe into Guggenheim was sparked by whistleblower (WSJ)

• Waymo explores ending partnership with Uber (FT)

• Cracker Barrel CEO departs one year after conservative backlash (RT)

A Message from NinjaTraders

Ninja Trader is offering CME single stock futures on Nvidia, Tesla, Apple, Amazon, and more

NinjaTrader is live with CME Group Single Stock Futures, giving eligible traders futures contracts on individual US names. Initial phased rollout covers 15 names at launch, with 55 total rolling out.

Names live at launch include: $NVDA $TSLA $AAPL $AMZN $GOOG $META $MSFT $SPCX. Futures ticker just adds an S in front (e.g. SNVDA) and micro-sized contracts add an X (e.g. XNVDA), with launch set for this week.

Try them risk-free on the NinjaTrader SIM platform.

Security futures are not suitable for everyone. Leverage amplifies gains and losses. ninjatrader.com/ssf-risk

Deal Flow

M&A / Strategic

• Ares held talks to acquire $85 AUM PE firm Leonard Green & Partners

• Italian lenders BMPS and Banco BPM are in talks for a merger of equals, structured as a mix of shares and cash, as an alternative to Intesa Sanpaolo $40B bid for BMPS

• State-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corp. signed a $16B lease agreement with a group of investors led by Blackstone, Brookfield, and KKR

• Spirits giant Brown-Forman rejected an unsolicited takeover offer from Sazerac, which rekindled its $15B bid

• Hellman & Friedman is exploring a sale of software firm TeamSystem at a $9B valuation

• KKR and Energy Capital Partners agreed to acquire European energy distribution firm DCC after an improved $7.6B cash offer at a 33% premium

• French telecoms operator Orange and infrastructure investor Morrison ​plan to create a data ‌center JV supported by a $3.4B investment

• Goldman Sachs Alternatives acquired Italian medtech firm Numantec from White ‌Bridge Investment for $800M

• TPG is in exclusive talks to acquire Macquarie-backed Netrality Data Centers for $2B-$3B

• Dutch pharma company Argenx agreed to buy immunology-focused Forte Biosciences for $2.2B cash

• CVC is considering buying a stake in jeweler APM Monaco from PE firm TPG for potentially $2B

• EQT sweetened its takeover bid for Australian investment management firm Perpetual for a third time this month to $1.8B

• Shipping group Irish Continental's agreed ​to a $1.4B MBO almost two decades after its CEO's ​previous takeover attempt failed

• Expand Energy agreed to buy gas marketer Twin Eagle Holdings from PE firm Five Point Infrastructure for $1.25B

• Wynnchurch Capital will acquire materials manufacturer Luxfer for $463M at a 30% premium

• Portuguese construction giant Mota-Engil is studying a stake purchase in Brazil's Odebrecht Engenharia & Construcao

• SoftBank is close to acquiring Japanese payments firm SP.LINKS from Blackstone

• Sports platform Fanatics will acquire a designated contract market and a derivatives clearing ​organization from brokerage BGC Group to launch ‌its own prediction market exchange

• Blackstone is set to acquire HSBC's $20B Australia loans business

VC

• Palmer Luckey's defense tech startup Anduril is in talks to raise a new round at a $100B valuation

• Ilya ​Sutskever's AI startup Safe Superintelligence raised $5B from Nvidia

• European space startup The Exploration Company is in talks to raise $300M at an over $2B valuation from Scaleup Europe Fund

• Antares, a nuclear power startup building small modular reactors, raised a $470M Series C led by Paradigm and Caffeinated Capital

• Enigma, an Israeli AI robotics startup, raised a $71M seed round led by Index Ventures and Ribbit Capital

• Flourish Health, a mental health provider for young people with serious, complex needs, raised a $26M Series A led by B Capital, F-Prime, and Cherryrock Capital

• Quartr, the first-party IR data and AI research infrastructure provider, raised a $15M funding round led by Altos Ventures

• Axis Robotics, the compounding data engine accelerating physical AI, raised a $12M seed round led by Hack VC

Access the complete VC deal flow and data on Fundable

IPOs / Listings / Issuances / Block Trades

• Chinese memory chip maker CXMT surged 475% in its China debut after raising $9.8B for a $490B market cap in China's biggest IPO in over a decade

• Candle Lake, the family office of Solo Cup billionaire Kenneth Dart, secured a 30% stake in $15B-listed Swedish betting firm Evolution, compelling a takeover offer

• Chinese optics firm Innolight raised $6.8B in a Hong Kong listing

• Nvidia will invest $1B in new shares of $24B-listed South Korean internet and cloud service giant Naver

• The $1.1B IPO of Blackstone-backed sandwich chain Jersey Mike's is 10x oversubscribed

• Hillhouse Investment-backed Indian managed workspace provider Tablespace Technologies is preparing to file for a $350M IPO

• Angola raised $320M in a 15% IPO of state-owned wireless operator Unitel, the country's biggest-ever IPO

• Sleep apnea-focused biotech Apnimed is seeking to raise $160M in an IPO

• 1947 Oil & Gas, the O&G company of ex-Goldman commodities chief Jeff Currie, is preparing to raise $67M in a London IPO as it pursues a $65M acquisition of Renaissance Offshore

SPAC / SPV

• Slovak battery energy storage company InoBat agreed to merge with Cartesian Growth Corporation II in a $1.26B deal

Debt

• AT&T sold $5.3B of euro bonds

• Chile is selling $3.5B of bonds in its second international debt sale this year

Bankruptcy / Restructuring / Distressed

• 15 new funds joined a Venezuela creditor group ahead of a restructuring of over $60B in international bonds

• Lenders to distressed cloud tech firm Dye & Durham tapped Houlihan Lokey ahead of potential resourcing talks

• Italian luxury yacht maker Sanlorenzo backed a consortium's offer to ​acquire insolvent peer The Italian Sea Group

Funds / Secondaries

• Ares is preparing to sell $3.4B of bundled stakes in a flagship European private credit fund in one of the largest credit secondaries deals ever

• What's going on here?

• Brookfield raised $2B for a new Middle East PE fund backed by Saudi's PIF

• Apollo will invest $1.5B in Singaporean asset manager Keppel's oil rig fund

Crypto Sum Snapshot

• Crypto treasury firms pivot to AI in bid to win back investors

• Crypto bill faces Democratic backlash over new ethics rules

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

Exec's Picks

• WSJ published an interesting profile on David Fox, the K&E lawyer who plans to upend 'Big Law' with AI, after already doing it once before.

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.