🍋 From IPOs to Buyouts

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Good Morning! Please find the updated results of the 2023 Wall Street compensation survey here.

Looks like dropping your bonus on a rollie might have been the best investment last year. The likes of Rolex, Patek Philippe, and Audemars Piguet proved to be the top-performing assets in 2022 beating the stock market and crypto.

Inflation is pushing consumers to cheaper travels - instead of booking trips to Spain, tourists are favoring cheaper destinations like Portugal, Morocco, and Turkey. Bitcoin is on a comeback trail as it surpassed Visa’s market cap and become the 11th largest asset in the world.

While central bankers fret over the impact of rising wages on inflation, a new report by the Wall Street Journal found the reality is quite different. In advanced economies, wage growth is either stagnant or worse, declining. And bills keep mounting for Twitter, with the company now facing a ninth lawsuit for unpaid rent.

1. Story of the Day: From IPOs to Buyouts

Public markets may have lost their allure for some companies, as the post-IPO fairy tale ending remains elusive. A growing number of newly public companies are retreating to private ownership, seeking refuge from the rocky road of the public markets.

In fact, out of the hundreds of companies that went public in 2020 and 2021, 10 have already agreed to sell themselves to private-equity firms. The key reason? Many IPOs from this period are trading below their debut prices.

For private equity firms, take-privates are the perfect match. They have record amounts of cash, and need to either invest or return capital to investors. Meanwhile, advisers are holding out hope that the IPO market will eventually thaw, but it's a slow process. Companies like fintech giant Stripe Inc. are sitting on the sidelines until at least late 2023.

The IPO market is currently experiencing a severe case of buyer's remorse, as the aftermath of the biggest party in recent history leaves investors nursing a collective hangover.

2. Markets Rundown

The markets were closed on Monday because of Presidents’ Day.

Private Dealmaking

• inDrive, a global ride-hailing startup, raised $150 million

• R-Zero, an air filtering technology startup raised $105 million

• Hexagon Bio, a drug discovery startup, raised $77 million

• Carbonplace, a carbon markets startup, raised $45 million

• Treasury Prime, a banking-as-a-service startup, raised $40 million

• Strata, an identity orchestration startup, raised $26 million

A Message from Percent

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3. Top Reads

• China formalizes rules for overseas IPOs (CNBC)

• Why tech billionaire Marc Lowe is all in on ‘fast-fine’ food delivery (YF)

• Home Depot to spend $1 billion to give hourly workers a raise (CNBC)

• JPMorgan warns stock market rally will fizzle (Fox)

• Layoffs spread, but some employers can’t hire fast enough (CNBC)

• Shoplifting deterrents drive down sales (Axios)

• Meta shares soar most since 2013 on Zuckerberg’s vision (YF)

• Hedge fund billionaire gets billions more to retire (NYT)

• The 10 highest-paying college majors, 5 years after graduation (CNBC)

4. Book of the Day: Crying in H Mart

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In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist.

With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother's particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother's tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food.

As she grew up, moving to the East Coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, and performing gigs with her fledgling band--and meeting the man who would become her husband--her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live.

It was her mother's diagnosis of terminal cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.

“It felt like the world had divided into two different types of people, those who had felt pain and those who had yet to.”

5. Short Squeez Picks

• The most underrated food to boost energy

• How to make sure your resume isn’t overlooked - without lying

• A simple rule to find stuff you’ve lost

• 6 habits that will drastically change your emotional health

• When not rocking the boat may sink the boat

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6. Daily Visual: America’s Dairy Consumption is Moo-ning

Per capita consumption of dairy products per year (in lbs)

_{Source: Axios}

7. Daily Acumen: Think of Future You

Nikki Cox talks about how she introduced her kids to the phrase. "Let's think of future us." After coming in from playing outside in the snow, her kids would fling their wet stuff everywhere, leaving their boots and coats in various places. When they wanted to leave to go somewhere or go play outside again, the kids would be frustrated and unable to find their things.

One day she stopped her kids and said, “let’s think of future us.” Let’s hang up all our wet clothing so it’s dry when we want to go out and play again and not stinky and wet. Let’s put our boots away in their cubby so we know right where to find them later and we don’t get frustrated. From that day on, the phrase let’s think of future us became an integral part of their day and had a huge positive impact on their behavior.

It works for adults too. Watch tv and eat a bag of chips or go out for a walk? Let’s think of future us. Scroll Instagram mindlessly or meditate? Let’s think of future us. Go to bed early and get rest or stay up late? Let’s think of future us. Spend money now on unnecessary stuff to clutter our home or save for intentional purchases or experiences in the future? Let’s think of future us.

8. Job Board

• Goldman Sachs - Analyst, Trading/Quantitative Modeling - New York, NY

• Mizuho Americas - Director, Financial Planning & Analysis - New York, NY

• JPMorgan Chase Bank - Associate, CCB Financial Analysis - New York, NY

• Plaxonic Technologies - Business Analyst - New York, NY

• Wells Fargo Bank - Specialist - Financial Crimes Audit Team - New York, NY

• Charles Schwab - Senior Manager, Compliance - New York, NY

9. Memes of the Day

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