Short Squeez
Posts
🍋 M&A Blaze Before Holidays

🍋 M&A Blaze Before Holidays

It’s been a down year for M&A activity. But dealmakers have been busy this week, racing to finalize nearly $70 billion worth of mergers and acquisitions before the holidays.

December 13, 2022

Together With

“It’s very common to be utterly brilliant and still think you’re way smarter than you actually are.” — Charlie Munger

Good Morning! Sam Bankman-Fried was finally arrested last night and will likely be extradited to the United States. Ernst & Young is not feeling the holiday cheer - they told employees they won't be getting end-of-year bonuses. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs is firing 400 more workers and scaling back its consumer banking unit.

Dozens of celebrities, including Justin Bieber, Steph Curry, and Snoop Dogg, are in hot water over their Bored Ape NFT promotions. And the U.S. Department of Justice is divided on whether to charge Binance over an alleged money laundering scheme.

A new diabetes drug helps patients lose weight - the only issue is that it's being hoarded by rich patients. And California scientists made a big breakthrough in nuclear fusion energy. The reaction was the first to have a net-positive energy gain, which is another step toward clean power development.

Today's sponsor, InvestorPlace is giving out their much anticipated report: The Best 12 EV stocks for 2023. Click here to claim your free copy.

1. Story of the Day: M&A Blaze Before Holidays

It’s been a down year for M&A activity. But dealmakers have been busy this week, racing to finalize nearly $70 billion worth of mergers and acquisitions before the holidays. Yesterday saw a handful of ‘megadeals’ such as the multi-billion dollar Amgen and Thoma Bravo ones.

This flurry of activity is a welcome change in an otherwise tough year for dealmaking, with global deals down by almost a third and Wall Street firms cutting bonuses and headcount. The question on everyone's minds, though, is whether this mad dash will be enough to push this year's M&A volumes past the crucial $4 trillion mark.

For companies that love to announce deals at the start of the week, they only have one more opportunity to do so after today, as the last Monday of 2022 falls on the day after Christmas. Many CEOs are still taking a "wait-and-see" approach due to the uncertain outlook, but dealmaking could pick up again in the new year if asset pricing becomes more balanced.

Takeaway: Companies are also reevaluating their own M&A strategies during a down year for deal flow. Companies try to either ‘build or buy’ their way into new capabilities and offerings - they can either ‘build’ them internally, or they can try and ‘buy’ another company. With a down year and pesky regulators nipping at their heels, companies are opting to play it safe and stick to building internally.

2. Markets Rundown

If you want access to Wall Street insider interviews, industry deep-dives, premium research/resources and weekly Knowledge Drop newsletter, check out our Insiders membership.

Stocks closed higher, but investors await CPI data and the Fed's Wednesday speech.

Movers & Shakers

(+) Weber ($WEBR) +23% because the grill maker agreed to be taken private in a $3.7 billion deal.
(+) Under Armour ($UAA) +10% after a stock upgrade, positive holiday shopping outlook.
(–) Rivian ($RIVN) -6% after the EV maker paused its Mercedes-Benz partnership.

Private Dealmaking

Amgen will buy drugmaker Horizon Therapeutics for $27.8 billion
Thoma Bravo bought Coupa Software for $6.15 billion
Microsoft bought a 4% in the London Stock Exchange for $2.8 billion
Vial, a clinical research organization, raised $67 million
NeuReality, a microchip company for the AI market, raised $35 million
Nillion, a non-blockchain decentralized network, raised $20 million

A Message from InvestorPlace: 2023’s Hottest Electric Vehicle Stocks

With climate change in full swing, next year could be the biggest one yet for the electric vehicle megatrend. If you are looking to take advantage, now might be the time to act.

Luke Lango of InvestorPlace has released his much anticipated report: The Best 12 EV stocks for 2023.

Each one has been hand-selected for its potential to deliver life-changing profits as electric vehicles continue to disrupt the automotive industry.

Click here to claim your free copy.

4. Book of the Day: The Deadline Effect

Perfectionists and procrastinators alike agree—it’s natural to dread a deadline. Whether you are completing a masterpiece or just checking off an overwhelming to-do list, the ticking clock signals despair.

Christopher Cox knows the panic of the looming deadline all too well—as a magazine editor, he has spent years overseeing writers and journalists who couldn’t meet a deadline to save their lives. After putting in a few too many late nights in the newsroom, he became determined to learn the secret of managing deadlines.

He set off to observe nine different organizations as they approached a high-pressure deadline. Along the way, Cox made an even greater discovery: these experts didn’t just meet their big deadlines—they became more focused, productive, and creative in the process.

An entertaining blend of “behavioral science, psychological theory, and academic studies with compelling storytelling and descriptive case studies” (Financial Times), The Deadline Effect reveals the time-management strategies these teams used to guarantee success while staying on schedule: a restaurant opening for the first time, a ski resort covering an entire mountain in snow, a farm growing enough lilies in time for Easter, and more.

Cox explains how to use deadlines to our advantage, the dynamics of teams and customers, and techniques for using deadlines to make better, more effective decisions.

“When building something with as many moving parts as a brand-new restaurant, each small step along the way feels like a victory.”

5. Short Squeez Picks

Digital detoxes might not actually work
MIT Sloan’s 7 favorite business books from 2022
8 soft skills to accelerate your career
Ab exercises to keep your core in shape during the holidays
10 resources about AI guaranteed to make you smarter

A Message from Tangle: Looking for balanced, unbiased political news?

Tangle is a nonpartisan, independent, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from the left and right on one big political debate every day.

It is trusted by over 50,000 readers in 55 countries, and for many thousands of readers it is the only news outlet they trust.

Tangle is the only place you can get balanced, holistic debate about controversial topics.

Take a look for yourself here.

6. Daily Visual: Wage Growth Stumbles

Year over year wage growth

Source: Axios

7. Daily Acumen: How To Choose Your Next Book

"Most people read the same new books that everyone else has read, not necessarily for the ideas but for the social reward of being able to talk about them with others.

Reading the same thing as everyone else is only going to put the same ideas in your head that everyone else has.

If you want new ideas, read old books."

Source: fs.blog

8. Job Board

Citi - Global Head of CCB Credit Risk - New York, NY
Bloomberg - Senior Software Engineer: Sell-Side Trading Platform - New York, NY
FIS Global - VP Finance Group Executive - Jacksonville, FL
Mastercard - Consultant, Advisors Business Development, Data and Services - New York, NY
Ripple - Senior Director, Engineering (FX Trading) - New York, NY
Robinhood - Crypto AML Investigator - New York, NY

9. Memes of the Day

Advertise With Us / Merch Store / Private Equity Course

*****

Want more Short Squeez?

Become an Insider. You'll get access to:

Industry deep-dives & compelling investment ideas
Wall Street Insider interviews breaking down their investment portfolio, strategy & investment picks
Knowledge Drop - an exclusive alpha-generating newsletter covering the best weekly research & content (podcasts, articles, blogs)
Vault – a collection of investing & recruiting guides, modeling courses, salary / comp data, institutional research (40+ resources added / month)

See you on the Inside.