💎Another tech unicorn IPO

Good morning Investor. "Investing is a business where you can look very silly for a long period of time before you are proven right."

— Bill Ackman, Founder of Pershing Square

MARKET UPDATE

Solana was initially up today on its latest congestion issue fix. Solana’s blockchain witnessed a 75% transaction failure in March, coinciding with an uptick in memecoin launches and user activity. (Cointelegraph)

TODAY’S BIG HEADLINES

• Another tech unicorn to go public

• Salesforce goes shopping

• Hong Kong approves crypto ETFs

• Apple gets dethroned

PUBLIC LISTINGS

Another tech unicorn to go public💎

Get Your Tickets: The online ticket-selling juggernaut, StubHub, has been rubbing shoulders with the investment banking titans, JP Morgan (JPM) and Goldman Sachs (GS). Their mission? To orchestrate a sizzling summertime IPO, aiming for a sky-high valuation of a staggering $16.5 billion. This isn’t just a number plucked out of thin air, mind you. This was the hefty price tag attached to StubHub during a private fundraising round back in 2021.

Billion-Dollar Bargains: StubHub, launched in the year 2000, was scooped up by the Ecommerce behemoth, Ebay (EBAY), for a mere $310 million in 2007. Looking at its potential IPO valuation, it seems Ebay snagged a real steal! Fast forward to 2020, and the original co-founder, not one to let go of a good thing, reacquired the company for $4 billion through his new venture, Viagogo. Talk about a profitable game of hot potato!

A Fierce Landscape: In the wild world of ticket-selling, StubHub is not alone. Two of its competitors, Vivid Seats (SEAT) and LiveNation (LYV), are already strutting their stuff on the public trading catwalk, boasting valuations of $1.2 billion and $24 billion respectively. Not to be left in the dust, StubHub’s rival, SeatGeek, is also eyeing up a potential IPO. They’re likely to sit back, popcorn in hand, and gauge the market’s reaction to StubHub’s grand entrance.

sources: (CNBC)

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MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

Salesforce goes shopping 🛍️

If You Can’t Beat Them: This Sunday, the grapevine was abuzz with whispers of Salesforce (CRM), the cloud-based software giant, being in “advanced negotiations” to acquire Informatica (INFA), the maestros of data management software.

The Devil’s In The Details: With a meteoric rise in share price of 43% year-to-date, Informatica is currently strutting around with a hefty valuation of around $11 billion. The word on the street is that the potential deal’s structure would value Informatica below its current market value. If this deal goes through, it would be one of Salesforce’s most significant acquisitions, second only to their $28 billion acquisition of Slack back in 2021.

Need For Speed: Recent reports of Alphabet’s (GOOG) potential acquisition of Hubspot (HUBS), Salesforce’s arch-nemesis in the CRM software space, have put Salesforce in a bit of a pickle. They’re under pressure to reassure shareholders about their market-leading position. This acquisition could be just the spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down!

sources: (PYMNTS), (WSJ)

CRYPTOCURRENCY

Hong Kong approves crypto ETFs👍

Global Expansion: Despite the crypto markets taking a nosedive over the weekend, we’ve bounced back this week with some upbeat news. On Monday morning, the air was thick with anticipation as news broke that Hong Kong’s securities regulator gave the green light to the “in-kind” creation model for Bitcoin and Ether ETFs. This is a departure from the “cash-created” model that’s been the bread and butter of US firms like Blackrock’s IBIT and others.

The Chosen Ones: This golden ticket for spot ETFs has been handed to three local providers. At least three offshore Chinese asset managers are chomping at the bit to launch Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs in the near future.

A Tale of Two Models: The model that’s been given the thumbs up in Hong Kong, known as the “in-kind” creation model, is a different beast from the US model. The latter, known as the cash-create redemption model, allows issuers to conjure new ETF shares using only cash. Spot Bitcoin ETFs trading in the US currently dance to this tune, as local securities regulators have opted for this redemption method. However, the “in-kind” ETFs, now approved by Hong Kong’s regulators, can be issued using BTC or ETH instead of cash. It’s a whole new ball game!

sources: (cointelegraph)

MEGA CAPS

Apple gets dethroned👑

A New King: Hold onto your hats, folks! Apple (AAPL), the former king of the smartphone realm, has been dethroned by its feisty sibling, Samsung (LON: BC94). Apple’s reign at the top was as fleeting as a shooting star, having only seized the crown last year, thereby ending Samsung’s 13-year rule.

The Figures: As the first quarter of the year rolled in, the smartphone market bounced back like a spring, catapulting Samsung’s sales skyward. Meanwhile, Apple, it seems, missed the rebound train, with their iPhone shipments taking a 7% hit. In Q1, Apple managed to ship 50.1 million handsets, a significant drop from the 55.4 million in Q1 of 2023. The biggest thorn in Apple’s side? The drastic slowdown in the Chinese market, a battlefield of strategic importance for the smartphone maker. To add salt to the wound, Huawei, in the same period, saw their sales grow triple-digits, faster than Jack’s beanstalk!

The Times, They Are A-Changin’: According to the scientific boffins, the most significant shift in consumer behaviour is the trend towards pricier devices, with the expectation of holding onto them for several years. It seems the smartphone market is turning into a long-term relationship rather than a fling!

sources: (PYMNTS)

MORE NEWS

Additional market-moving events🌎

• Tesla’s Mass Sacking: Tesla, in a cost-cutting exercise, have laid off 10% of their workforce, roughly 14,000 workers across its global operations. (Techcrunch)

• Increased Censorship: Facebook blocked news in Canada last August to avoid paying fees to media companies and looks likely to do the same in Australia. (reuters)

• I’ll Have Some Extra Chips With That: President Biden will award up to $6.4 billion in grants to South Korea's Samsung to expand its chip production in central Texas. (NYT)

• UK Bonds Selling Like Hot Cakes: UK government bonds known as “Gilts” have seen large inflows, selling £5billion in short-term gilts, with demand outstripping supply almost four times over. This is the strongest demand for UK debt since April 2020 (FinancialTImes)

• The Great Halving: The upcoming Bitcoin halving is expected to tak place between Thurdays and Saturday of this week, which will reduce mining rewards for Bitcoin miners from 6.25BTC down to 3.125 BTC per block, reducing the supply. This typically happens every four years. (CNBC)

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