Morning Brief: Top Financial Stories Dominating on Tuesday, May 31

CNBC

Opportunities In Crypto Crash? Top Crypto Firms Hunt For Takeovers

• Ripple and FTX, two leading cryptocurrency startups, told CNBC that they are looking for acquisitions as the industry seeks to drive growth by buying other companies.
• Some crypto firms believe they are substantial enough and well-capitalized to spend money on acquisitions.
• In an interview last week, Brett Harrison, president of cryptocurrency exchange FTX U.S., stated that the company is in “a very good spot in terms of our capital and cash” and will “look around the market for potential merger and acquisition opportunities.”

Reuters

GSK To Scoop Clinical Stage US Biotech Affinivax For $3.3B To Shore Up Vaccine Business

• GSK plc GSK agreed to acquire U.S. biotech Affinivax for up to $3.3 billion, Reuters reports.
• The purchase price includes $2.1 billion upfront and $1.2 billion in potential milestones.
• Affinivax offers GSK its next-generation vaccines under development, the most advanced for pneumonia, meningitis, bloodstream infections, and sinusitis.
• Affinivax’s newer vaccine technology aims to strengthen the breadth of immunity against a pathogen such that an immune-boosting adjuvant is not necessary.

Key Takeaways From BT And Ericsson’s Multi-Million-Dollar Deal

• Telecoms company BT BTGOF and Ericsson ERIC collaborated over a multi-million-pound deal to offer private 5G networks to businesses across Britain, Reuters reports.
• The collaboration includes various use cases like teleoperation of heavy plant machinery, artificial reality (AR) for remote maintenance, enhanced video AI analytics, and the use of drones for surveillance and inspections.
• The companies aim to help businesses deploy the Internet of Things and other technologies quickly and securely.

Here’s How DSM Aspires To Become Leading Player In Food and Health Products Market

• Netherlands-based Dutch specialty chemicals maker DSM forged deals to scoop Swiss flavor and fragrance maker Firmenich to become a leading player in the budding food ingredients and health products markets.
• As previously planned, DSM also looks to sell its engineering plastics division signaling its exit from the industrial materials market, Reuters reports.
• DSM shareholders will get a 65.5% stake in a new group called DSM-Firmenich. The unlisted Firmenich owners will receive a 34.5% stake of the combined entity plus €3.5 billion in cash from DSM.
• DSM also agreed to sell its engineering plastics division to German peer Lanxess Ag LNXSY and private-equity firm Advent for €3.85 billion ($4.14 billion), including debt.

Wall Street Journal

Unilever To Add This Activist Investor To Board - What’s The Catch?

• Unilever PLC UL has appointed Nelson Peltz, the Chief Executive Officer and founding partner of Trian Fund Management L.P., as a Non-Executive Director.
• The appointment will be effective from July 20, 2022.
• Trian Fund Management holds a 1.5% (37.4 million ordinary shares) stake in Unilever, becoming one of the largest shareholders.

Financial Times

Qualcomm Keen To Procure Stake In Arm Ltd In Impending IPO

• Qualcomm Inc QCOM CEO Cristiano Amon looks to procure a stake in Softbank Group Corp SFTBY SFTBF owned Arm Ltd.
• Investing in Arm Ltd alongside rivals would “support a successful IPO and valuation” and ensure that the company continued “striving and investing,” Amon said.
• The U.S. chipmaker looks to create a consortium by collaborating with other leading chipmakers to maintain the U.K. chip designer’s impartiality, given its crucial role in the technology sector. Previously, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger also supported Qualcomm’s move.

Benzinga

Samsung Holds Talks With Intel On Chip Manufacturing

• The world’s largest manufacturer of phones, Samsung Electronics SSNLF, said its Vice Chairman Lee Jae-Yong met Intel Corporation INTC CEO Patrick Gelsinger to explore areas to work together.
• Amid global supply chain woes, South Korean tech giant Samsung and Intel discussed how the companies could work together in a wide range of semiconductor businesses, according to Korea Herald.
• After attending the World Economic Forum 2022 in Davos, Switzerland, Intel’s chief flew to South Korea to meet the Samsung executives. The meeting was attended by Samsung Co-CEO Kyung Kye-hyun, Samsung’s mobile division head Roh Tae-moon and other high-ranking officials.

Google’s Pixel 7 Seen Selling On eBay Way Ahead Of Official Release

• Alphabet, Inc. GOOGL GOOG recently unveiled the next iteration of its Pixel smartphone at the Google I/O event held earlier this month.
• Although the Pixel 7 smartphone is not due for launch until the fall, an alleged prototype of the model was listed for sale on eBay, Inc. EBAY, as revealed on Twitter by Mishaal Rahman, a tech editor at Esper.
• eBay has since stated that the listing was ended by the seller due to a purported error in the listing.

Telecom Italia Seeks To Divest $21.5B Landline Network To Cut Down On Debt, Commence Fiber Launch

• Telecom Italia S.p.A. TIAIY sought an enterprise value of €20 billion ($21.5 billion) for the landline network, Bloomberg reports.
• Telecom Italia CEO Pietro Labriola looks to sell the landline network to Italy’s state lender and a group of international funds to cut its multi-billion-dollar debt pile and initiate a fiber rollout for Italy that lags far behind its European peers.
• Labriola also aims to spin the company’s commercial services off into a separate unit.

Elon Musk Takes Jibe At Media Again: ‘They’re Hesitant To Bite the Hand That Feeds Them’

• Tesla, Inc. TSLA CEO Elon Musk has had run-ins with traditional media companies on multiple occasions in the past. On Monday, he took to Twitter to express his discontent with the industry once again.
• What Happened: Tesla board member Hiro Mizuno, a former chief investment officer of Japan’s sovereign fund, quote tweeted a Wall Street Journal article about automakers with the highest number of recalls this year.
• Listing Tesla as the company with the second-highest number of recalls so far in 2022, behind Ford Motor Co F— WSJ used an image of a Tesla vehicle to go along with the story.

$71M Crypto Shorts Liquidated In 1 Hour On Monday As Bitcoin Surges

• On-chain data shows that crypto traders with open short positions saw $71 million worth of liquidations in a single hour on Monday (ET hours.)
• What Happened: According to data from CoinGlass, $71.13 million shorts were liquidated over a one-hour period as Bitcoin BTC/USD surged to $31,177 during early Asian hours on Tuesday.
• Meanwhile, just $7.26 worth of long positions were liquidated from crypto traders over the same one-hour period.

Gold Fields Acquires Yamana Gold For $6.7B

• Gold Fields Limited GFI and Yamana Gold Inc. YRI AUY entered into a definitive agreement.
• Under the agreement, Gold Fields will acquire all of the outstanding common shares of Yamana. Yamana shares will be exchanged at a ratio of 0.6 of an ordinary share in Gold Fields or 0.6 of a Gold Fields American depositary share for each Yamana Share.
• The above implies a valuation for Yamana of $6.7 billion and represents a premium of 33.8% to the 10-day Volume-Weighted Average Price of Yamana’s Shares of $ 5.201 on Friday, May 27, 2022. It is anticipated that Gold Fields Shareholders and Yamana Shareholders will own ~61% and 39% of the Combined Group, respectively.

As Tesla, Others Struggle, This Apple Supplier Aims To Be First EV Maker ‘Not Short On Material Supplies’

• One of Apple Inc’s AAPL oldest and largest suppliers — Foxconn Technology Co Ltd HNHPF — said the second half of 2022 is headed “in a better direction” for the company as the Chinese government lifted the COVID-19 lockdown in Shanghai.
• The world’s largest contract electronics maker, Foxconn’s chairman Liu Young-way in the annual shareholder meeting on Tuesday, according to Reuters, said, “We are quite confident in the stability of our supply chain for the second half of this year.”

Apple Will Have To Face Antitrust Lawsuit From Creator Of App Store For Jailbroken iPhones, iPads

• Apple Inc’s AAPL attempts to have an antitrust lawsuit by Cydia dismissed have come to naught.
• The Tim Cook-led tech giant reportedly argued that allegations by Cydia that it had a monopoly over software distribution on its mobile operating system fell outside of the statute of limitations.
• The contention was dismissed by California U.S. district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, according to a Reuters report.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons