Happy morning, Munchers!

Hope you all had a smashing Monday. Or at least, as good of a Monday as it can get. Have a great Holi, if you celebrate. 🤩

As always, here is your daily dose of the news that matters, from Wall Street to Dalal Street - in 4 minutes and 58 seconds.

Yesterday, Abu Dhabi gets ready to make some cash from selling it’s AI, Adani dumps debt on a few power plants, and Credit Suisse’s woes get worse. 🔥

Let’s dive in.

What’s hot, what’s not?

Market Commentary

• Wall Street’s hotshots aren’t moving markets around as much. Most eyes are trained for US employment data which comes out later this week. Stuff like this is super important for central banks as a strong labour market will mean more rate hikes.

• Most markets moved up ever-so-slightly, with a lot of resistance being faced across the world.

• UK consumer spending also shrank as high energy bills remain the biggest concern plaguing the average Jack. No relief at the gas pump is in sight. 😔

Story Roundup

1 - Abu Dhabi gets ready to pick up big bucks for it’s AI biz. 🤖

The ChatGPT frenzy has catapulted a whole league of AI startups into the limelight, and this catch is a massive one.

Presight AI (a data analytics firm) that’s owned by Abu Dhabi is gonna raise 2 billion Dirhams from an IPO.

Presight is basically the Middle Eastern equivalent of Palantir, and they’re HUGE.

They have the highest margins among other AI and cloud companies that offer similar services - which means that Presight focuses on profitability too, unlike most AI companies.

One more benefit of being a big player in the Middle East is that contracts come in, and they stay for a long while.

A lot of Presight’s revenue streams are super predictable and long-term, which means that they can pour cash back into investors’ pockets for a decent amount of time.

Can’t wait for it to become sentient. 💀

2 - Adani gets put under a mega microscope. 🔍

Adani baba’s flagship power plant is called Mundra.

It is a coal fired colossus that has powered millions of homes for years.

Inside Adani Power sits another sub-company that is called “Standalone”.

Through this vehicle, Adani Power used some creative accounting to lend more than $600 million to Mundra.

This loan had a 10% annual interest attached to it, but with one catch. The money only had to be repaid when Adani Power asked for it back.

Sounds pretty convenient, right?

Wrong.

The Mundra power plant now has more liabilities than assets and has run up a $1.8 billion tab that seems to be burning a big hole in their balance sheet.

Even Adani’s auditors are confused.

Big leagues. 🏆

3 - Credit Suisse loses it’s OG investors. 🤷🏻

It’s important to have someone in your corner that has your back.

Credit Suisse just lost that pillar of support.

One of their longest-standing shareholders just sold their entire stake in CS - and it gives a big message to the market.

This shareholder is a little-known American company called Harris Associates, and they manage about $100 billion.

Harris owned about 10% of CS last year, and they started to trim their stake down after the constant shocks they received.

This isn’t a question about making some short-term bucks.

It’s a question about the long-term future of the company.

Wealth management is seeing some crazy outflows, investment banking revenue is slowing down, and margins are getting thinner.

Why go for a company that is burning money when the rest of the industry is printing it? 💸

4 - Open banking startup scoops up half a billion. 💸

It’s been a long, long time since anyone has been willing to take a hefty bet on a young company.

And nature might be healing.

A UK-based personal lending fintech called Abound just scooped up $600 million+ in funding from an assortment of investors, and they want to supercharge their journey to the top.

The company is called Abound, and this is also the UK’s biggest fintech funding round. (did not mean to rhyme that)

Abound uses AI as an alternative to assess credit scores (which no one knows the workings of) and keeps a strong emphasis on risk reduction.

They have 150k+ borrowers and have been growing at 30%/month.

Business… is booming. And predatory. 🤷🏻

5 - Europe gets increasingly weary about inflation. 📈

“The inflation monster”.

Not my words - that’s what Christine Lagarde of the ECB thinks.

She spoke at a press conference and basically told us to strap ourselves in nice and tight, because the road is about to get a whole lot bumpier.

More rate hikes are gonna be rolled out along with a focus on keeping the economy resilient.

The ECB doesn’t want to “break” Europe with rate hikes, but they might well need to do so.

Reminds me of 2022. 💀

Hope you enjoyed this issue of Market Munch. If you’ve got any feedback - good or bad (😏) you can hit reply to this email and I'll get a ping in my inbox. Thanks a ton for reading!

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Cheers, and have a lovely day. 🙏

- Aryaansh ⚡