• Instacart unveiled its largest acquisition ever yesterday, saying it would pay $350 million in cash and stock for Caper AI, a maker of smart shopping charts equipped with payment terminals that eliminate the need for shoppers to go through the traditional checkout process. It's the company's second acquisition this month ahead of an expected IPO that could occur later this year, following the purchase of FoodStorm, a developer of order management and catering software for grocery retailers. The logic behind both takeovers is obvious enough, as Instacart aims to build out its suite of tech-powered offerings aimed at making grocery shopping as frictionless as possible. Caper has previously raised funding from Lux Capital, First Round Capital and other VCs.
• Chicago-based investment firm Peak6 Group has purchased a minority stake in British soccer club Wolverhampton Wanderers FC, also known as Wolves, marking the latest foray by private investors into the world of professional sports. Peak6 will assume a stake in Fosun Sports, the holding company that operates Wolves; the franchise has been controlled by China's Fosun International since 2016. Peak6 already owns Dundalk F.C., an Irish soccer club, and it previously owned a stake in U.K. club AFC Bournemouth from 2015 until 2019.
• Elizabeth Warren is once again setting her sights on private equity dividends. The Democratic senator from Massachusetts plans to reintroduce her "Stop Wall Street Looting Act," a proposed piece of legislation that would prohibit firms from extracting debt-backed dividends from their portfolio companies for the first two years after taking ownership, according to a Bloomberg report. Warren previously tried and failed to pass the bill in 2019. The proposal also includes other planks in addition to limiting dividends, including increased financial protections for workers in the event of a corporate bankruptcy.
• The playlist for KKR's next holiday party got a lot more interesting this week, as the firm announced a deal to buy a portfolio of more than 62,000 music copyrights from Kobalt Capital for about $1.1 billion, confirming prior reports that a deal was imminent. Co-investing alongside KKR on the deal is Dundee Partners, the investment office of the Hendel family, which includes Stephen Hendel, a former Goldman Sachs partner turned theater impresario. KKR and Dundee will conduct the takeover through Chord Music Partners, a new platform that will also house some of KKR's other recently acquired song rights.
• Semiconductor manufacturing giant GlobalFoundries revealed initial terms for its coming IPO on the Nasdaq, with plans to offer 55 million shares for between $42 and $47 apiece. A midpoint pricing would raise just shy of $2.5 billion and value the company at nearly $24 billion. GlobalFoundries expects to offer 33 million shares itself, while its majority owner, Mubadala, will sell another 22 million shares. The Abu Dhabi state-owned investment company has controlled GlobalFoundries since the company was formed in 2009 through a spinout of AMD's manufacturing arm.
• JAB Holdings is continuing its push into the pet-care sector. In one move, the German investor is partnering with BNP Paribas Cardif to form a new holding company that will focus on the pet insurance business in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. BNP Paribas Cardif will contribute its Cardif Pinnacle subsidiary to the venture. And in a move to build out its business in the U.S., JAB agreed to buy Figo, a Chicago-based provider of tech-focused pet care and insurance services. The deals come about two weeks after the Financial Times reported that JAB was aiming to raise a $5 billion fund to invest in the pet-care sector.
• Chicago-based exchange operator Cboe Global Markets struck a deal to buy Eris Digital Holdings (also known as ErisX), which operates a spot market, a regulated futures exchange and a regulated clearinghouse for digital assets. In 2017, Cboe became the first U.S. exchange to allow trading in bitcoin futures, but it pulled back from the market in 2019 after the broader crypto market had cooled off. Once the deal is completed, ErisX will operate its spot and derivatives markets under the Cboe Digital name.
• Shareholders voted to approve WeWork's planned merger with a SPAC called BowX Acquisition Corp., setting the table for the co-working company to begin trading on the NYSE this Thursday. The listing will mark the end of a long and winding road WeWork has traveled to the public market, dating back to its infamous IPO filing from 2019 that began a catastrophic stretch for the company, one marked by waves of widespread ridicule, the elimination of tens of billions of dollars from its valuation and the ultimate departure of CEO and co-founder Adam Neumann. WeWork unveiled the terms of its SPAC deal in March, including a $9 billion enterprise value and $1.3 billion in expected cash proceeds.
• The U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority fined Facebook £50 million (about $69 million) for failing to properly cooperate with the agency's investigation into the social media's acquisition of Giphy, a $400 million deal announced in May 2020. The CMA began probing the deal last June, and it released provisional findings in August indicating a belief that the purchase would harm competition in the display advertising market. The regulatory body could force Facebook to sell Giphy if its official report reaches the same conclusion.
• In a related bit of news: Facebook is going to change its name to reflect its new focus on the metaverse, according to a report in The Verge. If you don't like what's being said, change the conversation, and all that.
• Swedish private equity giant EQT will aim to raise €4 billion (nearly $4.7 billion) for a new impact investing vehicle called the EQT Future fund. The fund will target long-horizon investments in "mature" companies working to achieve various forms of social good, including protecting natural resources, combating climate change, improving human healthcare and improving societal equality. News of EQT's plans comes less than a week after the firm unveiled concrete new targets for reducing emissions at the firm itself and at its portfolio companies.
• Elsewhere in Scandinavia, AutoStore priced its IPO in its home country of Norway at 31 kroner per share, resulting in a valuation of 103.5 billion kroner (about $12.4 billion). It's the biggest public debut in Norway in the past 20 years, according to Reuters. The company specializes in automated storage (hence the name), building software and robots that work together to maximize efficiency in warehouses. AutoStore's shares closed up another 3% during their first day of trading, at 32 kroner. This April, SoftBank acquired a 40% stake in the company from EQT and Thomas H. Lee Partners for $2.8 billion, resulting in a $7.7 billion valuation.
• Summit Partners agreed to pump $625 million in growth funding into Invicti Security, an Austin-based company that specializes in application security testing. Turn/River Capital, which has backed Invicti since 2017, will retain a "significant" stake alongside Summit. Earlier this month, Summit closed its latest flagship growth vehicle with $8.35 billion in LP commitments, its largest fund yet.
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