NZ Retail Spending Down

Good Morning,

UBS has completed their acquisition of former rival Credit Suisse, the CEO of ChatGPT maker OpenAI said a tour of capital cities had left him “quite optimistic” about prospects for global coordination on artificial intelligence, ANZ is increasing a number of the interest rates on their home loan rates and retail spending in New Zealand fell 1.7% during the month of May.

Also, apologies for yesterday’s newsletter. We ran into some technical difficulties, which meant the correct version wasn’t delivered.

Now let's jump in.

Before The Bell

Markets

• GDP figures to be released on Thursday will show whether the country entered a technical recession last year, with bank economists expecting it to be touch and go (Stuff)

• After surprise interest rate hikes from the Reserve Bank of Australia and Bank of Canada, investors are a bit nervy heading into a week that brings us three major central banks meetings, those being the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank and Bank of Japan (RT)

• China’s struggling real estate industry is expected to see an L-shaped recovery in the coming years, placing a drag on the world’s second-largest economy, according to a research note by Goldman Sachs Group Inc (BBG)

• Oil prices declined on Monday ahead of a U.S. Federal Reserve meeting as investors tried to gauge the central bank’s appetite for further rate hikes, while concerns about China’s fuel demand growth and rising Russian crude supply weighed on the market (RT)

• Nio said on Monday it would lower prices for all its models and end free battery swapping services to new buyers, as the Chinese electric vehicle maker faces mounting pressure over earnings losses and lukewarm sales (RT)

• New Zealand’s largest home loan lender is increasing the interest rate charged on a number of its home loan rates (Stuff)

Earnings and Data

• Retail spending dropped for the first time this year in May, showing the growing pressure on households’ finances. Total retail card spending fell $113 million (1.7%) in May 2023 compared with April 2023, when adjusted for seasonal effects, according to Stats NZ (Stuff)

News Summary

• The Government has confirmed its support for two private bids for the ski-fields at Mt Ruapehu after a Cabinet meeting today (NBR)

• Radio New Zealand has launched an investigation and put a staff member on leave after it said a series of news stories on its website about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had been edited to present “a false account of events” (RT)

• A cocktail of rising wages and woeful labour productivity is poised to jack up unemployment and cause businesses to replace workers with cheaper machines, economists warn (AFR)

• UBS Group AG completed the acquisition of former rival Credit Suisse Group AG, sealing the biggest merger in banking since the 2008 financial crisis and creating a global wealth-management titan (BBG)

• At least 10 people have died and 25 others are in hospital after a wedding bus crashed in an Australian wine region (BBC)

• China was walloped by a Covid-19 resurgence in May, with a positive test rate nearing the peak seen during the tsunami wave at the end of 2022, according to government data released over the weekend (BBG)

• North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has vowed to “hold hands” with Russian President Vladimir Putin and bolster strategic cooperation on their shared goal of building a powerful country, state media KCNA reported on Monday (RT)

• The CEO of ChatGPT maker OpenAI on Monday said a tour of capital cities had left him “quite optimistic” about prospects for global coordination on artificial intelligence (RT)

• South Korean prosecutors said they indicted a former Samsung Electronics executive on Monday on suspicion of stealing the company’s technology to build a chip factory in China (RT)

• Donald Trump’s supporters have reacted furiously to former attorney general William Barr’s conclusion of the former president as “toast” if criminal charges against him of mishandling classified documents are proved true (AFR)

Deal Flow

Investments / M&A

• U.S. chipmaker Broadcom is set to gain conditional EU antitrust approval for its $61 billion USD proposed acquisition of cloud computing firm VMware (RT)

• Exchange operator Nasdaq has agreed to buy financial software firm Adenza from private equity firm Thoma Bravo for $10.5 billion USD in a cash and stock deal, it said on Monday (RT)

• Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Investment has signed a $5.6 billion USD deal with Chinese electric car maker Human Horizons to collaborate on the development, manufacture and sale of vehicles, the Saudi state news agency said in a statement (RT)

• Novartis has agreed to acquire Seattle-based biotech firm Chinook Therapeutics for up to $3.5 billion USD to boost its late-stage drug development line-up with a new treatment for a rare severe kidney disease (RT)

• Citi has won the mandate to sell German company Fresenius Medical Care’s Queensland-headquartered Cura Day Hospitals, which is worth around ~$500m (AUD) (AFR)

• Wesfarmers has bought InstantScripts, an online medical prescriptions company, for $135m (AUD) (AFR)

• Rio Tinto has put Macquarie Capital to work on helping its green transition in Queensland (AFR)

• Adamantame is interested in buying PAC Trading, a wholesale food packing business based in western Sydney (AFR)

VC & Fundraising

• Tauranga-based Enterprise Angels has raised $2 million in the first close of its fourth fund where it’s targeting between $5m and $10m to invest in high growth startups (NBR)

Daily Picks

• Read more here about the potential impacts of incoming cigarette legislation on the dairy owners of New Zealand (Stuff)

• The NBR rich list is out. Check it out here 

• TPG Capital has expanded its team (AFR)

Job Board

New Zealand

• Waterman Capital investment analyst - Apply here

Australia

• Citadel Securities graduate and intern roles - Apply here

• Goldman Sachs Investment Banking Intern - Apply here

• IMC graduate and intern roles - Apply here

• Jarden

  • Graduate role - Apply here

  • Summer internships - Apply here

• Optiver

  • Graduate role - Apply here

  • Internships - Apply here

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