Hi, Aaron Weinman here. It's already been a busy week of deals with JetBlue's aerial pursuit of Spirit, Kellogg's breakup, Mondelez's Clif Bar buy, and Elon Musk's ever-evolving quest for Twitter.
But before that, I want to introduce you to 14 execs from Big Tech that every Wall Street entity — from banks to investors — should know. More financial services firms are moving to the public cloud, and they'll need these folks to execute those strategies.
Let's get up in the cloud.
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1. Banks, private-equity firms, and investing giants are enamored with Big Tech execs who have cloud experience. These Silicon Valley gems are needed to help Wall Street manage big-data undertakings and, most importantly, aid these institutions in their transition to cloud technology.
Banks, in particular, are looking to public-cloud providers like Amazon Web Services, or Google Cloud, but they need the right personnel to usher archaic Wall Street titans into the burgeoning cloud space.
There's a number of ways banks are adopting the cloud. JPMorgan uses multiple public-cloud providers to manage its data, while Morgan Stanley has a tight relationship with Microsoft's Azure technology.
As Wall Street embraces the cloud, it's primed to nick some brain share from titans like Google and Amazon that championed the technology. In the past year, Two Sigma hired Carter Page, Google's former director of engineering, to lead its data-engineering efforts and Goldman Sachs poached Kamlesh Talreja from AWS Marketplace to co-lead the bank's asset-management engineering arm.
Insider's Bianca Chan and Belle Lin dissect who could make the jump from Big Tech to Wall Street.
In other news:
2. Leading law firms — with watertight ties to Wall Street — like Paul Weiss and Skadden are stacked with young lawyers in the thick of complex deals. Here's Insider's first-ever list of litigators under the age of 40 who have represented tech giants, estranged business partners, and state governments.
3. Fintech execs outlined where investors are finding some returns. Turbulent public markets are making yield-hungry folks flock to private markets and real estate. Insider spoke to the CEOs of startups at Rocket Dollar and iCapital for their take on the ever-changing investment landscape.
4. JPMorgan Chase's CMO Carla Hassan is banking on content marketing to thrive on Wall Street. She explained how critical the strategy is to fostering trust with clients, competing and winning against fintechs, and why JPMorgan bought restaurant-review site The Infatuation.
5. Twitter's board has endorsed Elon Musk's $44 billion takeover of the company. The temperamental Musk, however, said fake accounts, shareholder approval, and the debt financing needed to support the purchase stood in the way of a done deal for Twitter. The debt is something I've previously chirped about both in this piece, and in a previous edition of 10 Things on Wall Street.
6. Deutsche Bank is cutting some jobs in New York City. The German bank slightly reduced headcount in its leveraged-finance business — an asset class where it's been a top-10 underwriter for the last three years — and more cuts could follow as Deutsche seeks to alleviate payroll pressure, efinancialcareers reported.
7. Kellogg, the food giant that gave us Pringles and Pop-Tarts, is splitting up, and it's all-in on snacks. Company CEO Steve Cahillane said its global snacks business (think Rice Krispies) would remain under Kellogg's house, while the cereal business that houses Froot Loops will be spun off, and its plant-based business could be sold. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are advising Kellogg, while Kirkland & Ellis is its legal counsel.
8. Susquehanna founder Jeff Yass has avoided $1 billion in taxes and largely escaped public scrutiny. The TikTok investor and GOP mega donor is putting money towards supporting election deniers and tax cuts, according to ProPublica.
9. JetBlue sweetened its offer to buy rival carrier Spirit Airlines. The David Neeleman-founded JetBlue is offering $33.5 per Spirit share, $2 a share more than its previous term sheet. JetBlue also said it's willing to divest some assets to get a deal done. Goldman Sachs is advising JetBlue and Shearman & Sterling is counseling the airline. Barclays and Morgan Stanley are providing spiritual guidance to Spirit, and Debevoise & Plimpton is legal counsel.
10. Activist investors, including Invesco and Janus Henderson, are demanding change at Nelson Peltz' Trian Fund Management. It's a strange twist as Peltz is often the activist taking stakes in companies before agitating for change. In this case, the group of investors argued that Trian had deviated from its original purpose, the Wall Street Journal reported.
What we're watching today:
At 9:30 am ET: Fed Chair Jay Powell testifies before the Senate Banking Committee. Tune in here.
Done deals:
- Private investment firm Ardian has acquired Spanish telecom services company Aire Networks from fellow investor Magnum Capital.
- Sun Capital Partners and Sterling Partners, two private investment firms, will merge their respective dermatology portfolio companies WestDerm and Platinum Dermatology Partners.
Curated by Aaron Weinman in New York. Tips? Email [email protected] or tweet @aaronw11. Edited by Lisa Ryan and Jordan Parker Erb in New York.