⁠InsideArbitrage
The European Commission announced that it has cleared the acquisition of Barnes Group $B by Apollo Global Management $APO

Barnes Group $B filed the notification with the European Commission for the acquisition by Apollo Global Management $APO.

The Commission has set January 31, 2025, as the provisional deadline for its decision. - InsideArbitrage
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⁠InsideArbitrage
Crown Laboratories and Revance Therapeutics $RVNC announced that on January 17, they amended the Merger Agreement.
✴️Revance’s stockholders will receive $3.65 per share of common stock.
✴️Crown will extend its existing tender offer for all of Revance’s outstanding Shares until February 4, 2025.
✴️The transaction is expected to close by February 6, 2025.

Crown Laboratories on January 16, provided to Revance $RVNC non-binding proposed amendments to their merger agreement.

The Crown proposal offers the following changes:
✴️an increase in the Offer Price to $3.65 per share;
✴️an increase in the Company Termination Fee to $15.3 million; and
✴️an increase in the Parent Termination Fee to $22.94 million.

The Crown proposal remains subject to approval from both Crown’s Board and Revance’s Board. Crown indicated that the offer expires at 4:10 p.m., Eastern Time, on January 17, 2025. The Revance Board will evaluate the Crown Proposal. - InsideArbitrage
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⁠Startup Archive
RT @ditzikow: So many amazing stories from my interview with @scottbelsky

Scott Belsky on what he learned from Garrett Camp coming up with the positioning for Uber

Scott recalls working on his startup Behance while doing some product advising for Garrett Camp who had just re-acquired his company StumbleUpon from eBay in 2007.

“We’re sitting down and StumbleUpon and Behance are doing a partnership. [Garrett] whips out this notebook, and he’s like ‘I’m working on this side project that helps people summon a limo car.’ And I’m like: ‘You just bought your company back from eBay! You’re an entrepreneur. Aren’t we supposed to be focused on one company at a time?’”

But Garrett had this vision for a company he called UberCab. And Scott remembers in the early days that Garrett was having a hard time figuring out how to position it.

“He was thinking about whether the brand narrative should be ‘Everyone’s taxi’ or ‘Everyone’s private driver.’”

Ultimately they went with the “Everyone’s private driver” positioning. They wanted it to be an aspirational good and positioned it as something only rich people could afford.

Scott believes there’s a valuable product lesson here:

“I believe we as consumers always want that. We always want special treatment. We always want to feel special. We want to be known. When you come into a restaurant and they remember your favorite drink or they remember your allergies, that’s an amazing sensation.”

He points to the hospitality industry as a space where creating an experience like this is a huge part of the value proposition. And it’s now becoming possible for all companies to offer an experience like this with AI.

“We have this opportunity now today with agents, modern browsers, and AI to be known wherever we go. The fact that we go to a website that still asks our gender and what size our shoe is and all this stuff is just crazy to me. Why would we not be known everywhere we go? The information’s there, and in fact, I want everyone to know my shoe size if they’re in the shoe business. And I want every restaurant to know that I’m a vegetarian… I think there’s this opportunity to have a hyper-personalized world… and a lot of the great brand moments are feeling special as a service.”

Video source: @southpkcommons (2025) - Startup Archive
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⁠InsideArbitrage
Independent proxy advisory firms ISS and Glass Lewis recommend that Avid Bioservices shareholders $CDMO vote “FOR” the company's acquisition by GHO Capital Partners and Ampersand Capital Partners.
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⁠Dimitry Nakhla | Babylon Capital®
Apple $AAPL stock is currently trading near its highest valuation multiple in the past 10 years📱

To achieve double-digit CAGR through 2027, $AAPL would likely need to sustain its premium valuation, trading at a lofty 30x earnings multiple🫰🏽 https://t.co/426u44SBx8
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⁠Stock Analysis Compilation
Bristlemoon Capital on Pinterest $PINS US

Thesis: Pinterest is facing decelerating revenue growth despite its initiatives to enhance lower-funnel ad products, leading to decreased confidence in its investment thesis.

(Extract from their Q4 letter) https://t.co/nUBUW1Pnar
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⁠InsideArbitrage
Pactiv Evergreen $PTVE announced that the waiting period under the HSR Act for its merger with Novolex has expired. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2025.
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⁠Quiver Quantitative
We posted this video yesterday.

$TEM is up 26% this morning, after news of Pelosi’s trade: https://t.co/2Sxsv64taS
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⁠App Economy Insights
📱 AppLovin $APP surged 713% in 2024! 📈

AI hype? Maybe. A business transformation? Definitely.

From gaming king to ad tech powerhouse, now it's targeting e-commerce.

Sustainable rally or inflated expectations?

🔎 Full breakdown. 👇
https://t.co/JjkiLJ8kel
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