Good morning,

As an FYI, the SEC is closed on Monday for Veterans Day. To all the Veterans out there, thank you for your service!

Listing Plans and Rumors

• CoreWeave has hired Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan to lead its planned 2025 IPO. — BB

• NielsenIQ, backed by Advent and KKR, is considering an IPO in 2025 that could value the firm at $10 billion. — BB

• Brazilian conglomerate Votorantim is preparing for a potential US IPO for its North American cement business in 2025. — BB

• Comcast hired Morgan Stanley to explore options for its cable networks, including a potential spinoff, which was reported last week. — BB

• Bill Ackman, via a post on X (formerly Twitter), stated after the reports of antisemitic violence in Amsterdam, he plans on exercising his contractual right as one of the largest shareholders of Universal Music Group to move their domicile from the Netherlands to the US and move its listing from the Euronext Amsterdam to the US with the US listing to occur in 2025. Ackman also plans to remove Pershing Square Holdings listing from Euronext Amsterdam and retain only the LSE listing. — BB

  • See Ackman's X Post here:

• Kalaris Therapeutics, a biotech formed by Samsara BioCapital, announced it will go public via reverse merger with Nasdaq-listed Allovir ($ALVR). Pre-merger ALVR holders will own appx. 25% of the combined company with pre-merger Kalaris holders owning appx. 75%. Upon closing the merger, Kalaris Therapeutics will trade as KLRS. — PR

• Select Medical Holdings ($SEM), which spun off its occupational health services subsidiary, now Concentra Group Holdings ($CON), in an IPO in July, announced it will distribute the remaining shares it owns of Concentra to SEM holders. The special stock distribution will be 104,093,503 CON shares, representing approximately. 81.7% of CON's outstanding shares and will be made on Nov 25 at an estimated distribution ratio of appx 0.806971 CON shares per SEM share held. This distribution completes the spinoff transaction as Select Medical will not own any Concentra Group shares afterwards. — PR

IPO Candidates

• Physical Intelligence, an AI robotics startup, has raised $400 million at a $2 billion valuation from prominent investors, including Jeff Bezos, OpenAI, and Lux Capital. — Reuters

• PrognomiQ, a proteomics company, raised a $34M Series Dl ed by Seer, Inc., including investments from existing investor Catalio Capital, among others. This brings the total funding to $135M. — PR

• Perplexity AI is about to close a $500M round at a $9 billion valuation. — CNBC

• Amazon is in talks to invest in AI firm Anthropic. This would be its 2nd multi-billion dollar investment in the startup. — Reuters

• Insurtech Clearcover, backed by Cox and Eldridge, raised $44M per an SEC filing. — SF

• Premium athletic wear company Vuori received a $825M investment, led by General Atlantic, at a $5.5 billion valuation. — PR

Public M&A Activity

Announcements

• Air Transport Services Group ($ATSG) to be acquired by Stonepeak in an all-cash deal, at $22.50 per share (29.31% premium to the closing price prior to announcement), with an enterprise valuation of approximately $3.1 billion. — PR

• Micropac Industries ($MPAD) to be acquired by Teledyne Technologies ($TDY) in an all-cash deal, at $20.00 per share (27.15% premium to the closing price prior to announcement), with an enterprise value of appx. $57M. — PR

• Staffing 360 Solutions ($STAF) to be acquired by Atlantic International Corp. ($ATLN) in an all-stock deal, with STAF holders to receive 1.202 ATLN shares per STAF share, with a transaction value of appx. $25M. — PR

• Retail Opportunity Investments Corp ($ROIC) to be acquired by Blackstone Real Estate Partners X (Blackstone, $BX) in an all-cash deal, at $17.50 per share (5.49% premium to the closing price prior to announcement), with an enterprise value of appx. $4 billion. — PR

• Avid Bioservices ($CDMO) to be acquired by GHO Capital Partners and Ampersand Capital Partners in an all-cash deal, at $12.50 per share (18.60% premium to the closing price prior to announcement), with an enterprise value of appx. $1.1 billion. — PR

• EMCORE ($EMKR) to be acquired by Velocity One (backed by Charlesbank Capital Partners) in an all-cash deal, at $3.10 per share (30.80% premium to the closing price prior to announcement), with an equity value of appx. $28M. — PR

Closings

• Stericycle's (STER) acquisition by Waste Management, Inc. (WM) closed. — PR

Activism, Investor Disputes & Shorts

• Activist investor Engine Capital has built up a 7% stake in Canadian legal software firm Dye & Durham (OTC: $DYNDF) and has nominated six directors, aiming to install a new management team and reduce the company's leverage. — CNBC

• Activist investor TOMS Capital built a stake in WillScott ($WSC) and is pushing the company to launch a strategic review. — BB

• US proxy advisory firms Egan-Jones and Glass Lewis joined ISS in recommending investors back a shareholder proposal brought forward by activist shareholder Starboard Value to end the dual-class voting structure at News Corp ($NWSA). Hedge fund shareholder Irenic Capital said it will also back the proposal. — Reuters

• Icahn Enterprises plans to propose increasing its stake in CVR Energy ($CVI), a small refiner in which the activist investor is the controlling shareholder, to 81% by buying up to 15M additional shares. — WSJ

• Short seller Hindenburg published a short report targeting PACS Group ($PACS) titled 'How To Become A Billionaire In The Skilled Nursing Industry By Systematically Scamming Taxpayers'. — Hindenburg

• Short analyst Bear Cave published a short report targeting Viasat ($VSAT) titled 'Problems at Viasat'. — Bear Cave

Separations, Restructurings, and Other Special Sits

• PE firms Silver Lake and Bain Capital, along with Francisco Partners, are potential suitors competing to acquire a minority stake in Altera, the programmable chips business Intel is spinning out, with initial bids expected in the coming weeks. — Reuters

• Boeing is working with advisors on a potential $6B+ sale of its Jeppesen navigation unit, which is a provider of interactive flight plans. Boeing bought Jeppesen for $1.5B in 2000. — BB

Charts we posted to the ListingTrack X/Twitter this week: