Crypto Billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried Is on a Shopping Spree

Hello, it’s Matt in New York. Today, I’m looking at crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried most ambitious pursuit yet: a potential acquisition of Robinhood. Meanwhile, billions of dollars of UK deals have fallen apart in the past few weeks in a bruising end to the first half for British bankers. 

Today's top stories

• Walgreens has abandoned its sale of Boots.
• Reckitt might shelve the sale of its infant nutrition unit.
• Top Goldman Sachs dealmaker Michael Carr is retiring

Crypto Robinhood 

crypto winter means it’s shopping season for the head of one of the biggest digital currency exchanges.

FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has been on a deal frenzy as the selloff in bitcoin, ether and other once-high-flying tokens has wiped out some $2 trillion in value from the crypto market.

The 30-year-old billionaire is famous for his wild black hair, affinity for shorts and sneakers, and desire to make as much money as possible to give it all away. Lately, he’s been acting like J.P. Morgan (the person) in the early 1900s to help stabilize crypto—and profit from the crash.

In recent months, his trading firm has provided credit lines to lending platform Blockfi and crypto exchange Voyager Digital, while FTX has also agreed to buy a Canadian crypto trading platform and a brokerage services

On Monday, my colleagues Annie MassaKatie Roof and I reported that Bankman-Fried is eyeing his biggest target yet: Robinhood Markets, the popular trading app linked to the meme-stock frenzy, which has seen its shares plummet since going public last year. With a market cap of about $8 billion, Robinhood would be FTX's biggest deal yet, and by far the largest crypto-related merger to date.

The news wasn't a total shock: A company Bankman-Fried controls bought a 7.6% stake in Robinhood in May for about $648 million, setting off speculation that a full deal could be in the cards. It makes sense on paper. While Robinhood's users have fallen almost 30% since the meme-stock craze, it still has far more than other stock and crypto apps. At a bargain price (it went public with a $32 billion market value), Robinhood could be a cheap way for FTX to diversify swiftly and cheaply into equities.

Still, it's an open question whether a deal comes together. We reported that deliberations are internal at this point, and no approach has been made. There is also one glaring hurdle to any transaction: Robinhood's co-founders control more than 50% of the company's voting power, which pretty much means they don't have to sell if they don't want to. And nobody wants to sell at the bottom—though it's also not clear that we've actually reached one yet.

M&A focus

Reckitt Benckiser is considering whether to shelve the sale of its infant nutrition unit, report Dinesh NairRuth David. Talks with potential acquirers have stalled in recent weeks as disagreements over valuation, a lack of available funding and an ongoing baby formula crisis in the US complicated efforts to sell the business.

Walgreens abandoned the sale of its Boots drugstore chain, which was expected to bring in more than $6 billion, after failing to secure the desired valuation for the UK business amid a turbulent credit market.

The busted transactions mean British dealmakers are enduring a bruising end to the first half of 2022, with about $20 billion of mergers and acquisitions falling apart in just a matter of weeks. Dinesh dug into the UK slowdown, which has been more pronounced than in the rest of Europe.

Another day, another twist in the Spirit Airlines takeover tussle. JetBlue made a new sweetened bid for the carrier late Monday, which Spirit investor TIG Advisors said it backed. Spirit is so far standing by the offer from Frontier, saying JetBlue’s latest bid doesn’t address its regulatory concerns. Reminder: shareholders are scheduled to vote on the deal this Thursday.

Dufry, the world’s biggest duty-free operator, and the Benetton family’s Autogrill are working on a deal that would create a leading player in travel retail. The companies confirmed an earlier report from Tommaso Ebhardt, Daniele LepidoAlberto Brambilla.

Data drop

Companies last year defied the coronavirus pandemic to go public in the US at a record pace. Now, market volatility, inflation and fears of a downturn have brought an abrupt end to the listing party, write Crystal TseKatie Roof

Companies have raised a combined $4.9 billion via US IPOs this year, less than 6% of the record sum raised in the first half of 2021, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Who’s news

Top Goldman Sachs dealmaker Michael Carr is retiring from the firm, reports Ed Hammond. Carr, 64, co-headed Goldman Sachs’ dominant M&A advisory group through the biggest takeover boom ever.

Carr joined Goldman in 1998, before the bank went public the following year.

VC report

Software maker FrontApp is now valued at $1.7 billion after receiving $65 million in financing led by Salesforce Ventures and Battery Ventures, Katie Roof. This new round roughly doubles the $859 million valuation that the company raised at in 2020.

Drive Capital has amassed $1 billion in new venture funds, giving the Columbus, Ohio-based firm over $2 billion in assets under management to invest outside of Silicon Valley.

Best of the rest

• Industrie De Nora and backers raised $501 million in an IPO.
• Appliance maker Whirlpool is exiting Russia.
• Volkswagen is selling a minority stake in Electrify America.
• Ivanhoe Electric raises $169 million in biggest US IPO of month.
• SSE and Equinor teamed up to buy three UK power plants.
• Goldman sees losses topping $1.2 billion from consumer push.
• Toshiba adds activist directors in move toward privatization.
• UK home insurer Policy Expert is weighing a sale

Got a tip or want to send in questions? Tweet/DM @bloombergdeals or any of our reporters.