😋 Eat The Rich: June 29, Issue 31

📈 Bhutan has built a Bitcoin Mountain: Since 2020, the Himalayan kingdom has quietly harnessed its abundant hydropower to mine BTC, amassing a $1.3 billion stash (about 12,000 BTC) and the world’s third-largest government holding. The haul has offset falling hydropower exports (funding a $100 million civil-servant pay bump), spawned a tie-up with Bitdeer, and even powered a crypto-payment system for tourists. Bitcoin’s price has recently been hovering around USD$105k a coin.

📈 Virgin Australia Touches Down on the ASX: In its June 24 IPO, Virgin Australia shares leapt 11.4%, closing at A$3.23 (from $2.90) and valuing the carrier at A$2.58 billion, well above its A$2.32 billion offer price. Bain Capital’s stake will shrink to 39.4%, Qatar Airways holds 23%, and Virgin now commands a 34.4% domestic market share versus Qantas’s 37.5%. Brokers hope this high-profile listing ignites Australia’s dormant IPO market.

📈 ADNOC Gasses Up Santos: Last week, an investment group led by Abu Dhabi’s ADNOC offered A$5.76/share (28% above market) to buy Australia’s Santos for US $18.7 billion, making it Australia’s biggest all-cash buyout. The deal, valuing Santos at A$36.4 billion including debt, would give ADNOC control of Gladstone, Darwin and PNG LNG assets as it races to scale up its global LNG footprint. Santos shares rose 11% with the news of the bid.

📈 Another AI Unicorn Incoming? Intel-backed Reconova—an Xiamen-based AI firm that builds end-to-end facial-recognition solutions and driving-safety applications—is preparing a Hong Kong IPO as soon as this year to raise about $100 million. Backed also by Greenland Holdings and Citic Securities, the move taps surging investor demand for Chinese AI specialists and positions Reconova to accelerate its commercial rollout across multiple industries.

🌎 Iran/Israel Conflict Comes to an Explosive Conclusion: On the 22nd of June the US joined Israel in striking Iran’s nuclear sites, Trump claimed it was a massive success while Iran strongly refuted his claims. In retaliation, Iran loosed missiles and over 100 Shahed drones at U.S. bases in Qatar/Iraq and Israeli population centers on the 23rd of June. Air defenses intercepted the bulk and later that day a now-holding ceasefire was brokered.

🌎 Tech Tax Trade Fallout: Furious over Canada’s “egregious” digital-services tax on US tech giants, President Trump abruptly called off all trade negotiations without warning, warning “we have all the cards.” Ottawa insists it won’t scrap the levy, which hits revenues back to 2022 and could cost US firms up to $3 billion initially, and Canada remains under hefty US steel, aluminum and car tariffs. The tax would be an additional 3% of revenue generated from Canadian users by tech giants such as Google, Apple, etc.

🌎Rare Earths and Magnets are Back: One month after China ceased all rare earth metals and magnet trade with the US due to the increasing trade war, on June 27, Scott Bessent said Beijing has recommitted to removing its non-tariff hurdles, while White House and Chinese teams met in London to nail down implementation.

💼 Trained on Trouble: Federal judges handed narrow victories to AI developer this week, ruling that Anthropic and Meta can legally train their AI models on copyrighted books as long as the use is “transformative” and falls under fair use.

💼 Nike Stumbles, But Investors Just Do It Anyway: Nike reported a 12% drop in Q4 revenue to $11.1B and an 86% plunge in net income, as its overreliance on Y2K retro styles loses steam (it’s all about the cleats now #bootsallsummer) and upstarts like Hoka keeps gaining ground. But Nike stinking it up lately isn’t exactly breaking news, what is news is that this quarter’s dip wasn’t as bad as Wall Street expected. CEO Elliot Hill reassured investors calling this quarters dip the “bottom” of Nike’s turnround. Shares of $NKE ( ▼ 0.49% ) jumped 15% (their best day since 2021).

💼 Lime Prepares to go Public: Lime, the Uber-backed startup behind those neon-green scooters abandoned in the most inconvenient places is preparing for a long-anticipated US IPO as early as next year. Reportedly, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan have been tapped to lead the offering. Lime’s last known valuation was $510 million in 2020.

💼 “Wexit” after Brexit: Wealth is exiting the UK, and for the first time the UK tops the global millionaire departure list, overtaking China, which had held the No. 1 spot for the past decade. An estimated 16,500 millionaires are expected to exit the UK in 2025, as estate (inheritance) taxes increase. For reference, the UK’s inheritance tax is 40% while Australia doesn’t have one.

🤪 Tax the Rich: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his partner Lauren Sanchez faced backlash from activists over their lavish wedding plans in Venice, prompting a last-minute venue change to avoid protests.

🤪 Comic Sans of Social Media: Elon Musk announced that hashtags will be banned from paid ads on X. This ban follows Musk’s critique of hashtags in 2024, calling them an “esthetic nightmare”. He states that Grok, his AI chatbot, is now able to group and display subjects without hashtags, making them redundant.

🤪 Deadliest Smuggling Case Nears Sentencing: Two men face life sentences for their roles in a 2022 Texas human smuggling tragedy that killed 53 migrants. The victims (primarily from Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico) had paid up to $15,000 to be illegally transported into the U.S. Packed into a trailer with broken air conditioning, they endured a fatal sweltering three-hour drive, making it the deadliest human smuggling attempt in U.S. history.

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