☕️ Another Exit

Good morning.

Yet another senior female executive is departing the highest ranks at Goldman Sachs. Stephanie Cohen is leaving her 20-plus year Goldman career to take up the mantle of chief strategy officer at cloud-services provider, Cloudflare. Perhaps the offer was too good to be true, but given the Wall Street bank’s exodus of female senior execs and that no woman currently runs a major division or is seen internally as a credible candidate to one day succeed GS chief David Solomon, it sounds an awful lot like something more structural is at play.

Even if the Wall Street Journal was right and Solomon did host female partners for a dinner last night to discuss the paucity of women in the firm’s highest ranks, maybe something beyond dinner chat is required.

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Market movers

Shares in Pacific Current Group rose over 8.5% during trading yesterday to close at $10.23, on news that investment manager GQG Partners had acquired three of its US boutiques for an aggregate cash consideration of US$71.25 million ($108.56 million). The trio of boutiques will be the foundation for GQG’s new private capital business, and comes one week after Pacific Current sold its 4% stake in GQG for $257.3 million in a discounted block trade deal. At the time of the sale, Pacific Current said its decision to sell its GQG shares stemmed from its long-stated desire to reduce equity market risk exposure in its portfolio, noting that owning listed securities over the long-term is beyond its investment mandate.

The quick sync

• Deloitte has launched the largest restructure of its global operations in ten years as it seeks to cut costs amid a market slowdown. (Financial Times)

• The $1b-plus CSIRO-backed Main Sequence has appointed leading venture capitalist, Elaine Stead as a principal on its investment team. (Capital Brief)

• Workforce management software maker Deputy cracks the billion-dollar threshold to become unicorn. (AFR)

• Electric vehicle maker Fisker will pause production for six weeks and warns it may seek bankruptcy, after the company missed a required interest payment last week. (Wall Street Journal)

• Apple is in talks to build Google’s Gemini artificial intelligence engine into its iPhones. (Bloomberg)

M&A

• Healthscope's lenders to seek financial adviser amid debt repayment negotiations (The Australian)

• Moneyme explores asset-backed security deals with European and Asian investors. (AFR)

• CVC Capital Markets testing debt market for $1.8b APM bid. (AFR)

• Superloop instructs Aussie Broadband to reduce its stake to comply with regulations. (AFR)

• Efforts to sell The Body Shop's Australia and New Zealand arm hit roadblock. (The Australian)

• Envirostream, a Lithium Australia subsidiary, secures an exclusive deal with LG Energy Solution for battery recycling services. (Capital Brief)

• Perseus stands firm on the $258m OreCorp deal amid expansion plans. (The Australian)

• Southern Cross Media Group accepts an improved ARN Media and Anchorage Capital Partners takeover offer. (BNA)

Capital Markets

• Sydney Beer Co expands capital raise to fuel the expansion of flagship lager brand. (AFR)

• Uber agrees to pay Australian drivers $271.8m for losses due to market entry. (BNA)

• Revolution Asset Management launches a new fund for the New Zealand market, targeting tax-effective investment opportunities. (AFR)

• Reddit's IPO oversubscribed, expected to meet the $6.5 billion valuation target. (Capital Brief)

VC

• Marketing-tech startup Prophet raises $5m seed round to tackle attention market. (BNA)

• Virtus Health backs two early-stage healthcare startups, NeoGenix Biosciences and 23Strands. (AFR)

• Nullify raises $5.2m to develop AI for cybersecurity automation. (AFR)

• EnergyLab records $289m despite the challenging capital environment. (BNA)

• Afterpay alumni Luke Trickett raises $16m for invoice payments startup, Marmalade. (AFR)

• $2.7b workplace compliance startup SafetyCulture, is lending staff funds to buy shares in the firm. (AFR)

People moves

• Southern Cross chair Rob Murray to step down in 2024 amid growing calls for resignation. (Capital Brief)

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