What you Need to Know for September 30

Purpose-built AI: F2’s operating system handles the complex workflows of private markets and global credit.

AI sovereignty: F2’s adaptive, model-agnostic harness accesses the latest frontier and open-source models while protecting proprietary data through zero data retention and zero model training.

Unlocking trapped knowledge: F2’s top-bucket deal agent, Adam, acts as a senior MD from day one. He draws on precedent deals and captures future decisions, keeping the firm’s deal history in persistent, proprietary context.

Wednesday: Micron, Conagra, Jabil, FactSet, Cal-Maine, ConAgra

Thursday: Accenture, Nike, McCormick, Acuity

Wednesday: ADP National Employment Report, 3rd estimate GDP (1.5%), Advance U.S. Trade Balance in Goods, Wholesale Inventories, Retail Inventories, Personal Income M/M% (0.4%), Consumer Spending M/M% (0.8%), PCE Price Idx M/M% (0.3%), PCE Price Idx Y/Y% (3.6%), PCE Core Price Idx M/M% (0.3%), PCE Core Price Idx Y/Y% (3.2%), Chicago Business Barometer ISM-Chicago Business Survey - Chicago PMI (52)

Thursday: Weekly Jobless Claims (200k), US Manufacturing PMI, ISM Report On Business Manufacturing PMI (54.8), Construction Spending (0.1%)

Friday: Employment Report (84k), Unemployment Rate (4.1%), Avg Hourly Earnings M/M% (0.3%), Avg Hourly Earnings Y/Y%, Factory Orders (0.2%)

Vail Resorts $MTN ( ▲ 2.32% ) beat on the top and bottom line, but results were pressured by one of the weakest winters in years, with Q4 visitation down 33% YoY and FY visits down 13%, while poor snowfall also hurt lift, ski-school and dining revenue. The bigger concern is next season, with pass sales down 12%, although mgmt. expects a recovery in FY27 assuming more normal weather and guided revenue to about $3.1B.

Carnival Corporation $CCL ( ▲ 13.42% ) beat on the top and bottom lines, driven by strong close-in demand and onboard spending, which pushed yields up nearly 2.5% YoY, while better cost control and improved fuel efficiency helped offset higher fuel prices and drove record net income. Mgmt. raised FY26 EPS guidance, with 2027 already about half booked at record occupancy and pricing, pointing to continued demand strength.

Fair Isaac $FICO ( ▼ 26.52% ) tanked after FHFA put FICO and VantageScore on the same mortgage pricing grid, removing the pricing advantage that kept lenders using FICO.

MongoDB $MDB ( ▲ 0.75% ) plunged on Monday after Meta $META ( ▲ 3.24% ) hired CEO CJ Desai to lead its new Meta Enterprise Platform. Former CEO Dev Ittycheria will return as interim CEO.

Corning $GLW ( ▲ 4.7% ) and Bloom Energy $BE ( ▲ 10.8% ) were among the AI names that rose after OpenAI reported monster ARR numbers.

AAR Corp. $AIR ( ▼ 7.25% ) fell after agreeing to buy a 65% controlling stake in MRO Holdings, a deal Moody’s says will push leverage to 4.9x from 2.4x. Moody’s cut its outlook to negative, citing integration risk.

Shein sank to a record low after first-half operating income fell 53%, as higher freight costs and weaker demand squeezed margins.

Anthropic’s IPO prospectus showed $4.6B in FY25 revenue (compared to rumored July 2026 ARR of $65B), a $42B net loss (driven by $34B in a technical accounting charge vs. operating driven losses), and $518B in cloud and compute commitments to Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Broadcom. The company is aiming for a $2T+ valuation.

OpenAI is in talks to raise at least $30B at a ~$1.4T valuation as a bridge round in place of an IPO. CEO Sam Altman said investors will be “patient” as the company pushes its listing to at least next year to focus on AI safety.

Oura has postponed its IPO, citing market uncertainty. It is the highest-profile company to postpone amid a string of similar delays from Holtec Nuclear and Bamboo Insurance Services.

Blockchain dot com is targeting a ~$500M IPO this year at a $4-6B valuation as the crypto market starts to recover. The 2011-founded crypto wallet and exchange filed confidentially earlier this year and was valued at $14B in 2022.

Accelevation is expected to price its IPO at $18 per share, below its $20-24 range, raising $540M at a ~$4B valuation. Trading is set to start Wednesday.

Barrick Mining said the IPO of its North American gold business could slip into January because of “some delays” with formalities. CEO Mark Hill said the New York listing is still on track and the company is pushing to finish by year-end.

5C Group is considering an IPO after closing its current funding round. The Brookfield-backed AI data center developer has raised $1.4B+ so far.

OpenAI unveils Dots, an always-on AI agent designed to proactively tackle work on the user’s behalf. It also launched a new $500 paid tier offering higher usage limits and faster processing speeds. The day before, OpenAI held back GPT-6.1 Astra, flagging heightened risks after recent rogue AI hacking incidents.

Goldman is doing succession planning, with David Solomon potentially being replaced by COO John Waldron around the end of 2027 or in 2028, capping off Solomon’s nearly decade-long tenure.

Piper Sandler is holding talks to acquire Perella Weinberg Partners, a deal that could lead to two top advisory firms joining forces.

Paramount launched its investment-grade bond sale as part of its $52Bn debt package funding its Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition, seeking $32Bn across eight tranches maturing from two to 40 years. They’ve reportedly received $109B+ in orders.

Fed Governor Lisa Cook warned that AI-driven demand and elevated oil prices will keep pressuring inflation in the coming months. While she called sector-specific AI price surges a poor target for monetary policy, she flagged broader spillover risk from data center investment alongside core goods price increases.

Nvidia authorized a record $150B addition to its share buyback program. That’s on top of an $80B repurchase plan announced in May, and its share count could drop by 4% if it spends the entire current authorization.

Apollo says private equity returns now must come from inside the business. Typical buyouts now require ~10-12% EBITDA growth to achieve ~2.5x returns, up from ~5% historically.

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt doesn’t buy Silicon Valley’s two-year superintelligence timeline. He thinks the leap could come “maybe in a decade,” saying there aren’t enough computers, people, or algorithms yet.

Eli Lilly CEO Dave Ricks says investors should expect slightly larger deals as it hunts for assets in the “white spaces” of science. Lilly has done about 40 so far this year, totaling more than $20B, the company’s highest ever.

PIMCO says hyperscalers are “repricing, not displacing” other corporate borrowers. AI issuance makes up nearly a quarter of nonfinancial USD supply this year, yet spreads for non-AI issuers have not widened meaningfully.

Samsung Electronics and five affiliates are investing $1Bn in KKR-backed Helix Digital Infrastructure, led by former AWS CEO Adam Selipsky. The deal adds to more than $10Bn already committed to Helix since its June launch by KKR, the Kuwait Investment Authority, Nvidia, and Vistra Corp.

Creditors sued Optimum Communications (formerly Altice USA), alleging a series of collateral transfers siphoned value to insiders through management fees, dividends, and compensation while leaving the company saddled with unsustainable debt.

S&P upgraded Apollo-owned Michaels from B- to B, citing sales growth that outperformed expectations in H1 and debt reduction, including a $151M tariff refund that cut leverage from 5.4x to 4.3x.

Getty Images is in talks with lenders about a potential debtor-in-possession loan and lender takeover through bankruptcy, as the company is currently operating in a 30-day grace period after skipping a September 1 interest payment on its unsecured notes.

Morgan Stanley says drugmakers selling directly to patients for cash could become as big as a $26B market. GLP-1s were the first large-scale proof, as demand for obesity drugs took off before insurers were ready to pay for it.

Florida’s Republican Attorney General James Uthmeier filed a preliminary injunction motion against OpenAI seeking to halt all further model development until “third-party approved safety guardrails” are established.

Aramark, Compass, and Sodexo have a $3B opportunity providing food, gyms, and entertainment to data center workers, per BBG. Aramark expects $400M to $500M in additional revenue from those contracts in fiscal 2027 and 2028.

Bain & Co. says AI needs to earn $6T in annual revenue by 2031 to justify data center spending. Existing AI services may generate as much as $1.8T of that, leaving $4.2T in new revenue that needs to be created.

Carlyle’s Ian Fujiyama says industrial capacity has become a national security priority. Defense backlogs stand near $900B, but the bottlenecks sit two or three tiers down the supply chain.