💸 Deals are back

Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche announced a $7 billion deal | Oil giant Chevron revealed a massive deal of its own | [Finimize](   TOGETHER WITH   Hi {NAME}, here's what you need to know for October 24th in 3:00 minutes.   🎉 The [Modern Investor Summit]( is the biggest event of its kind, and the lineup's designed around what you – yup, you, Finimize readers – read, request, and talk about. So if you want to mingle with thousands of like-minded retail investors and panels of Wall Street legends, [grab your free ticket](. Today's big stories - Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche announced that it’s buying smaller firm Telavant for just over $7 billion - You may have been paying attention to the wrong interest rate – [Read Now]( - Chevron followed in rival oil firm Exxon’s footprints with a massive deal of its own, announcing plans to acquire Hess for $60 billion Rescue Remedies [Rescue Remedies] What’s going on here? Roche announced on Monday that it’s buying irritable bowel drugmaker Telavant for [$7.1 billion](, which should give the Swiss pharmaceutical company a dose of calming relief. What does this mean? Roche, like many pharmaceutical companies, made more money than usual during the pandemic and its aftershock. But now that those lingering sales are winding down, the firm needs to find new experimental medicines to keep the cash flowing in – and fast. That’s probably why Roche is making its biggest deal since 2014, acquiring Telavant and its unique antibody therapy – designed in partnership with Roivant Sciences and Pfizer – that can tackle both the inflammation and fibrosis that are common symptoms of various diseases. Why should I care? For markets: Swipe the card. That’s just the start of Roche’s shopping spree: the Swiss company’s on the hunt for all sorts of shiny deals, from early-stage testing projects to drugs in their late development. But there’s no guarantee that retail therapy will heal investors’ moods. The company’s shares have fallen 30% this year while Europe’s stock market index, the Stoxx 600, stayed pretty flat. That’s a sign of concern over Roche’s productivity, and those doubts may well hover around until the firm’s internal research gets a makeover too. The bigger picture: Big Pharma x Big Tech. Major pharmaceutical companies have their eyes locked on artificial intelligence, believing in its potential to identify new drugs, streamline production processes, and as a result, pull up company stock prices. Mind you, that’s a long-term plan. So for now, they’ll have to rely on big deals to shake up their businesses. They’ll be in good company, though: major oil players like ExxonMobil and Chevron are shelling out on smaller fry, since the rising cost of borrowing has meant only richer firms can afford to graduate from window shopping. You might also like: [AI could give a booster shot to biopharma stocks](. Copy to share story: [=/rescue-remedies]( 🙋 [Ask a question](mailto:questions@finimize.com?body=Ask us a question: Where are you writing from? Let us know and we'll mention it when we reply.&noapp=true&subject=Rescue Remedies&utm_campaign=daily-global-24-10-2023&utm_source=email) Analyst Take Why It’s Time To Start Gazing At The “R-Star”, The Only Interest Rate That Matters [Why It’s Time To Start Gazing At The “R-Star”, The Only Interest Rate That Matters]( [Photo of Stéphane Renevier, CFA] Stéphane Renevier, CFA, Analyst After decades of falling interest rates, investors are waking up to [a new reality](. They’re learning that money is going to [stay expensive]( for a good long while – and not just because it’s been tougher than expected for the Federal Reserve to wrestle down inflation. See, there’s [another interest rate]( at play here, and it’s not as easy to pin down or tweak. It’s also the reason why you might expect rates to remain higher for longer, and adjust [your portfolio accordingly](. And that’s today’s Insight: [meet the “r-star”, the only interest rate that really matters](. [Read or listen to the Insight here]( SPONSORED BY TPP The platform that can help you beat your market benchmark Loads of platforms let you trade by yourself. The pros: [autonomy, control, transparency](. The cons: you’re limited by your own scope, bias, awareness, and time constraints. Well, you can [get the best of both with TPP](. There, you can [access successful trading strategies from top-ranking analysts](, along with advice on how to integrate them into your own strategy. But you’ll [maintain complete control]( over your investments, and better yet, you [won’t pay any management or performance fees]( like you would with a wealth manager. The average strategy on TPP has made annual returns of 30% since the platform launched. [Check it out for yourself](. [Find Out More]( DisclaimerCapital at risk. The value of an investment can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you invested. Past performance cannot guarantee any future results. If you are not sure about investing, seek independent advice. When you support our sponsors, you support us. Thanks for that. Yearn Book [Yearn Book] What’s going on here? On Mondays, we make [deals](: Californian oil giant Chevron just agreed to buy smaller player Hess. That’s like, totally fetch. What does this mean? Dealmaking’s back, baby: after months of tumbleweeds in the usually lucrative world of mergers and acquisitions, Chevron just announced the second mega-deal in the oil industry this month. Both this deal and [Exxon’s]( purchase of Pioneer will be paid in shares, which means Chevron and Exxon will issue $60 and $65 billion worth of extra shares respectively. After all, interest rates have made it more expensive to borrow money, so paying in cash is prohibitively pricey these days. Thing is, shareholders will put a lot more scrutiny on stock-only deals, expecting big results in return for those freshly minted new shares. Why should I care? For markets: More is more. Oil companies have tended to use the money they make from higher-than-normal oil prices to explore and extract as much oil as possible. But if projections that the world will eventually swap fossil fuels for greener alternatives are right, then flooding a declining market with even more oil is probably a bad idea. Big firms have cottoned on, too: instead of investing in more wells, they’re snapping up smaller competitors instead – a bid to command a bigger share of a potentially smaller market. The bigger picture: Oceans apart. European and US energy firms have very different plans for dealing with the green transition. European oil firms are shedding their oil assets to lower their carbon footprints and free up funds for cleaner alternatives, while US companies are doubling down on the dirty stuff. Investors have spoken: over the last five years, big American oil stocks have stormed way ahead of their European counterparts. You might also like: [Electric vehicles are getting cheaper. That’s good news for shoppers, but bad news for the industry](. Copy to share story: [=/yearn-book]( 🙋 [Ask a question](mailto:questions@finimize.com?body=Ask us a question: Where are you writing from? Let us know and we'll mention it when we reply.&noapp=true&subject=Yearn Book&utm_campaign=daily-global-24-10-2023&utm_source=email) 💼 Introducing Finimize For Business We're helping financial firms publish [first-class content]( that keeps investors engaged, active, and up to speed. After all, we don’t hoard our treasures: we prefer to [share them](. [Book A Demo]( 💬 Quote of the day "The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more." – Jonas Salk (an American virologist and medical researcher) [Tweet this]( SPONSORED BY OAKLEY You don’t need to be a billionaire to invest in private equity [Investing in private equity]( can be very lucrative. Problem is, it’s also generally exclusive. The best way to get on this train is to [invest in private equity funds](, but access is often restricted to the well-connected and involves making long-term, multi-million-pound bets. But there’s a workaround: by investing in a [listed investment company that puts money into private equity funds](, you can [access the fund’s performance via the stock market](. Shareholders in publicly listed [Oakley Capital Investments]( (OCI), for example, [get access to 28 high-quality private companies]( through investments in the [Oakley PE funds](. 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You can't have DeFi without stablecoins. Here's [how they work and why they're so important](.* 5. Small phones are over. Even if you want one, you’ll [struggle to buy one](. When you support our sponsors, you support us. Thanks for that. 🌍 Finimize Live 🥳 Coming Up In The Next Week... All events in UK time. 💰 [Money Matters: Her Wealth Roadmap](: 5pm, October 25th 📈 [Accessible Strategies For Effective Trading](: 5pm, October 26th 🍷 [Acquiring A Taste For Rare Wine Investments](: 5pm, October 30th 🤝 [Peer-to-Peer Lending: The Next Opportunity:]( 5pm, October 31st 🧰 [Mastering Tools for The Modern Trader](: 5pm, November 2nd 🎉 [Modern Investor Summit 2023](: 12pm, December 5th and 6th ❤️ Share with a friend Thanks for reading {NAME}. If you liked today's brief, we'd love for you to share it with a friend. You stay classy, {NAME} 😉 We’d love to hear your thoughts. [Give feedback]( Want to advertise with us too? 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