Gulf Funds Near Deal to Back Paramount’s $81 Billion Takeover of Warner
Commitments from Middle East entities will help offset costs for Ellison family
- Paramount is in talks to secure nearly $24 billion in equity commitments from three sovereign-wealth funds for its Warner Bros. Discovery takeover.
- Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund agreed to provide roughly $10 billion.
- The commitments will help offset costs for the Ellison family and RedBird Capital Partners; investors won’t have voting rights.
Paramount PSKY 2.92%increase; green up pointing triangle is in talks to secure signed equity commitments of close to $24 billion from three sovereign-wealth funds led by Saudi Arabia to help back its takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery WBD -0.62%decrease; red down pointing triangle, according to people familiar with the matter.
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has agreed to provide roughly $10 billion of the nearly $24 billion to Paramount, run by David Ellison, the son of billionaire Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison.
The agreements with investors, including Qatar Investment Authority and Abu Dhabi’s L’imad Holding Co., are likely to be signed as soon as Monday, the people said.
The expected agreements by the Middle East funds coincide with the region’s increased economic and political unrest caused by the U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran. In February, Paramount announced its deal to buy Warner Discovery, home to HBO, CNN and Harry Potter, for $81 billion. The deal is pending regulatory review in Europe, and Paramount executives have told employees to prepare to close as soon as the end of July, according to other people familiar with the situation.
The commitments by the Gulf investors will help offset the cost for the Ellisons and RedBird Capital Partners, which is also backing the deal. As part of its deal, Paramount has said any equity syndication wouldn’t affect the transaction closing because the Ellison family would cover the entire amount if needed.
The Gulf investors won’t have voting rights in the new Paramount-Warner entity, and the deal isn’t expected to trigger a mandatory review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., or Cfius, people familiar with the matter said. Because each entity will own far less than 25% of the combined company, executives don’t expect the funds’ involvement to spark a review by the Federal Communications Commission either, the people said.
Paramount had previously disclosed that three sovereign-wealth funds had committed to contribute about $24 billion to its bid. Paramount launched a hostile bid for Warner, which had opted to sign a deal to sell to Netflix instead. After months of jockeying, Paramount emerged victorious when it sweetened its offer for Warner, defeating Netflix.
An early version of Paramount’s bid also initially included backing from Chinese company Tencent and Affinity Partners, the private-equity firm founded by President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Affinity later backed out of Paramount’s deal. Tencent is also no longer in the deal, the people said.
Paramount has also received $54 billion of debt commitments from Bank of America, Citigroup and the private-equity firm Apollo Global Management, which it is beginning to syndicate out to other banks and investors.
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LAURENT CHEKROUN | 06 APRIL 2026 | INSTITUTIONAL NOTE
PHARMA/BIOTECH M&A — THE STRUCTURAL BID BENEATH THE SELL-OFF
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CONTEXT: MARKETS SELLING OFF TODAY. USE IT.
The M&A bid follows patent expiry calendars, not the tape.
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I. CONFIRMED DEALS — MARCH 2026: 8 TRANSACTIONS / ~$31BN+ / 25 DAYS
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DATE ACQUIRER → TARGET VALUE AREA
------ ---------------------------------------- ------------- ------------------
6 Mar Servier → Day One (BRAF glioma) $2.5bn Rare Onco/Pediatric
20 Mar Novartis → Synnovation/Pikavation (PI3Ka) Up to $3bn Onco/Breast Ca.
25 Mar Merck → Terns Pharma (CML/TERN-701) $6.7bn Onco/Hematology
27 Mar Novartis → Excellergy (food allergy) Up to $2bn Immunology
Mar Gilead → Ouro Medicines (autoimmune) Up to $2.2bn Immunology
Mar Otsuka → Transcend (PTSD) Up to $1.2bn CNS/Psychiatry
31 Mar Lilly → Centessa (OX2R/sleep-wake) Up to $7.8bn CNS/Neuroscience
31 Mar Biogen → Apellis (Syfovre/complement) $5.6bn Immunology/Rare Dis.
Q1 2026 total: $63.3bn (Dealogic) — 5th best quarter in a decade.
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II. PENDING — NOT OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCED AS OF 06 APR 2026 OPEN
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NBIX / SLNO — Neurocrine / Soleno | $2.5bn+
Source: Financial Times, 5 April 2026. Advanced talks only.
No press release. Not confirmed on Bloomberg terminal as of this note.
SLNO +23% in pre-market today — strongly signals definitive agreement
is imminent or already executed pending formal announcement.
Price: Low-to-mid $50s per share
Asset: Vykat (diazoxide choline CR) — only approved drug for
hyperphagia in Prader-Willi syndrome. Orphan indication.
$190m revenue in first 9 months post-launch (Mar 2025).
HC Wainwright peak sales estimate: $2.3bn/year.
Note: Securities class action filed 2 Apr (Hagens Berman)
covering SLNO Mar-Nov 2025 — diligenced and priced in.
Key read: Mid-cap buyer (NBIX, $13.2bn market cap) competing
alongside Big Pharma. Bidder universe for quality biotech assets
now extends well beyond the traditional mega-cap acquirers.
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III. THE RUMOR BOARD — 06 APRIL 2026
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▌ACTIVE RUMOURS
NBTX / NANO FP Nanobiotix / JNJ [La Lettre, 25 Mar — denied]
JNJ holds exclusive licence + funds NANORAY-312 Ph3.
NBTX denied same day. VLK analyst: no indication of JNJ interest.
Unlikely pre-data. Watch post-NANORAY-312 readout.
RVMD US Revolution Medicines [Jan 2026]
Daraxonrasib Ph3: pancreatic + NSCLC. MRK offered $28-32bn.
Talks collapsed on price. Deal expected to re-emerge. ~$23bn cap.
ABVX / ABX FP Abivax [Dec 2025 - Jan 2026]
Obefazimod Ph3 UC. Maintenance readout Q2 2026 = binary catalyst.
LLY deployed on Centessa — watch AZN, BMY, SNY. Range €12-20bn.
▌STRUCTURAL CANDIDATES
VKTX Viking Therapeutics Oral/sc GLP-1 ~$7bn NVO/AZN/PFE
GPCR Structure Therapeutics Oral GLP-1 Ph2b ~$4bn PFE/NVO/AZN
CELC Celcuity PI3Ka Ph3 ~$1.2bn NVS/PFE/AZN
TVTX Travere Therapeutics Filspari FSGS ~$2.5bn CSL/REGN/AZN
IVA Inventiva NASH pan-PPAR ~€500m AZN/GSK
MLIT MapLight Pharma Muscarinic CNS ~$1bn BMS/ABBV/JNJ
⚡ IVA FP: Unusual -10.42% intraday on 31 Mar (4.80→3.85→4.30).
No news. NASH Ph3 play. Possible bloc move or rumour leak.
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IV. THE FULL PICTURE
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PATENT CLIFF — $200-300bn at risk by 2030
Keytruda (MRK) $29bn LOE 2028
Eliquis (BMS/PFE) $13bn LOE 2027-29
Darzalex (JNJ) $12bn LOE 2029
Stelara (JNJ) $10bn LOE 2025-26
Opdivo (BMS) $9bn LOE 2028
Cliff = 2-4x the 2011-12 Lipitor era.
Internal R&D replaces ~1/3. Big Pharma dry powder: ~$1.3tn.
DEAL VELOCITY
2024: ~$55bn / ~35 deals (weakest since 2021)
2025: ~$133bn / 50 deals (+133% YoY)
2026E: $140-180bn / 50-60E
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V. WHY TODAY'S SELL-OFF IS THE POINT
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When markets sell off, acquirers' VWAP reference drops.
Premium paid on same asset shrinks. Urgency does not change.
April 2025: XBI -20%. M&A accelerated. XBI +75% from low by Dec.
Today: markets red. 8 confirmed deals in March. A 9th likely printing.
Premiums today (31-42% VWAP Terns / 40.5% VWAP Centessa) will look
cheap by 2027-28 when Keytruda LOE is 12 months away.
The floor is structural. The clock is fixed. Use the dip.
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Laurent Chekroun | Freienbach, Switzerland
Confidential — For Institutional Use Only | 06 April 2026
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From: Laurent Chekroun (MAKOR CAPITAL MARKET) At: 04/05/26 15:07:42 UTC+2:00
Subject: TSLA | The Real Reason Behind the SpaceX IPO — Musk's $139Bn Compensation TriHere is the mechanism, in plain terms.
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THE TESLA COMPENSATION PLAN — STRUCTURE
─────────────────────────────────────
Musk's 2018 Tesla compensation plan — originally valued at $56Bn, now estimated at $139Bn following market appreciation following its Delaware reinstatement in February 2026 — consists exclusively of performance stock options structured around 12 market capitalisation tranches. Each tranche unlocks when Tesla's market cap crosses a predefined threshold. There is no base salary, no time vesting. Pure performance equity.
The plan carries no expiry risk tied to share price alone, but it does expire if the milestones are not achieved within the defined operational and market cap windows. Critically: the milestones are set on Tesla's standalone market cap.
─────────────────────────────────────
THE MERGER AS A MILESTONE ACCELERATOR
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Here is what changes with a SpaceX/Tesla merger:
1. The combined entity's market cap immediately reflects the sum of both valuations. Tesla alone trades at ~$1.58T. Add SpaceX at $1.75T (IPO price), and the combined entity sits at ~$3.3T — comfortably above every remaining milestone threshold in the 2018 plan.
2. A merger agreement typically requires the acquiring/surviving entity to assume, convert, or accelerate the target's outstanding compensation plans. In a Tesla/SpaceX combination, the recalibration of Musk's Tesla tranches is a central governance issue that must be resolved as part of deal terms. The independent Tesla board committee handling the merger will be forced to make a determination on the outstanding options.
3. The independent fairness opinion, which any proper merger process requires, will necessarily address whether the combined entity's market cap — at $3T+ — satisfies the spirit and letter of the remaining tranche milestones. It almost certainly does.
4. The result: a deal structure that mechanically triggers full vesting of the remaining tranches, generating an estimated $100–300Bn in option value for Musk depending on the exercise price and stock price at the time of conversion.
To put this in context: Bloomberg currently excludes the entire $139Bn plan from Musk's net worth as contingent. Forbes partially includes it based on milestone progress. A merger collapses that uncertainty in Musk's favour, permanently.
─────────────────────────────────────
WHY THE IPO COMES FIRST
─────────────────────────────────────
The sequencing matters enormously. SpaceX must be a public company with an independently verifiable market price before any Tesla/SpaceX merger can be executed without legal challenge. Without a public SpaceX price, any exchange ratio is a related-party transaction with no external benchmark — a certain target for Delaware class action litigation.
The confidential filing is therefore Step 1 of a two-step process:
→ Step 1: SpaceX IPO at $1.75T (June 2026) — establishes the fairness opinion anchor
→ Step 2: All-stock merger with Tesla — triggers the compensation milestone cascade
The passive index mechanics amplify the entire trade. Nasdaq 100 inclusion 15 days post-listing, followed by S&P 500 fast-track, generates an estimated $150–200Bn in forced buying from passive vehicles. This mechanically pushes SpaceX valuation higher ahead of the merger ratio negotiation — maximising Musk's exchange ratio and therefore the value of the Tesla tranches he receives in conversion.
─────────────────────────────────────
THE NUMBER
─────────────────────────────────────
If executed cleanly:
• Tesla comp plan fully triggered: est. $100–300Bn in option value
• SpaceX stake crystallised: ~$753Bn at IPO price
• Combined net worth (Forbes basis): $1.4–1.6T
This would represent the single largest individual compensation event in the history of public markets — by an order of magnitude.
─────────────────────────────────────
RISKS TO THE THESIS
─────────────────────────────────────
• Delaware independent committee on Tesla may reject the merger terms or propose an unfavourable exchange ratio — exactly the scenario that blocked the 2018 plan initially
• Antitrust scrutiny on a $3T entity controlling launch, satellite internet, defense, and AI simultaneously
• Market dislocation in Q2 2026 (US-Iran, Nasdaq correction) delays or kills the June IPO window
• xAI cash burn disclosed in S-1 creates a valuation overhang on the combined entity
─────────────────────────────────────
Full note (FR/EN) attached — covers the 4 consolidation scenarios, passive flow mechanics, cap structure, and complete flywheel.
Happy to discuss.
Best
An Inside Look at OpenAI and Anthropic’s Finances Ahead of Their IPOs
Silicon Valley’s hottest startups have the same challenge: funding giant computing costs
OpenAI and Anthropic are racing toward potentially record-breaking IPOs by the end of the year.
An inside look at the financials of both companies prior to funding rounds completed earlier this year shows their Achilles’ heel: the soaring costs needed to train new AI models.
OpenAI expects to spend $121 billion on computing power for AI research in 2028. That means the company anticipates burning $85 billion that year even after almost doubling sales from the prior year. Such losses would dwarf that of virtually any other public company in history. Anthropic doesn’t expect to spend nearly as much, but its rosiest forecasts tell a similar story of mounting computing costs.
Both companies are releasing new versions of their AI models at a faster cadence than ever before, while pouring more resources into the training runs that create them. The arms race is showing no signs of slowing.
Below are charts drawn from confidential financial documents that both companies shared with investors ahead of their latest funding rounds. They offer a window into the economics of the two largest AI labs in the world. The Information earlier reported some of the figures.
What It Costs to Build a Digital Brain
One defining factor of each startup’s balance sheets is the runaway spending tied to training new AI models. The reason: Each jump in intelligence is harder to come by, and costs more than the last one. OpenAI expects to spend much more money than Anthropic training new models in the coming years.
The costs are set to be so mind-bogglingly high that both companies report two different measures of profitability—one that includes training costs, and one that leaves them out.
Strip out “compute for research,” and OpenAI is actually on track to turn a small pretax operating profit this year, as is Anthropic under its best-case scenario. Add it back in, and OpenAI doesn’t expect to break even until the 2030s. Anthropic forecasts reaching that milestone sooner.
An OpenAI spokesperson said the company is giving priority to growth over profits, and could dial back spending on training but expects a strong return on investment.
Exploding Revenue
Venture-capital firms have stomached vast losses in part because OpenAI and Anthropic are among the fastest-growing businesses in the history of tech. Each expects to more than double revenue this year, thanks largely to business customers’ adoption of new AI tools.
OpenAI was caught flat-footed after Anthropic released a new version of its coding tool Claude Code last fall, but has since poured more resources into its Codex coding assistant and prioritized sales to business customers.
The revenue comparison between the two isn’t technically apples to apples. Anthropic counts sales of its technology through cloud partners as revenue, while OpenAI doesn’t. An Anthropic spokeswoman said that this is consistent with standard accounting practices because the company is the principal in the transaction.
Inference costs
OpenAI and Anthropic also spend billions of dollars a year to process queries made on their AI systems. These so-called “inference” costs currently eat into more than half of revenue for each company, though that percentage is expected to go down over time—a sign that the technology is becoming cheaper to run.
Only a tiny sliver of ChatGPT’s users pay for the service, meaning that OpenAI doesn’t generate revenue for a large chunk of its inference costs. Most of Anthropic’s revenue comes from enterprises.
An OpenAI spokesperson said the company chooses to support free users because it helps with broader adoption of its technology. He added that OpenAI can also make money from those users by showing them ads or converting them into subscribers, among other things.
News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal, has a content-licensing partnership with OpenAI.
Both OpenAI and Anthropic will burn through a giant amount of cash in the coming years, and are counting on their IPO investors to help buoy their businesses.
To accommodate the massive amounts of cash these companies will need to raise, bankers are trying to change the rules around IPO fundraising by asking major index providers to loosen their rules for entry. The Nasdaq recently said it would allow newly listed companies to join its index faster, giving them access to broader pools of capital.
Russian crypto payment system expands into Africa
Videos show A7 office in Nigeria, while company also claims new branch in Zimbabwe
A recent vacancy posted on a Russian recruitment site sought a project manager to build a business “from scratch” in Togo, West Africa. The employer would be A7, a Russian cryptocurrency network under western sanctions, run by a fugitive oligarch and a state defence sector bank.
The advert is the latest sign that Moscow is seeking to build an alternative payments system after its banks were cut off by the west in response to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The company’s eye on Africa tracks with Moscow’s expanding influence across the continent. Russia has strengthened its presence in several African countries in recent years, making new political inroads following a string of coups in the Sahel region and in Madagascar, and signing a series of trade and military deals.
A7 and its backers may be seeking to “integrate their operation into the Kremlin’s larger strategic machine in Africa,” according to Elise Thomas, senior investigator at the Centre for Information Resilience, a London-based non-profit research group.
The payments network opened an office in Nigeria last autumn, videos showed, and also announced a new branch in Zimbabwe.
It remains unclear if A7 has handled any operations at those offices and they have little footprint online, Thomas wrote in a recent report. Several people involved in cryptocurrency in the two African countries told the FT they were not aware of the company. There is also no further indication of a presence in Togo beyond the online vacancy.
But the efforts are notable as part of Moscow’s strategy to adapt to sanctions. Founded in 2024 by fugitive Moldovan oligarch Ilan Șor and Russian defence sector lender Promsvyazbank (PSB), both under western sanctions, A7 uses an array of creative methods, from stablecoins to promissory notes, to keep roubles flowing around the world.
In promotional materials, it has claimed to handle as much as 19 per cent of Russia’s foreign trade transactions, though it is impossible to verify those numbers.
“Originally, our international payment platform was conceived as a response to illegally imposed international sanctions,” A7 founder Șor said last autumn when announcing the new Lagos and Harare offices.
“But, as practice has shown, this mechanism has proven to be very effective and convenient. That is why other countries have expressed interest and requested to use our system. And we decided to expand to the African continent,” he said, according to Russian media outlet Lenta.
Videos shared on social media of the launch of the Lagos office, analysed by CIR, show a large space decked with A7 logos. There is no information about the Russian payments network in Zimbabwe beyond an article in the local newspaper, The Herald.
Zimbabwe’s finance ministry, A7 and Șor did not respond to requests for comment. Nigeria’s finance minister said an event may have taken place.
“The project is being implemented with the comprehensive support of government financial agencies of all parties,” Mikhail Dorofeev, deputy chair of PSB, said about the Nigeria and Zimbabwe openings, according to state news agency Interfax. He spoke of “a shared interest in . . . scaling a stable and sanctions-resilient cross-border settlements system”.
US financial sanctions have pushed some countries to seek alternatives, including payment systems insulated from the dollar. Yet these efforts remained small and largely peripheral.
Russia’s response, after being cut off from the Swift interbank messaging system and hit by western sanctions on many of its major banks, was to build a workable alternative.
A7 says it provides a fast and uninterrupted payments system for its trading partners, and Russia has many in Africa. Zimbabwe, for example, imports a substantial share of fertilisers for its agricultural sector from Russia.
At a Russia-Africa conference in Cairo in December, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said 84 per cent of Russia’s trade with African countries was conducted in roubles between January and September 2025. He added that finding “reliable mechanisms for mutual settlements in national currencies” was a priority.
Lavrov described A7 as Russia’s “first international financial platform”. “Nigeria and Zimbabwe have already joined the platform. We invite all our other African partners to follow their example,” he told ministers.
Videos of the Nigeria office launch, shared on Instagram by the catering company hired for the events, show some of the attendees, including US-Belarusian businessman Alexander Zingman.
Zingman is known for brokering deals across Africa, primarily for the sale of Belarusian agricultural and mining machinery. He was briefly detained in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2021 on allegations of arms dealing, which his lawyer described at the time as “categorically false” and politically motivated. He was released soon after without charge.
Zingman’s lawyer confirmed that the businessman attended the A7 Nigeria launch event, as his company sells agricultural equipment in the region. But he “does not have any relationship with the A7 platform, and did not have any role in bringing the A7 platform to Nigeria or any other African nation”, nor in organising the event.
The videos also show Igor Khimich, close associate of Șor and a former member of his eponymous Moldovan political party. The party was ruled unconstitutional in 2023 for promoting Russian interests in Moldova.
In late January, Africa Intelligence, a specialist media outlet, reported that Khimich and PSB’s Dorofeev made a discreet visit by private jet to Madagascar, citing a leaked passenger manifest.
The FT was unable to confirm the visit or reach Dorofeev or Khimich for comment.
Russia’s relations with Madagascar have intensified since a military coup in the country in October 2025. Russian military instructors from the defence ministry’s Africa Corps — an heir to the Wagner private military company — have been deployed in Madagascar to train local troops.
In November, Putin received the longtime leader of Togo, Faure Gnassingbé, and penned a military co-operation agreement.
“Our trade and economic activity have steadily been developing,” Putin said. “We are entering a new era of bilateral relations.”
Trump family-linked investment group backs spa company offering medical screening
XWell plans to roll out AI-powered infectious disease tool at airports during World Cup
A Trump family-linked investment group is backing a wellness and biosecurity company that plans to offer AI-powered infectious disease screening to US airports during the football World Cup in June.
American Ventures in late February agreed to buy $31.3mn of convertible shares in Nasdaq-listed XWell, which at the time had a market capitalisation of less than $3mn. The American Ventures special purpose vehicle is managed by Trump Tower-based broker Dominari Securities.
Through subsidiaries, XWell provides voluntary diagnostic tests to incoming international flyers, funded in part by US government contract awards. The company separately operates several airport spas and a small chain of waxing salons along Florida’s west coast.
The securities purchase agreement between American Ventures and XWell, which has not previously been reported, closed three weeks after XWell partnered with AI predictive analysis start-up PieQ.
The two companies plan to roll out a “next generation intelligence layer” designed, according to a press release, to handle “anticipated surges in US-bound travel around major international events, such as the 2026 World Cup”.
US President Donald Trump’s two eldest sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr last month used a separate American Ventures vehicle to channel an investment into a drone company with a Pentagon contract.
It was not immediately clear whether the pair had personally invested in XWell, though a person familiar with the matter said the Trumps were involved in “most” American Ventures deals.
Trump Jr, Eric Trump and XWell did not respond to requests for comment. Dominari declined to comment. Eric Trump and Trump Jr joined Dominari’s advisory board in late 2024.
Dominari established its master American Ventures special purpose vehicle in early 2025, and has since set up more than a dozen sub-entities to direct investments into US companies in technology, manufacturing and defence.
American Ventures last year entered into a securities purchase agreement with a Nasdaq-listed toy company that later merged with crypto billionaire Justin Sun’s digital asset platform Tron.
Until last year Dominari was also a prolific underwriter and sponsor of small-cap Chinese IPOs in the US, which have slowed to a trickle in recent months amid scrutiny from regulators in both China and the US.
In March, Dominari was one of three New York brokers probed by the House committee on China about its role in the public listings of Chinese stocks implicated in pump-and-dump schemes.
XWell on Wednesday reported a net loss of $17mn in 2025 on revenue of $29.2mn, about 60 per cent of which stemmed from its 25 XpresSpa outlets that offer manicures, massages and “rejuvenation” services including LED face masks and chakra beds in airports in the US, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey.
XWell’s waxing salons in Naples and Fort Myers last year generated revenue of $2.3mn.
American Ventures’ deal with XWell in late February involved the purchase of 31,333 shares of the wellness group’s preferred stock for $1,000 a share.
Those shares are convertible into 66.6mn shares of common stock at an initial conversion price of $0.47, according to a securities filing at the time.
Dominari Securities’ parent company Dominari Holdings on Tuesday reported revenue of $123mn for 2025, up almost 500 per cent year on year. Its net loss jumped to $55.7mn from $8.7mn over the same period.