>>> PHARMA/BIOTECH M&A — THE STRUCTURAL BID BENEATH THE SELL-OFF (LC)

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LAURENT CHEKROUN | 28 MARCH 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 in pharma/biotech does not follow the tape.
It follows patent expiry calendars — fixed, non-negotiable, arriving on schedule
regardless of what the Fed, tariffs, or Liberation Day 2.0 does to the XBI.

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I. MARCH 2026: CONFIRMED DEALS
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6 transactions / ~$17bn+ / 21 days / 4 continents / 0 macro catalysts

DATE ACQUIRER → TARGET VALUE AREA
------ ---------------------------------------- ----------- -----------------
6 Mar Servier → Day One Biopharma (BRAF) $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

Novartis: two deals in one week.
Servier: 68% premium to spot / 86% to 1M VWAP.
Otsuka (Japan): buyer universe is now global.

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II. THE RUMOR BOARD — STATUS 28 MARCH 2026
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▌HOT THIS WEEK — La Lettre / FT / WSJ active rumours

NBTX / NANO FP — Nanobiotix [La Lettre, 25 Mar]
Asset: NBTXR3 (JNJ-1900), radioenhancer nanoparticle. JNJ holds exclusive
licence and funds NANORAY-312 Ph3 (H&N cancer) since Mar 2025.
Rumour: La Lettre reported JNJ studying full takeover on 25 Mar.
Status: NBTX denied same day — "no intention, no process, factual
inaccuracies in report." Van Lanschot Kempen: "no indication of JNJ interest."
Read: JNJ already controls the asset operationally. A buyout just tidies the
cap table and eliminates future milestone payments. Unlikely pre-NANORAY data.
Mkt cap: ~€500m

RVMD US — Revolution Medicines [Jan 2026]
Asset: Daraxonrasib — RAS(ON) inhibitor, Ph3 pancreatic + NSCLC.
Rumour: MRK in talks at $28-32bn (FT Jan). Talks collapsed on price (WSJ).
AbbVie denied separately. MRK CEO Davis: "multi-tens of billions comfortable."
Status: No deal. Deal expected to re-emerge as Ph3 data matures.
Mkt cap: ~$23bn

ABVX / ABX FP — Abivax [Dec 2025 - Jan 2026]
Asset: Obefazimod — oral UC, Ph3 positive. +1,700% in 2025.
Rumour: La Lettre reported LLY prepared to pay €15bn ($17.5bn).
Status: CEO de Garidel dismissed formal talks Jan 20 ("noise"). French
Treasury review adds procedural complexity. Maintenance data Q2 2026 = key.
Stifel: "deal could happen ahead of readout."
Range: €12-20bn | Mkt cap: ~€8.4bn

▌STRUCTURAL CANDIDATES — analyst consensus M&A targets

VKTX US Viking Therapeutics VK2735 oral/sc GLP-1 ~$7bn NVO/AZN/PFE
GPCR US Structure Therapeutics Aleniglipron oral GLP-1 ~$4bn PFE/NVO/AZN
CELC US Celcuity Gedatolisib Ph3 PI3Ka ~$1.2bn NVS/PFE/AZN
TVTX US Travere Therapeutics Filspari FSGS Apr'26 ~$2.5bn CSL/REGN/AZN
IVA FP Inventiva Lanifibranor NASH Ph3 ~€500m AZN/GSK
MLIT US MapLight Pharma ML-007C-MA muscarinic ~$1bn BMS/ABBV/JNJ

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III. 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
Current cliff = 2-4x the 2011-12 Lipitor era.
Internal R&D replaces ~1/3. The rest must be bought.
Big Pharma deal capacity: ~$1.3tn — most undeployed.

DEAL VELOCITY
2024: ~$55bn / ~35 deals (weakest since 2021)
2025: ~$133bn / 50 deals (+133% YoY — strongest since 2019)
2026E: $140-180bn / 50-60E (IQVIA / L.E.K. / McKinsey)

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IV. 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
> Industrial urgency does not change
> Sellers with liquidity needs become more willing

April 2025: XBI -20% on Liberation Day tariffs.
M&A did not pause. Accelerated. XBI recovered +75% from low by December.

Merck/Terns (25 Mar): TERN-701's CML data does not care about the Fed.
The patent clock does not pause for risk-off.

RBC: the $400bn revenue gap is "far short" of being addressed by deals to date.
Premiums at 31-42% VWAP today will look cheap by 2027-28.

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BOTTOM LINE
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Six deals. Nine names on the rumor board. Three broken by La Lettre this week.
$1.3tn war chest mostly undeployed. Patent cliff with a fixed arrival date.

Markets are selling off. Biotech is red.
That is the opportunity. Use it.

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Laurent Chekroun | 28 March 2026 | Confidential — Institutional Use Only
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TechCrunch : Whoop has LeBron – now it wants your mom

Whoop has LeBron – now it wants your mom

For the better part of a decade, Whoop sold itself as a secret weapon for serious athletes. LeBron James was convinced to slap on the company’s fitness band in Whoop’s first year. Michael Phelps came soon after. Other Whoop wearers include Cristiano Ronaldo, Patrick Mahomes, and Rory McIlroy. The message to the public? The world’s best performers track their bodies with this device, and you can, too.

It has worked. Whoop, the Boston-based health wearable company that Will Ahmed founded in his senior year at Harvard, now operates in more than 200 countries, and, according to Ahmed, grew revenue more than 100% last year, as well as reached cash-flow positive. The hardware — a band worn around the wrist, bicep, or torso — measures sleep, recovery, heart rate variability, and a growing list of biomarkers. The subscription model, which bundles hardware and software for between $200 and $360 a year — the device itself included, with no separate purchase required— has proven remarkably sticky: 83% of monthly active users open the app on any given day, a ratio that Ahmed says trails only WhatsApp.

The next chapter is a harder sell.

Ahmed, 36, wants Whoop to be less of a performance tool and more of a life-saving one — a continuous health monitor that doesn’t just help you recover from a hard workout, but one day tells you, unprompted, that you’re about to have a heart attack and need to get to a hospital.

The company has already launched medically cleared features including ECG monitoring and atrial fibrillation detection — a capability that flags an irregular heartbeat that can lead to stroke — and what it calls blood pressure “insights,” which Ahmed says makes Whoop the first wearable to offer the feature.

The FDA challenged that last one in a warning letter last summer, arguing the feature constituted medical diagnosis rather than wellness monitoring; Whoop said the FDA was “overstepping its authority,” and kept building.

Today, a blood testing partnership with Quest Diagnostics — which has over 2,000 U.S. locations — lets members take a blood test and upload their biomarkers directly into the app, where a clinician reviews the results alongside their Whoop data. A feature called Health Span calculates your biological age. Ahmed says it has become the company’s most popular feature since its launch in May of last year.

The device itself has no screen, no notifications, no step counter. The decision was strategic from the start. “If you have a screen, then you’re a watch,” he tells TechCrunch via a Zoom call. “And if you’re a watch, then you’re competing with a lot of other watches, because people will never wear two watches.”

Not only can Whoop be worn alongside whatever watch you already own, he suggests, it can be tucked away entirely, a sensor slipped into a bicep sleeve, a sports bra, or a pair of shorts, disappearing into your clothing. It’s probably safe to say the overwhelming majority of Whoop’s customers want to wear the band as a fashion statement, but when asked directly, Ahmed offers that the company’s apparel line, launched in 2021, grew 70% last year.

But Whoop isn’t alone in moving beyond its roots to wanting to pull everyone into the tent. Oura, the Finnish company behind the smart ring that has become Whoop’s most direct rival, has built a large and loyal following of its own — largely among the kind of high-performing professionals who approach their bodies with the same rigor they bring to their work.

Oura’s model works differently. Customers buy the ring outright for around $350, then pay roughly $70 a year to access the platform. When I spoke with Oura chief product officer Dorothy Kilroy last fall, she said retention at the 12-month mark was hitting the high 80s, a remarkable figure for any wearable, most of which quickly wind up in a drawer.

Both companies now say women are their fastest-growing segment, and last fall they announced blood-testing partnerships within one day of each other — a coincidence that neither side was eager to discuss.

Whoop’s numbers still reflect where it started. Though Ahmed is circumspect about sharing too many figures publicly, he says Whoop skews more male than female. He also says the business is now roughly evenly split between the U.S. and the rest of the world — a shift from just a few years ago. Whoop formally ships to 60 countries.

What has set Whoop apart, at least in its telling, is that its most famous users didn’t have to be persuaded. The Australian Open earlier this year instructed players including Carlos Alcaraz to remove their Whoop bands mid-tournament, despite the device having been approved by the International Tennis Federation. The players pushed back. Though Whoop has brand ambassadors — Aryna Sabalenka is one — others like Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, both of whom wear Whoops under their wristbands, simply didn’t want to take them off.

“It created a whole set of media outrage,” Ahmed says a little gleefully of the resulting coverage, “and further spotlighted the fact that all these very talented people are just organically wearing Whoop because of the value it provides.”

Ahmed is careful to protect it. The company has a long-standing policy against giving athletes equity in exchange for wearing the band. His reasoning? If they like the product, they’ll wear it regardless. Formal partnerships with Ferrari, the PGA Tour, and UCI mountain biking work differently; they’re about putting the brand in front of larger audiences who share the same sensibility.

Oura, by the way, is doing the same math. Founded just one year after Whoop, the company is widely reported to be exploring an IPO. If Oura goes public first, it sets the financial benchmarks — revenue multiples, growth rates, retention metrics — against which Whoop will be measured. Whoop currently employs around 750 people and is in the middle of hiring 600 more.

Ahmed gives little away on the subject. “If we focus on building great technology and growing our business,” he says, “we’re going to be happy with Whoop when we’re a public company, independent from who goes public first.”

He speaks throughout the conversation the way someone does when they’ve thought carefully about what they should and shouldn’t say. Ahmed was captain of the Harvard squash team and counts Ali Farag, who went on to become world number one, among his former teammates — though he’s quick to note that proximity to greatness shouldn’t be mistaken for greatness itself.

“You probably have the wrong impression of how good I am at squash on the basis of me being teammates with him,” he jokes.

He started building what would become Whoop in 2011, reading hundreds of medical papers while studying economics and government, trying to solve a problem he’d experienced firsthand: overtraining without any reliable way to measure its toll on his body.

Whoop isn’t just Ahmed’s first company. It has been his only full-time job. When I ask whether he’d recommend that path to a founder sitting where he was in 2012, it’s the question he answers most freely.

Starting a company is, for the right person with the right intentions, “without question, the most extraordinary thing you can do in your career.” But it is, he adds, “a very painful experience to be an entrepreneur and to try to build something from scratch, and you have to have a reasonably high pain threshold that I think often gets lost in the glamour of fundraising announcements and milestones.” You need to be, he says, “more obsessed with the problem you’re solving than with the idea of being a founder.”

He doesn’t seem to have much doubt about which side of that line he’s on.

>>> J&J Portfolio Moves — Strategy Read-Across & NBTXR3 Implications

J&J Portfolio Moves — Strategy Read-Across & NBTXR3 Implications
1. The Core Strategic Logic: Portfolio Darwinism Around Three Pillars
The pattern emerging from J&J's Q4 restated holdings is deliberate and consistent with the broader M&A posture they've been executing since 2023. J&J's pipeline strategy reflects a clearer prioritization of core therapeutic strengths — oncology and immunology — tempered by pragmatic responses to shifting market and regulatory dynamics.
The exits (Arrowhead, BiomX, Senseonics) share a common thread: all three were legacy relationships that no longer fit the refocused Innovative Medicine perimeter. The retentions (Legend, Protagonist) share the opposite trait: deep co-development hooks with strategic optionality on full acquisition.
J&J's approach is more than buying new companies — it is about strategically divesting slower-growth assets to unlock capital and management focus for redeployment into higher-growth opportunities. That is exactly what this holdings reshuffle illustrates in miniature.

2. The Three Pillars That Survive the Cull
Oncology — the anchor. J&J has a well-stocked portfolio in oncology and in prostate cancer specifically, for which it sells Zytiga, Akeega and Erleada. The $3.05bn acquisition of Halda Therapeutics and its RIPTAC platform confirms that oncology is where J&J is prepared to write large cheques for differentiated mechanisms. The lead candidate HLD-0915 targets prostate cancer, with new diagnoses projected to reach 1.7 million globally by 2030, and the once-daily therapy is designed to overcome mechanisms of resistance.
Immunology — the second pillar. Protagonist Therapeutics ($246M retained stake) is squarely here. The companies are co-developing an oral treatment for immune diseases, and J&J's decision to hold rather than exit signals continued conviction in the asset and optionality on a full buyout.
Neuroscience — the emerging third axis. The $14.6 billion acquisition of Intra-Cellular Therapies in January 2025 marked a rare example of J&J making a large move outside of its traditional strongholds, underscoring growing confidence that neuroscience can deliver both clinical impact and commercial durability. CAPLYTA delivered $240 million in sales in Q3 2025 alone, demonstrating how quickly an acquisition can become a core part of the growth story.

3. The NBTXR3/Nanobiotix Read-Across — What the Article Missed
This is the significant omission from the piece you shared. The J&J/Nanobiotix relationship is arguably more strategically committed than either Legend Biotech or Protagonist — and it has recently deepened, not widened.
Full operational control transfer: J&J completed the NANORAY-312 sponsorship transfer in the majority of regions, along with the transfer of full operational control of the Phase 3 study. This is not a passive equity stake — this is J&J taking the wheel of a pivotal oncology trial.
Amended financial terms that favour J&J's engagement: The amendment removes Nanobiotix's funding obligation for NANORAY-312, with J&J assuming nearly all remaining costs for the ongoing pivotal Phase 3 trial through completion. In exchange, J&J was released from select milestone payments — a classic trade that reduces J&J's optionality costs while deepening its operational lock-in.
The deal economics remain substantial: Potential milestone payments include $1.77bn for first programs including head and neck cancer and lung cancer, $650M for five new indications, $165M for Asian markets, and $220M per additional indication developed by Nanobiotix, with tiered double-digit royalties ranging from low 10s to low 20s.
Critical catalyst incoming: The critical milestone is completing NANORAY-312 recruitment in H1 2026, which will trigger the interim efficacy analysis — with J&J ready to file immediately given their sponsorship role. The CONVERGE randomized Phase 2 in unresectable Stage III lung cancer, initiated by J&J in January 2025, adds a second indication readout.
The Phase 1 data cascade for 2026 is also significant: clinical updates from ongoing or completed JNJ-1900 (NBTXR3) Phase 1 studies sponsored by Nanobiotix or MD Anderson in melanoma, lung cancer amenable to re-irradiation, pancreatic cancer, and esophageal cancer are expected in 2026.

4. Synthesis: What This Tells Us About J&J's Acquisition Playbook
Signal Interpretation
Exit Arrowhead, BiomX, Senseonics Clearing non-core legacy stakes — discipline, not distress
Retain Legend Biotech (CARVYKTI, MM) Cell therapy deepening; acquisition optionality preserved
Retain Protagonist (oral immunology) Bolt-on acquisition likely; $246M stake is a down-payment
Full NANORAY-312 operational control Strongest signal of all — J&J doesn't take operational control of assets it doesn't intend to commercialise
Halda ($3bn, RIPTAC oncology platform) Confirms willingness to pay for novel mechanisms in solid tumours
Intra-Cellular ($14.6bn, neuroscience) Signals neuroscience as third core pillar, not just two-pillar story
The Duato doctrine ("value typically created by smaller deals") should be read as a preference, not a constraint. Acquirers have tended to target later-stage assets, ranging from Phase II through commercialisation, with J&J's acquisition of Intra-Cellular Therapies for $14.7 billion among the most notable transactions. When the science warrants it, J&J will write the large cheque.

5. Bottom Line for NBTXR3/Nanobiotix Positioning
The article's focus on Legend and Protagonist as "acquisition targets" is correct but incomplete. Nanobiotix sits in a structurally different category: J&J has already internalised the asset operationally (Phase 3 sponsorship, full operational control) and the deal economics are de-risked for J&J relative to a full buyout. The more relevant question isn't if J&J buys Nanobiotix, but at what point in the NANORAY-312 readout cycle does an acquisition become value-accretive vs. waiting for milestone triggers.
A positive interim efficacy readout in H2 2026 would almost certainly reprice that calculus sharply.

Barron's : Johnson & Johnson Exits 3 Biotechs but Keeps Stakes in These Rumored

Johnson & Johnson Exits 3 Biotechs but Keeps Stakes in These Rumored Acquisition Targets

Key Points
  • Johnson & Johnson exited stakes in Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals, BiomX, and Senseonics Holdings in its restated fourth-quarter report.
  • The company retained stakes in Legend Biotech and Protagonist Therapeutics, both rumored acquisition targets, with its Protagonist shares valued at ~$246 million.
  • J&J’s CEO stated that value is typically created by smaller deals, aligning with its focus on science and value creation.

Johnson & Johnson’s restated fourth-quarter holdings report, filed last week, reveals that the company exited three biotechs while retaining its stakes in several rumored acquisition targets.

The changes included the sale of 247,598 shares in Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals, previously a partner of Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen unit, which rebranded as its Innovative Medicine division. The relationship came to an end in 2023 after Janssen shrunk its infectious disease and vaccine portfolios.

Johnson & Johnson also exited BiomX, another former collaborator, through the sale of 96,866 shares. The Israeli biotech in December suddenly halted its lead clinical program due to safety concerns, and has been restructuring since.

Also in the fourth quarter, Johnson & Johnson unloaded 54,621 shares of Senseonics Holdings to close out its stake in the medical technology maker.

Other holdings went unchanged, including Johnson & Johnson’s stake of 814,586 shares in Legend Biotech. The companies have an agreement to co-develop a cell therapy targeting multiple myeloma. Rumors surfaced in 2024 that Legend had enlisted a financial planner amid takeover interest, with analysts eyeing Johnson & Johnson as a potential buyer.

As of the end of the quarter, the company’s largest stake by dollar value was in Protagonist Therapeutics, another speculated acquisition target. Johnson & Johnson held 2,449,183 shares in the company, which were worth around $246 million based on Tuesday’s closing price of $100.39. The companies are already working together to develop an oral treatment for immune diseases.

Johnson & Johnson has long placed a premium on science and value creation, two factors that drive its acquisition strategy. Speaking at last year’s J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, CEO Joaquin Duato asserted that larger deals were “outliers” and that value was “typically created by smaller deals.”

>>> BARRON'S 2026 TECH ROUNDTABLE — KEY THEMES & STOCK PICKS

BARRON'S 2026 TECH ROUNDTABLE — KEY THEMES & STOCK PICKS
Source: Barron's, March 27, 2026Participants: Glen Kacher (Light Street Capital), Brent Thill (Jefferies), Morgan Samet (Lingotto Innovation), Ben Reitzes (Melius Research)

MACRO THEMES
  • AI capex cycle remains intact; semiconductor demand very strong
  • Labor disruption ($10-20T market) is the real AI target, not software
  • Board-level AI adoption is unprecedented vs prior tech cycles
  • Rate of change accelerating; narrative risk high in both directions
  • Software at risk of consumption/tokenization pricing shift vs seat-based SaaS
  • Capex buildout continues to benefit infra/semis/hardware over software
  • Data storage emerging as next bottleneck
  • Consumer AI "killer app" still missing outside ChatGPT
  • Physical economy automation (AVs) moving faster than consensus

THE 15 STOCK PICKS
# Ticker Name Analyst Thesis
1 NVDA Nvidia Kacher / Samet 17x 2028E EPS; AI compute demand intact; Jensen $1T hardware revenue target
2 AVGO Broadcom Kacher Inference compute play; well-run; complements NVDA
3 ASML ASML Holding Kacher Essential for advanced GPU/XPU manufacturing
4 MKS MKS Instruments Kacher Advanced packaging play; $13+ EPS power 2027E; 60-80% upside; TSMC supplier
5 FROG JFrog Kacher Artifact mgmt platform; 80% Fortune 100; FCF +40% YoY; $2+ FCF/sh 2027E; 50%+ upside
6 CLBT Cellebrite Kacher Digital forensics; $1 FCF/sh 2027E; FCF +30%; 50-75% upside; AI product launch
7 IBM IBM Reitzes Mainframe not at risk; consumptive pricing model; quantum optionality early 2030s
8 INTC Intel Reitzes Foundry assets; Lip-Bu Tan turnaround; US govt backing; packaging optionality
9 SNOW Snowflake Thill ~30% growth; best margin expansion large-cap software; AI-native data platform
10 META Meta Platforms Thill $30+ EPS NTM; 25-30x multiple; AI-immersive consumer platform
11 AMZN Amazon Thill Cheapest Mag7; AWS death exaggerated; at Walmart EV/EBITDA multiple
12 PCOR Procore Technologies Thill Vertical software; construction mgmt; Nvidia AI partnership; mid-cap story
13 NET Cloudflare Samet 20% of web infrastructure; edge compute for agentic AI; 4Q revenue acceleration
14 NOW ServiceNow Samet Control tower narrative; enterprise workflow anchor
15 CATL CATL (3750 HK) Samet EV battery dominance; cost/quality gap vs RoW; used by Tesla; physical economy play

KEY PRICE TARGETS / VALUATION REFS
  • MKS: $350-400 (25-27x 2027E EPS of $13+) — 60-80% upside
  • JFrog: 30-35x 2027E FCF — 50%+ upside
  • Cellebrite: 50-75% upside
  • Nvidia: 17x 2028 consensus; 75% EPS growth expected 2027E
  • Meta: $30+ EPS x 25-30x = material upside

NB: Databricks mentioned as Snowflake's only competitor (private, Samet owns). MSFT and ADBE flagged as cautious by Reitzes.


FULL Transcript

BARRON'S 2026 TECH ROUNDTABLE — FULL TRANSCRIPT Published: March 27, 2026 Participants: Glen Kacher (Light Street Capital CIO), Brent Thill (Jefferies Senior Software Analyst), Morgan Samet (Lingotto Innovation Managing Partner), Ben Reitzes (Melius Research Head of Technology Research) Interviewer: Alex Eule, Barron's

ON AI CERTAINTIES
KACHER: The emergence of AI as an architectural computing change is driving the industry forward. The largest companies with the most capital to spend are saying this is the most important thing happening in our industry. Semiconductor demand is extremely strong, and demand for AI compute cycles is still very strong.
SAMET: The market potential for what AI can do in not just the digital economy but also the physical economy is massively underappreciated. It isn't software that is being disrupted — it's labor. Labor markets are on the order of $10-20 trillion, whether in the digital or the physical economy. Trust and security are incredibly important, but the opportunity is massive.
REITZES: The certainty is that the rate of change will be accelerating. I see more disruption ahead, not less.
THILL: Two things are certain. First, AI will be globally adopted at the board level — not the IT level. Multiple board members I've spoken with have said they're all in, reorienting their companies across every industry. Second, infrastructure: Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are all seeing incredible demand they can't keep up with.

ON BOARD-LEVEL ADOPTION
THILL: They are acting offensively. When JPMorgan Chase said it had reduced total operational spend for support but put that money back into revenue-generating roles, that's a board-level topic. If you can cut costs and improve revenue, that is an offensive move.
KACHER: What is amazing about AI is that the industry has built tools that are incredibly productive for the single user. It is very approachable for a CEO. Everyone has had an individual personal experience with this technology. The gap we are all struggling with is that it takes time to build tools for teams. That is where the doubt comes — in applying these tools for large numbers of people to use together.

ON INFRASTRUCTURE BOTTLENECKS
THILL: In some cases, delays have already happened. CoreWeave had to push out $8 billion of capex in Q4, and had issues getting physical buildings up and live. The demand is exceptional, but schedules are shifting materially. It can come down to a lack of PVC piping that could delay a project by months.

ON RETURN ON INVESTMENT / TIMELINE
KACHER: Every time we have seen a major architectural change filter through the tech industry, it takes a decade or more. Salesforce was founded in 1999. It took 15 years for roughly 25% of computing cycles to shift to the cloud model, and another eight years to get the next 25%. Today's software isn't going away. You will see AI adopted on top of existing applications, and incumbent software players will build some of those applications.
SAMET: You are seeing this in consumer spaces first because there are no barriers to entry. Executives are operating from a place of both fear and opportunity. People act faster when you pair fear and opportunity.

ON MULTI-MODEL / LLM LANDSCAPE
THILL: Multiple AI vendors are going to win. Intuit uses more than 20. Gemini is better for this, ChatGPT better for that, Anthropic better for this. You will see companies try to find a framework or governor of LLMs. Everyone thought they would become commoditized; now they are becoming more specialized. The embrace of many models inside a system that can orchestrate their use is the preferred route. One AI company coming in and crushing the entire organization is probably not going to happen.

ON MARKET CHAOS / NARRATIVES
REITZES: This news cycle is like nothing I've ever seen, and I was an analyst in the dot-com bubble. There is a lot of shoot first, ask questions later. Investors need to be aware of both the narratives and the fundamentals.
KACHER: The most conflicting narrative is from tech bears who say AI is so powerful it will destroy all software — but simultaneously say there is no ROI coming, and therefore semiconductor demand will crater. You can't destroy an industry of incredible value if the product doesn't do something incredibly valuable. It is a very bizarre conflict.

ON LABOR TOKENIZATION
REITZES: The tokenization of labor is occurring. AI has the ability to be a PhD in your pocket, a doctor, an analyst, an accountant. It will augment many positions and make people doing these jobs much better. The unfortunate thing is that prior labor disruption cycles took 10-20 years; this one feels like it is taking place over 10-20 minutes. You are already seeing a pause in hiring for knowledge workers.
SAMET: It is going to happen much faster than people think. But there is also far less friction in learning something new. You will see, especially among younger people, more entrepreneurs launching smaller businesses as a result of these tools.
KACHER: Every one of these transitions took 20-plus years. The iPhone came out in 2007; by 2013, smartphones had reached 50% penetration. We always overestimate the speed at which these transitions disrupt existing industries. The Armageddon of employment is probably overstated in terms of speed.
REITZES: Many software companies don't realize how quickly they may need to move to consumption models rather than charging per seat. That is what we call a negative mix shift.

ON SOFTWARE STOCKS
THILL (SNOW): Snowflake is a huge winner. Growing close to 30%, with widening margins and the best margin expansion of any large-cap software company. One primary competitor in Databricks — a two-horse race. You can run every AI technology in Snowflake's platform safely. It is effectively a control tower for all your data, with its own AI agents, partnering with all major cloud vendors.
SAMET (NET / NOW): The most underappreciated company in this area is Cloudflare. It sits in front of approximately 20% of the web between its CDN and security. Most valuable now is its physical edge infrastructure — servers that sit closer to users. As you think about the transition to edge and agentic AI, latency and geography matter. Revenue has accelerated materially in the past four quarters. We also own ServiceNow and Databricks (private).
KACHER (FROG): We like JFrog — a system of record and artifact-management platform used by 80% of Fortune 100 companies and many leading AI labs. We think it will generate more than $2 of FCF per share in 2027. FCF growing 40% a year. Stock likely to trade at 30-35x FCF, implying 50%+ upside. The market has incorrectly identified this business as at risk from AI. In fact, it is an AI winner.
REITZES (IBM): If I had to pick a stock in software, it's IBM. There is a perception that IBM's mainframe business could be threatened by AI — we don't think so. In a world where we're short of compute and CPUs, it may benefit on-premises compute. The majority of IBM's software follows a consumptive and instance-related pricing model, not SaaS — a better place to be. Long term, there is a quantum computing call option. Quantum and classical computing will have their moment in the early 2030s. We are more cautious than Wall Street on Microsoft and Adobe.

ON SEMICONDUCTORS / HARDWARE
KACHER (ASML / MKS): We're big fans of ASML — absolutely necessary for making advanced GPUs, XPUs, and all chips powering the AI buildout. We also like MKS. Advanced semiconductor packaging should continue to grow faster than front-end wafer-fab over the next two years. MKS will have better than $13 of EPS power in 2027 on a modest recovery scenario, trading at 25-27x — implying $350-400 stock, or 60-80% upside. Key supplier to TSMC.
REITZES (INTC): We need more foundries and more advanced chip-making capabilities. Intel has those assets. Lip-Bu Tan is quite an amazing executive — he possesses the skill set to do what Lisa Su did at AMD: fix the product business and create optionality for the foundry. The US government is a shareholder and President Trump is supportive. Intel also has hidden packaging assets doing very well right now.

ON NVIDIA
SAMET: It is astonishing. Nvidia continues to rerate down — it makes no sense given the fundamentals. It has more to do with market structure: 7.5% of the S&P 500 is Nvidia, which pushes limits on how much certain funds can invest.
KACHER: Consensus expects 75% EPS growth in 2027 and 30-35% in 2028. The stock is trading at 17x consensus 2028 estimates. Compare that to Apple, struggling to grow earnings by 10% a year and trading at mid-20s multiple. We own Nvidia and like it a lot. We also own Broadcom for similar reasons — a competitor in the inference space, incredibly well-run.
REITZES: At Nvidia's GTC conference, Jensen Huang gave an order number for $1 trillion in hardware revenue. There is meaningful upside in every quarter through end of 2027.
SAMET: Perhaps the market misunderstands the level of Nvidia's software play. You can't build a robotics company or an autonomous-vehicle company without them.

ON THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
REITZES: The Mag Seven are under assault from market rotation. The overwhelming issue is the lack of free cash flow for many of them — Alphabet, Amazon, Tesla, Microsoft, and Meta. On the horizon, Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX could come public — potentially the Mag 10 or Mag 11. The question of which stock to sell to make room is hanging over the whole group.
THILL (META / AMZN): Meta will earn more than $30 per share in the next year. Put a 25-30x multiple on that and you have a materially higher stock price. Meta's world is so immersive and different that it will have a seat at everyone's consumer table. The cheapest name right now is Amazon. The death of AWS is greatly exaggerated. Amazon is now at the same EV/EBITDA multiple as the beginning of last year for Alphabet — at or below the average multiple of Walmart. That one seems oversold.

ON ADDITIONAL PICKS
SAMET (CATL): The Chinese battery maker CATL. The cost and quality differential between CATL and the rest of the world is massive — even Tesla uses CATL cells. The market is focused on geopolitical tensions, which are real, but in the short term there is no solution without CATL.
THILL (PCOR): Procore Technologies — vertical software for construction management. Partnered with Nvidia to bring AI to construction. Construction is the most manual, highest-waste industry on the planet. Great mid-cap story vertically focused on global construction.
KACHER (CLBT): Cellebrite — dominant player in digital forensics, providing software to law enforcement worldwide. Going to generate $1 per share of FCF in 2027, growing FCF at 30%. Stock has 50-75% upside. Just introduced an AI product helping law enforcement analyze communications across the entire suite of applications on a phone — solves crimes, increases speed of investigations.

LOOKING AHEAD — WHAT WILL WE BE TALKING ABOUT IN A YEAR?
SAMET: Two things. One — a new consumer platform or product that unlocks a major everyday use case beyond current AI assistants. Two — more technology in the physical economy, particularly autonomous vehicles. The technology is solved; it is happening faster than people think.
THILL: Why is capex continuing to go materially higher? That will stunt software growth and continue to benefit infrastructure, semis, and hardware over software. This has been happening every year and the broken record plays on: semis keep outperforming.
REITZES: Data. The big surprise will be how much data all of this requires — more flash, more hard drives, more data storage systems both for cloud platforms and on-premises. AI makes your data more valuable.
KACHER: The debate will be, can we keep spending at this rate? The numbers will get larger for the AI buildout, and the percentage of free cash flow that the Mag Seven are spending will become a much bigger issue. Those doing the spending will get tougher questions asked of them.

END OF TRANSCRIPT Source: Barron's Tech Roundtable, March 27, 2026 — Alex Eule

>>> Notable US Options Trade : AMZN, NVDA, AAPL

  • Amazon.com calls rolled lower
    • A trader bought 25k June $225/$265 Amazon call spreads, rolling down a August $260/$310 spread that appears to have been opened in mid-Dec.
    • Trader pays $2.65 to roll position lower and closer
    • Amazon shares fell 3.2% at midday and have lost 13% year to date
  • Nvidia calls rolled down
    • A trader bought 32k June $180/$200 call spreads vs selling $190/$210 call spreads for net $1.91
    • Nvidia has lost $650 million in market cap since Feb. 25
    • Shares were down 2% at midday
  • Apple put spread bought
    • A trader bought 8.5k April $245/$230 put spreads for $2.35 net
    • Apple was down 1.3% at midday and is down 8.2% year to date

Betaville : Danone SADanone SA, the France-listed food group, is rumoured to onc

UNCOOKED ALERT: Danone SA said to ...

Danone SA, the France-listed food group, is rumoured to once again be circling Reckitt Benckiser's Mead Johnson nutrituion unit.

People following the situation have heard talk Danone is working advisers from Centreview Partners on the possible purchase of the Mead Johnson nutrition business from Reckitt Benckiser.

The possible deal comes after Reckitt Benckiser said last year it planned to exit its Mead Johnson nutrition unit, which includes brands such as Enfamil and Nutramigen.

Reckitt Benckiser acquired Mead Johnson in 2017 for $17.9 billion including debt.

However, the acquisition turned sour after the company was forced to take an impairment on Mead Johnson's Chinese division (which it later sold to Primavera Capital for an enterprise value of $2.2 billion) and the emergence of severe litigation and liabilities in the US regarding its baby formula business.

It's not clear, therefore, how much is Danone is looking to pay for Reckitt Benckiser's Mead Johnson unit, said people following the situation.

Danone has reportedly looked at buying Mead Johnson in the past but never followed through with the acquisition.

To be clear, this story is UNCOOKED. I have pasted the definitions of UNCOOKED below in case you don't recall their definitions.

UNCOOKED: Market gossip as Betaville receives it. This scuttlebutt has just come in and hasn't been checked with all of Betaville's well-informed RARE sources let alone formal journalistic channels (public relations executives, bankers etc). The rumour might be total codswallop, rubbish or nonsense - but then again there may be something in it, so it's worth airing on Betaville.

Tags:
Danone
Date:Friday, 27 March 2026 3:49 pm