Daily Brief United States: O2Micro International, New Ruipeng Pet Group, Meta Platforms (Facebook), Visa, Mastercard, Hawkins Inc, Netgear Inc, Newmont Mining, Pan American Silver, Uniswap and more

• At the EGM held on January 31, O2Micro International (OIIM US)’s shareholders voted in favoor of the Merger Agreement.
• The Offerors didn’t have the necessary two-thirds for the voter to be a foregone conclusion, therefore the outcome wasn’t assured. Although it was an okay offer. With proxy advisor support.
• Yet even after the vote, this is still trading 7.1% below terms. The drawn-out completion of Glory Star New Media Group Holdings (GSMG US) is evidently uppermost in investors’ minds. 

• New Ruipeng Pet Group (RPET US) is looking to raise at least US$100m in its upcoming US IPO. 
• New Ruipeng Pet Group (Ruipeng) is a pet services platform, primarily offering pet care services, supply chain services and local services, covering the entire lifecycle of pets.
• In this note, we will talk about the positive aspects of the deal.

• Meta lowered 2023 expense guide by $5B (or 5%)  to $89bn-$95bn and capex guide by $4B (or 11%) to $30bn-$33bn
• Metaverse spending continues, META lost $4.3B on $700M in revenue this quarter and losses are expected to accelerate in 2023. 
• Zuck said the word efficiency 18x and AI 15x…Evidently, these are his priorities!

• Visa’s performance in the last quarter was solid and it managed an all-around beat as a result of consistent domestic volumes and transactions, as well as a persistent improvement in international travel.
• Therefore, they are working to position Visa favorably for the future, whether with conventional issuers or co-brand partners.
• Baptista Research looks to evaluate the different factors that could influence the company’s price in the near future and attempts to carry out an independent valuation of the company using a Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) methodology.

• Mastercard delivered a decent result in the last quarter as consumer spending has been steady.
• Mastercard has strengthened and expanded its long-standing relationship with Citi and Bank of America.
• Mastercard’s open banking initiatives are supported by connections to over 3000 banks and other financial institutions in 18 markets.

• HWKN reported fiscal third quarter (January 1) results where sales benefited from price increases while the firm dealt with supply bottleneck for sourcing fertilizer.
• HWKN has been relying on price increases to drive sales higher and generate gross profit dollars. Volumes have not increased as much as sales prices have.
• The water treatment business is seasonally soft in FYQ3. However, the segment reported sales greater than we were expecting. We believe this is mostly to HWKN renewing its annual contracts.

• NTGR continues to face the challenges of retailers reducing shelf inventory while the Company shifts to in-demand product lines
• NTGR reported fourth quarter revenue of $249.1 million, exceeding our estimate of $242.8 million due to more product shipments to service provider customers
• NTGR’s inability to source enough components is hampering the growth potential of the Company’s ProAV switch

Newmont will update guidance for 2023 when it releases Q4 results on 23 February 2023. We anticipate a strong close to 2022 (production up 6% quarter on quarter and costs down 13% in Q4) and believe a dividend recalibration is possible, albeit reflecting industry inflation rather than a reassessment of capital allocation policy in general. In this context, we see Newmont as a sustainable choice among gold producers, not only in an ESG sense, but also in its ability to maintain 6Moz pa of low-cost production.

Pan American Silver (PAAS) has reported that its shareholders approved the proposed share issue to acquire all outstanding Yamana Gold shares as part of its recently announced plan of arrangement to buy all non-Canadian assets of Yamana. At the same time, Yamana shareholders voted in favour of the special resolution approving the acquisition by PAAS of all the issued and outstanding shares in the company following the sale of all Canadian assets to Agnico Eagle. The transaction is expected to be completed in Q123 subject to receiving a number of regulatory approvals.

• This piece was originally going to compare the average and median size of liquidity events – meaning any mint (deposit) or burn (withdrawal) to/from a DEX liquidity pool – on the most popular Ethereum DEXs: Uniswap V3, V2, and Curve. 
• There have been some excellent Twitter threads comparing DEXs and considering whether providing liquidity on Uniswap V3 can be profitable.
• But after taking a look at the Uniswap V3 liquidity event data, it became clear that I had to write about an under-explored and rapidly developing topic: just-in-time (JIT) liquidity.