Remember that weird period where eggs became really expensive? Well, it’s happening to tomatoes now and it has led Burger King in India to scrap them from its burgers. And it isn’t even the first fast food outlet to do so, Subway and McDonalds have already removed tomatoes from the menu. Hopefully pickles get really expensive next because they are disgusting and I’m sick of picking them out.

The lowdown

• 🍅 India’s retail inflation surges to 15-month high, leading Burger King to drop tomatoes from its menu.

• ⏬ UK inflation falls sharply to 6.8% in July from 7.9% in June.

• 🙅 EY quickly rejects TPG’s proposal to break up the firm.

Flex your finance muscle 💪

NAV lending

NAV lending is a type of financing that provides debt to a PE fund or its general partner (GP) against the net asset value (NAV) of the fund's portfolio. (The NAV is the total value of the fund's underlying investments, less any liabilities.)

NAV lending is usually used by GPs to meet liquidity needs, such as to fund redemptions from limited partners (LPs), make new investments, or repay debt. The lender typically takes a security interest in the fund's portfolio so if the fund defaults, the lender can seize the underlying investments to recover its losses.

It’s a relatively new form of financing and is in the news because Apollo is looking to make $4 billion in NAV loans to struggling buyout firms.

Featured story

Bazooka Candy Brands is sold to Apax Partners

Global investment firm Apax Partners has reportedly reached an agreement to purchase Bazooka Candy Brands ($), valuing the company at $700 million, including debt. Bazooka is owned by the investment Torante which is associated with former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, and PE firm Madison Dearborn Partners.

The initial plan had been to list the company through a SPAC at a valuation of $1.3 billion but this did not happen. In the meantime, Bazooka sold the Topps trading cards and collectibles branch for $500 million.

When we add the $700 million from the just announced sale with the $500 million received from selling Topps, we are only $100 million off the SPAC valuation. And given that SPAC valuations have mostly cratered ($), this doesn’t look all that bad.

The content we're consuming today

• WSJ: Estée Lauder’s Big Bet on China Is Looking Not So Pretty ($).

• FT Alphaville: Venture capital funds are mostly just wasting their time and your money.

• Institutional Investor: Seth Klarman on What Makes a Value Investor and Committing ‘Sacrilege’ in New Edition of ‘Security Analysis’.

Off-balance sheet items

• The Economist says ($) that women are not just smaller men and so perhaps women’s football/soccer should have different rules to the men’s game. Could this put an end to the knee injury epidemic in women’s football reported by the NY Times? ($).

The bottom line