Snakes on a plane, a tornado filled with sharks, a Big Four accounting firm owned by a private equity firm. These concepts are funny because they take a bad situation and add something even worse to create an absurdity that could never happen in real life. That was until TPG made a real life offer to purchase a stake in EY’s consulting division. I mean how much harder can PE firms run Big Four employees already at breaking point? Will whips be involved?

The lowdown

• 💸 PE firm TPG offers to purchase a stake in EY’s consulting division, reviving talks of a split.

• 🇨🇳 China’s central bank unexpectedly cut rates in an effort to stimulate an economy suffering from deflation.

• 🇻🇳 Loss making Vietnamese EV maker VinFast IPOs with a valuation surpassing Ford and GM.

Featured story

Apollo withdraws from Yellow’s bankruptcy financing plan

Trucking company Yellow recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with $1.2 billion in debts. Of this debt, $500 million was owed to PE firm Apollo.

To “help out” Yellow, Apollo offered $142.5 million in financing at a 17% annual interest rate and a closing fee of up to $32mn. The proposal included a “roll-up” feature that would prioritize its initial $500 million loan to Yellow for repayment. Aggressive terms to say the least.

Other parties have offered financing on more favorable terms and so Apollo responded by selling the $500 million loan to Citadel’s Citadel Credit Master Fund. Yellow is now contemplating alternative bankruptcy loan offers from hedge fund MFN Partners and competitor trucking firm Estes Express Lines.

The content we're consuming today

• MIT Technology Review: What happened to the microfinance organization Kiva?

• WSJ: Streamflation Is Here and Media Companies Are Betting You’ll Pay Up ($).

• FT Unhedged podcast: China slows down.

Off-balance sheet items

• This visual story from the FT ($) about whether we have reached peak coffee is really interesting and the animations and illustrations done by Cecilia Reeve make what is a pretty long story, an easy read.

The bottom line