Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic One thing to start: London’s Heathrow airport has been forced to close until midnight after a fire at a nearby electricity substation caused a “significant power outage”.And another thing: Alimentation Couche-Tard and Seven & i expect concrete negotiations with private equity firms to start within weeks on the carve-out of thousands of stores in the US, in a pivotal moment for the Canadian group’s $47bn takeover attempt of the 7-Eleven owner.In today’s newsletter: A long way from ‘Jeff Bozo’Meme stocks across the pondHow to sell a start-up for $32bnBezos gets on the Maga bandwagonSix years after Donald Trump unceremoniously called him “Jeff Bozo”, the founder of Amazon has drastically recalibrated his relationship with the president.Jeff Bezos wasn’t an early supporter. He once criticised him as a “threat to democracy”.But as the tech billionaire quickly learned during Trump’s first stretch in office, fighting against Maga does little to help your business interests, the FT reports in a Big Read. Meanwhile, falling in line, doling out funds and striking deals for Trump can do wonders.Trump’s last time in office was a rough period for Bezos and his businesses. In 2019, Amazon sued the Pentagon and alleged Trump had blocked the company from securing a $10bn contract because of his hatred of the Washington Post, which Bezos owns. (That’s when the “Bozo” nickname came about.)But this time is different.Amazon shelled out $1mn for the president’s January inauguration ceremony; the platform streamed the event live on Prime Video; it paid $40mn for a documentary on Melania Trump and struck a deal to air Trump’s old television show, The Apprentice.Those moves have paid off. Bezos had a prime seat at the inauguration beside other tech billionaires including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai.Bezos has a lot on the line, especially for his rocket maker Blue Origin. He’s competing for government contracts with Trump BFF Elon Musk, who owns rival SpaceX. People close to Bezos dispute the idea that he’s trying to get in the Trump’s administration’s good books to protect his business interests.“Jeff doesn’t make decisions out of fear or shape his actions to appease anyone,” says one. “The idea that any move he makes is some calculated attempt to gain favour is not only false, it misunderstands who he is entirely.”Instead, people close to Bezos say Democrats’ animosity towards Big Tech and his existing penchant for libertarianism have pushed him towards Trump’s camp.Europe’s meme stock momentIt’s been a minute since retail traders duelled it out with short sellers over their cherished stock picks: Robinhood, GameStop and AMC.But meme stocks are back, and this time, they’re European. Shares in the continent’s small and mid-sized companies have surged — outstripping a broader defence rally — buoyed by a new wave of support from Reddit’s finest. Companies such as French satellite maker Eutelsat and German defence contractors Renk and Hensoldt have had a sharp jump in interest from retail traders, who’ve zeroed in on the businesses after noticing hedge funds and asset managers held large short positions in them.Until the start of this month, nearly 100 per cent of Eutelsat’s shares were out on loan, as investors including BlackRock gambled on the group’s failure.The groups have since pared back their bets.Still, Eutelsat’s near-300 per cent surge in the three weeks to March 14 have cost short sellers roughly $187mn in mark-to-market losses, according to S3 Partners.As always, Reddit bros were quick to dig in the knife: “On this wonderful day I’ve gone long Renk. I hope that the lights go on in the fat cats’ heads and that they see what is soon going to happen here,” said one user.But unlike the GameStop squeeze, Europe’s meme stock mania has been driven by a surge in defence spending — and it has a patriotic tinge to it.Users posted artificial intelligence-generated images of German tanks crushing Tesla cars and superimposed images of JD Vance’s now infamous quote “Have you said thank you once?” over charts showing US stocks plummeting.One picture showed an anthropomorphised European badger mauling an American eagle. It’s safe to say there’s no love lost there.The Wiz-kid behind Alphabet’s latest mega-dealThe saying “patience is a virtue” has a whole new meaning at start-up Wiz this week.Less than a year after turning down a $23bn offer from Google’s parent company Alphabet, the cyber security company has clinched a far more lucrative deal.On Tuesday, the company agreed to be sold to Alphabet for $32bn, with an additional sweetener that the tech behemoth will pay a 10 per cent break fee if the transaction doesn’t successfully get past regulators.Led by founder Assaf Rappaport, Wiz has enjoyed blistering growth over the past several years, in part because of the chief executive’s uncanny decision-making, as DD’s Ivan Levingston and George Hammond report.At a staff town hall shortly after the company walked away from the initial offer from Google last year, Rappaport reassured staff. “We are going to go so big, we are going to make so much money in the future that you won’t regret it,” was the broad message, one person familiar with his remarks said.Eight months later, he was certainly right. And according to people who have worked with him over the years, it wasn’t the first time.“Assaf always is right, and even when he is wrong and it makes no sense for him to be right about something, he is right,” said one executive who has worked with him.Rappaport co-founded Wiz in Israel with friends he met as teenagers serving in the country’s cyber intelligence unit 8200. It’s a well-worn path: other major companies such as Palo Alto Networks and Check Point were also founded by veterans of the unit.He then went on to McKinsey before founding another cloud security group called Adallom in 2012. After selling that start-up to Microsoft a few years later, he took jobs overseeing the tech giant’s cloud security division and Israel research group. While Wiz staffers and the company’s investors are certainly celebrating this week, there’s still a major hurdle.The sheer size of the break fee, which is one of the largest ever at $3.2bn, is a sign of how difficult it may be to get past regulators.Job movesRathbones has appointed former banker Jonathan Sorrell as its next chief executive as Paul Stockton prepares to step down from the role after 16 years at the UK wealth manager.The British Business Bank and Patrick Healy, the chief executive of Hellman & Friedman, have backed venture capital firm Thena Capital, which recently raised £27mn for its latest fund. The firm is led by Pamela Walker Geddes, Esther Reynal de St Michel Richardot and Tatum Getty.Apex Group has hired Regina Gannon as global chief business development officer. She was previously a managing director at BlackRock.Smart readsStructural hedges The UK’s largest high street lenders have leaned into hedging strategies to smooth out volatile earnings, the FT explains. Meet: “the caterpillar”.Hostile-to-friends The $11bn deal for Beacon Roofing Supply shows the perks of playing hard to get, Lex writes.A space odyssey A crypto billionaire is using his fortune to finance the world’s first commercial space station, reports Bloomberg.News round-upJacobs clinches $11bn hostile all-cash deal for roofing supplies group (FT)Accenture warns Elon Musk’s Doge-led spending crackdown is hitting revenues (FT)Norway’s oil fund strikes £570mn deal to buy quarter of Covent Garden (FT)Munich Re to buy Next Insurance to target ‘significant’ opportunities (FT)CVC says US tariff ‘chopping and changing’ is weighing on deals (FT)Big Four accountants attack IRS over ‘capricious’ US tax treatment of Coca-Cola (FT)
