Hey! Thanks for being here for Edition #6. You're one of 160+ subscribers, and I genuinely appreciate every single one of you.
At 30, my marketing agency was ruining my life - wrong industry, wrong model, wrong priorities. By 35 I'd shut it down, started from zero, moved countries twice, and stumbled into an industry I'd never heard of.
I had no idea what I was doing at the time. But every wrong turn led somewhere better.
So, if you're still figuring it out, you're not behind - you just haven't settled for the wrong answer yet.
Let's get into it.
Sam Altman has offered to give the US government a 5% equity stake in OpenAI - worth roughly $42.6B at its current $852B valuation - and is pushing other major AI firms to consider the same. Senator Bernie Sanders has a much bigger version on the table: his American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act would take 50% of equity from the largest AI companies through a one-time stock tax, creating a fund he estimates at $7 trillion.
Neither has passed - Sanders' bill is still in committee, and Altman's offer is a public statement (not a signed agreement), but a Verasight poll shows 69% of Americans support some version of public equity ownership in AI.
The Trump administration took a 10% stake in Intel in exchange for chip-factory funding earlier this year. If a version of the 50% fund became law, the US government would instantly become one of the largest owners in the AI industry - sitting at the same table as the sovereign wealth funds the Gulf and Asia already run, like Abu Dhabi's $49B MGX.
Watch the breakdown: The USA Wants To Seize Equity From AI Companies
Also this week:
The UK launched its own £500M Sovereign AI Fund - direct equity investments of £1M-£20M into UK-based AI startups, plus fast-track visas for international AI talent. First investment: Callosum. It's not trying to outspend the US - it's targeting niches America isn't focused on (sovereign inference, biological foundation models, agentic AI) and trying to reduce dependence on US and Asian technology. £500M is roughly 0.08% of OpenAI's valuation, so nobody's pretending this closes the gap - the question is whether it's enough to build real leverage.
What's crossing my desk and my conversations this week:
A banker deploying $500M+ into Africa just opened a New York office specifically to bring US capital into 35+ African countries - Sub-Saharan, East, and West Africa. Minimum tickets of $5-6M, up to $500M+, across private credit, equity, and structured deals. Less than 0.3% of global private credit currently goes to Africa, which he sees as the opportunity rather than the obstacle. South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, and Egypt are getting the most attention right now, with agriculture and energy accounting for 40% of deals. Deal volume was up 23% last year.
A lender backed by a $100B bank introduced me to NAV facilities - a structure I hadn't come across before. Instead of refinancing individual assets, they lend against an entire fund portfolio in one shot, repaid from fund cash flows and exits. $20M-$100M tickets, $2B+ deployed since 2024, across real estate, infrastructure, and private equity. Sponsors need $1B+ AUM to qualify. US-focused, though they'll consider LATAM with a US tie. Most lenders simply don't have the balance sheet to offer this - it sits between bank capital and structured finance flexibility.
The private credit lender list is done - 35 firms, covering data centres and long-lead equipment financing from $5M to $500M+. It's going out publicly at the end of the month. Reply to this email to get on the first-access list.
Two deals I underwrote this week:
A $350M office-to-residential conversion in downtown St. Louis, seeking an $8M bridge loan to unlock the rest of the capital stack. The sponsor bought a vacant 44-storey tower out of foreclosure for $3.6M - under a quarter of its appraised value - and is converting it into 631 luxury apartments, funded heavily by federal and state historic tax credits plus a newly passed Missouri bill unlocking $70M in conversion credits. The bridge sits in first position at 54.79% LTV against a $14.6M appraisal, with $4.77M of sponsor equity already in the ground. The catch: it exits into a $150M construction loan that's contingent on a $25-35M capital raise that hasn't happened yet. My verdict: strong fit for bridge lenders and family offices, weak fit for institutions.
A £16.3M Aldi-anchored retail park in the UK, on 8.5 acres along the A47. £11M in debt is already approved, with £5.3M in equity still needed. Land value is expected to jump 65% once planning fully clears, targeting a £22.2M sale by Q4 2028. The site sees 17,742 cars a day, sits next to a Tesco Extra, and has a 60,000-person catchment - Aldi, Burger King, and EG are already committed tenants. The risk: roughly half the projected income still depends on tenants who haven't signed yet. My verdict: strong fit for family offices and UHNWs, weak fit for private lenders and institutions.
Had a few lenders vent to me about this recently: borrowers shopping the same deal to five different lenders or intermediaries at once, comparing rates, fees, terms, and execution speed, then using the best offer as leverage against everyone else.
Why lenders hate it: they burn real time and underwriting resources pricing and diligencing a deal that may never convert. They also can't tell if they're the preferred capital source or just one of several bidders being used to sharpen a rival's quote - which compresses margins and kills exclusivity.
What they usually say: "We can be competitive, but we need to know if we're in the lead, and we need a clean process." In practice, that means asking for exclusivity, a tighter timeline, stronger sponsor commitment, or proof you're actually comparing apples to apples. Lenders will also flag that a quote is only valid if the structure, collateral, leverage, and timing stay unchanged - terms move fast.
My read: shopping a deal isn't automatically bad - it's normal in most markets, and it can sharpen your pricing. What actually kills you with lenders is a process that's vague, slow, or purely extractive, where nobody feels like they have a real shot at winning. The best borrower process is the opposite of that: clear mandate, consistent assumptions, a firm deadline, and a genuine path to allocation.
A snapshot of what's currently moving through Capital Arbitrage:
Note: For the best reading experience, open this on a desktop.
Deal | Asset Type | Geography | Structure | Size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Miami Luxury Residential | Greenfield | USA | Equity | $40M |
South Carolina Multifamily | Greenfield | USA | Debt/Equity | $93M |
London Tunnels | Tourism | UK | Debt/Equity | £700M |
Pharmaceutical Cannabis | Life Sciences | UK | Debt | £20M+ |
This isn't the full pipeline - just a flavour of what's active. If you're an investor or lender active in any of these asset classes or geographies, reply to this email.
That's all for this week. See you next Friday.
— Jordon
P.S. I get 500,000+ monthly impressions on LinkedIn and a growing list of private capital readers right here. If you'd like to get your company, fund, or raise in front of this audience, just reply to this email.