Hello and welcome to Alts Cafe.
A curated pour of the week’s most important alt investing stories, customized and brewed to your liking.
Highlights:
- Private Equity & Private Credit: Franchise investment platform FranShares is shutting down at the end of March
- Sports: American sports owners are feuding over control of a French soccer club
- Prediction Markets: Are Kalshi and Polymarket on borrowed time?
- Startups & VC: Crowdcube listed its first offering through the London Stock Exchange’s PISCES
- 🇰🇷 International Investing: South Korean stocks dive as the won hits a 17-year low amid escalating Iran conflict fears
- Music & Film: Primary Wave is about to acquire Kobalt in one of the biggest catalog consolidations ever
- Crypto: Binance secretly processed billions of dollars tied to Iranian funds
- Collectibles, Culture and Luxury: Triceratops skeleton heads to auction
- Precious Metals and Gems: Gold prices surge on Middle East turmoil, making shipwreck recovery economics even more lucrative
- Real Estate: Congress is considering legislation that would raise loan limits for multifamily housing
- Artwork: Kossoff masterpiece smashes estimates in London
- Farmland: U.S. peanut exports are surging after China imposed steep tariffs on American peanuts
- Wine, Whiskey & Spirits: The acquisition plan for Whisky I is complete
Table of Contents
International Investing
Around the world…
- 🇰🇷 South Korean stocks dive as the won hits a 17-year low amid escalating Iran conflict fears
- 🇳🇱 The Netherlands backs down on its wealth tax overhaul after investor backlash
- 🇻🇳 Vietnam becomes the first Southeast Asian nation to implement a sweeping AI regulation law
- 🇳🇵 Nepal elects a former rapper as prime minister after a landslide anti-establishment victory
Precious Metals
- Gold prices surge on Middle East turmoil
- The U.S. and China are pressuring Ghana to pause a proposed gold royalty hike that could reshape mining economics
- AngloGold Ashanti posts a profit surge thanks to record gold prices and stronger production output
Surge in gold prices boosts shipwreck recovery economics
Maritime I is our investment with Oceyon, a data-driven maritime recovery company using proprietary AI, robotics, and 75 years of archival intelligence to locate and recover valuable cargo from shipwrecks.
If you’ve been watching from the shoreline, this is the moment to come on board!
This deal is closing soon. Express interest now.
Sports
- American sports owners are feuding over control of a French soccer club
- Tom Brady’s Fanatics-backed football event may be moving from Riyadh to Los Angeles as geopolitical tensions complicate the Saudi-hosted plans
- Billionaire investor Alex Lasry says NBA Europe could reshape global basketball the way soccer leagues transformed international football
- A Columbia tennis player says he claimed $150K from the Australian Open through prize money and bonuses
- A group including Drew Brees is reportedly exploring a bid to buy the San Diego Padres
- The WNBA players’ union is signaling progress as revenue sharing gains traction in labor talks
- NFL media negotiations could mean higher prices passed through to fans
Prediction Markets
- Men’s college basketball became Kalshi’s most bet-on sport in February as March Madness speculation heats up
- A former Trump chief of staff is challenging the legality of sports prediction markets
- The prediction market industry is one new CFTC chair away from ceasing to exist entirely
Are Kalshi and Polymarket on borrowed time?
Nobody and I mean NOBODY has been on top of the prediction market madness like Ben Horney at Front Office Sports.
These companies are acting like they’re invincible. But as the excesses of this industry continue to make headlines (betting on death, betting on nuclear war, etc), two things are becoming clear to me:
1) The public is definitely *not* on board with all this, and 2) These companies are one new CFTC chair away from having their licenses yanked. As Ben notes, a political shift could upend the entire industry “in one fell swoop.”
Startups & VC
- Crowdcube listed its first offering through the London Stock Exchange’s PISCES — a new platform for private share trading
- Autonomous driving startup Wayve has raised a $1.2B funding round ahead of planned robotaxi trials in London
- AI startup Anthropic has sued the U.S. Defense Department over a supply chain risk designation
- A new PitchBook report explores the future valuation and financial model behind SpaceX
Music & Film
- Primary Wave is about to acquire Kobalt in one of the biggest catalog consolidations ever
- AMC screens a short film made with AI
- The rise, fall, and (slight) rise of DVDs
- Grand Prix races will be shown in IMAX theaters
- A new wave of algorithmically driven tracks is fueling the viral rise of phonk music on YouTube and TikTok
- Americans now listen to podcasts more often than talk radio
- Why older songs may become more valuable over time
- Netflix is developing a new reality competition series based onMonopoly
Crypto
- Binance secretly processed billions of dollars tied to Iranian funds
- Crypto venture funding is rebounding with capital up 50% YoY, despite fewer deals
- Coinbase is expanding beyond crypto as it launches stock trading and ETFs in a push toward becoming a financial “everything app”
Collectibles, Culture and Luxury
- Triceratops skeleton heads to auction
- A pair of Hulk Hogan’s bloodstained WrestleMania I boots sold for $1 million
- A rare Michael Jordan collectible just set a new record as his North Carolina Sports Illustrated cover sold for $229K
- The collector car market showed mixed signals as Broad Arrow’s Amelia Island auction delivered strong results for Ferraris and Porsches while some modern exotics struggled to meet estimates
Auto I Update
Global markets have been volatile recently, but demand for scarce collector cars has actually strengthened.
David Spickett and the Auto I team have secured a buyer for the Ferrari 360 Challenge, with the sale expected to close within two weeks. The exit is projected to deliver roughly a 7% profit (about 73% annualized given the short holding period).
Interest is also building around the Mercedes-Benz SLS, with a potential exit targeted for April. Once the Ferrari transaction settles, capital will likely be redeployed into the next opportunity, potentially a Lamborghini Diablo.
Another update will follow once the Ferrari sale completes and the next acquisition is confirmed.
Private Equity & Private Credit
- Franchise investment firm FranShares is shutting down at the end of March
- Fitch says U.S. private credit defaults hit a record 9.2% in 2025
- Wall Street’s private credit boom could face a reckoning as an exodus of money threatens the industry’s growth
- Hunter Point says Japan’s emerging GP landscape is ripe for future stakes deals
- Capital Group and KKR are teaming up to launch a private equity fund aimed at everyday investors
- Ares has quietly closed an $850M continuation fund for Convergint
- BCREd investors requested elevated withdrawals, but the fund paid redemption requests in full
FranShares is shutting down
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Franchise investment platform FranShares is shutting down after being able to secure additional funding.
FranShares was was among the first platforms to create fractional franchise investing FranShares’ core idea was letting many investors buy small equity stakes in individual franchise locations (or portfolios of locations).
What does this mean for FranShares investors?
To be candid: We don’t know.
Kenny’s email was oddly unspecific, and didn’t provide any resources for investors. In my opinion (and the opinion of other community members who prefer to stay anonymous) communication from the FranShares team lately has not been good lately.
We know a few of you here in the Altea community have invested into FranShares offerings in the past, and are (rightfully) concerned about what this means for your shares.
I have emailed Kenny to find out more, and have not yet heard back.
Investor Bob McRae shares our concern:
“Unfortunately, I am investor in the TNT fund of Franshares. I will be following up with Kenny with some detailed requests for clarification.
If there are any Franshares investors who’d like to join me in this communication, I’ll be happy to take the lead. I suspect we’ll have a better chance of getting information as a group than a bunch of single requests.
Message me and I will collaborate with and loop you into communications.”
Have you invested with FranShares?
If you’ve invested with FranShares and would like some assistance, we can try and help.
Real Estate
- Congress is considering legislation that would raise loan limits for multifamily housing
- Atlanta is projected to rank second among US metros for multifamily rent growth in 2026
- Logistics and manufacturing demand is fueling continued growth in the industrial real estate sector
- A new RentCafe market snapshot highlights U.S. cities to watch in the rental market this year
1031 like-kind exchange myths
Altea member Matt Belcher has a good article highlighting some of the facts about what qualifies for a 1031 exchange.
Artwork
- A blockbuster Sotheby’s evening sale featuring Bacon, Freud, and Basquiat signals continued strength at the top of the art market
- Christie’s is leaning into pop culture with a dedicated anime and manga art auction in New York
Kossoff Masterpiece Smashes Estimates
Last week Wyatt told y’all to keep an eye on the London art auctions, and hoo boy did last night’s Sotheby’s event deliver.
There was no question what caused the biggest splash at last night’s Sotheby’s auction in London – 10 bidders made Leon Kossoff’s Children’s Swimming Pool, 11 o’clock Saturday Morning, August, a record breaker.
The painting, widely regarded as his masterpiece, went for $7 million after a five-minute flurry of bids – almost seven times its high estimate and breaking his previous $1.86 million auction record.
Farmland
- U.S. peanut exports are surging after China imposed steep tariffs on American peanuts
- Ukraine expands farmland exports through new Black Sea routes
- A new analysis highlights how global farmland values are diverging sharply by region
Wine, Whiskey & Spirits
- A collector’s trove is heading to the block as a million-dollar whiskey collection goes to auction
- Sotheby’s is offering a remarkable cellar as one of the largest private wine collections ever heads to auction
Whisky I: Proposed Cask Portfolio
Whisky I will be a Japanese Whiskey Cask Fund and partnership with dekantā, one of the most respected and established platforms in the Japanese whisky ecosystem.
We’ve just finished modeling the acquisition plan, and the numbers are looking good.
- We plan to acquire 11 casks from 4 distilleries
- The casks will be multi-vintage with staggered maturities, meaning multiple exit windows rather than a single realization event
- This SPV will be open to accredited investors only
- It will have a $10,000 investment minimum.
Full deal memo coming soon.
In the meantime, if you’re accredited, express interest below to see the full acquisition plan.
See you next time, Stefan
