To mix things up, we thought you’d enjoy three sneaky stories you might’ve missed, and what they could tell us about our world. So strap in and join us to start off in…
- Europe’s next top (banking) model.
Heard of DNB Carnegie? You get a pass because it was only born via a merger in May, but the Stockholm-based player is now Europe’s top bank for IPOs, according to new Bloomberg data. It’s #2 (behind Citi) if you include Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
Now, this isn’t a merger story — even combined, Norway’s DNB and Sweden’s Carnegie were back in the IPO little leagues last year. Rather, this is a Scandinavia story: sure, the region has a long history of banking. Heck, there’s a whole subplot in Love is Blind Sweden: can Meira see past Oskar’s finance bro vibes and embrace his warmth within?
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But now in 2025, the region has raised a third of all Europe’s IPOs. Why? It’s a mix of smart banks, deep capital markets, friendly macro conditions, and rebounding investor sentiment as a rich pipeline of IPO-ready firms senses its moment.
But who cares? We see two possible lessons:
- Economically, it’s a quiet shift in Europe’s centre of gravity away from traditional centres down south to a more agile, tech-enabled, and politically stable north, and
- Politically, it’s the north’s fiscal discipline, institutional credibility, and centrist pragmatism as a counterweight to the volatile populism brewing down south.
- Temple and state.
Heard of Shi Yongxin? He’s China’s most famous monk, as the abbot of the legendary Shaolin Temple. But now he’s under investigation for embezzling temple funds and fathering kids with mistresses. Who cares? Here are some possible lessons:
- China’s faith figures live off borrowed legitimacy: the state giveth and the state taketh away; blessed be the name of the state. But it’s not just faith…
- China’s elites are only ever a mistake away from the edge, whether you’re a mogul like Jack Ma, a minister like Qin Gang, or a ‘CEO Monk’ like Shi Yongxin.
- Hit that subscribe button!
Heard of IShowSpeed? Aka Speed? Aka 20-year-old Darren Watkins Jr from Cincinnati? No? Well first, congratulations on being older than 23! But second, he’s a world-famous YouTube streamer who’s just wrapped a Europe tour, generating 2.5 billion views!
- Lithuania’s economy minister met him on the tarmac with fresh beetroot shots
- He did a backflip at Latvia’s monument to independence (from Russia), and
- So many fans rushed to see him in Estonia, they collapsed a harbourside pier!
And that was just the three Baltics which (thanks to a private jet) he visited in 7.5 hours, live-streaming as he swept castles, threw spears, and battled knights. Then his entourage whisked him away to Poland, where he went extra viral by lifting a Mazda MZ-5.
Who cares? Two possible lessons:
- In the emerging media landscape, it’s all about ties of trust and authenticity, and Speed’s itinerary is a reminder that governments are willing pay for that, but
- While there’s debate in the West around whether that’s a worthy investment, if you want to reach anyone under 23, a small honorarium is a no-brainer to us.
It’s also a no-brainer to China, where Speed’s March-April visit made content that went so viral (even at the above Shaolin Temple), the Party likened him to a modern Marco Polo! For Beijing, the debate is less whether he’s worth it, and more how to dial him up to 11: it’s now inviting foreign influencers with 300k subscribers or more on a 10-day journey.
Intrigue’s Take
So tying it all together, what can we learn about our world? Here are two possibilities:
- Power is shifting: whether that’s from south to north, old to young, or legacy to emerging, the common thread for the winners is agility. And…
- Trust is footloose: whether it’s investors trusting Scandinavian bankers or Gen Z trusting a shirtless streamer, authenticity now travels faster than authority. And that means legacy players, whether Citi, CNN, or Shaolin, need to keep up.
Sound even smarter:
- Another story that caught our eye? Two European players (Portugal’s Galp and France’s Total) are gunning for oil megaprojects in Namibia, potentially adding the south-west African nation to the continent’s list of petrostates by the 2030s.
