Deal Digest October 29 2026 DoorDash Buys Instacart for 17 Billion Dollars and Xerox Pays More to Owe Less
Eight deals crossed the wires on October 29. One of them is a $17 billion merger. The rest are a robot manicure roll-up, a stock exchange moving into crypto-native perpetuals, two power infrastructure bets, a reactor parts contract, a healthcare buyout and a debt swap. In most of them the headline number isn’t the one that tells you what happened. Here’s each deal and the figure worth keeping.
DoorDash to Acquire Instacart
DoorDash will pay $65.00 a share for Instacart, about $17 billion in equity value and a 26% premium to Instacart’s October 22 close, the last day before the deal leaked. At least 75% of the price is cash, funded from DoorDash’s balance sheet and a 364-day JPMorgan bridge loan, and stock is capped at 25%. DoorDash reported Q3 revenue up 34% to $4.6 billion the same morning.
The number to keep is the close date: end of 2027 or the first half of 2028. That’s 14 to 20 months of antitrust review for a deal that combines two of the largest US delivery platforms, with Canadian and Israeli approvals on top. The release puts no figure on cost synergies. The only savings number in it is about $100 million a year that customers would save when DashPass and Instacart+ merge into one membership. A $17 billion deal that only quantifies the customer’s savings is asking regulators for patience before it asks shareholders for anything.
10Beauty Acquires Nimble
The Boston robotic manicure company bought Nimble, the at-home nail painting robot maker, for an undisclosed price. It is 10Beauty’s second consolidation in under two years after Clockwork. Nimble brings 47 granted patents and more than 6,000 machines shipped. 10Beauty is live at Nordstrom and Ulta, says it has roughly 850 contracts committed, and has raised more than $70 million since 2019.
“Largest player in intelligent beauty” is the company’s own phrase. With Clockwork and Nimble now inside, it is closer to being most of the category.
ICE and Trade[XYZ] Bring Hyperliquid Perpetuals Onshore
Intercontinental Exchange will be the exclusive operator of a new US retail market and clearing structure for Trade[XYZ]’s perpetual contracts, built on Hyperliquid, and is taking a minority stake of undisclosed size. Offshore, Trade[XYZ] lists perps on equities, indices, commodities and currencies. Onshore access would run through futures commission merchants and partners including the pending ICE-OKX venture. No launch date, and every approval is still pending. Stanley Druckenmiller disclosed his own Trade[XYZ] investment the same day.
The figure ICE chose to print is its own: more than 99% of its participation today is institutional. This deal is the other 1%. ICE also says the stake won’t materially affect its 2026 results, which tells you the size of the check, if not the size of the bet.
EIG and Acwa Launch Plenum Power
EIG and Saudi-listed Acwa formed Plenum Power with an initial equity commitment of about $4 billion to buy and build US power capacity aimed at electrification and AI data center demand. Acwa runs 111 assets in 16 countries and $127 billion of assets under management. EIG has committed more than $14.2 billion to power and energy transition infrastructure.
The $4 billion is equity. Power projects are usually financed with more debt than equity, so the buying power is a multiple of the headline. The ownership split wasn’t disclosed.
NuScale and Doosan Enerbility Sign a Manufacturing Agreement
Doosan will build the first article of the upper reactor coolant system for the NuScale Power Module at its Changwon plant in Korea. The release gives no contract value, no delivery date, no module count and no named customer project. NuScale shares still rose around 6% to 7% on the day.
That is the number here. A stock moved on a purchase order for one prototype assembly with a blank where the price should be.
Eagle Point Finances Energy Vault Engines
Energy Vault secured equipment financing from Eagle Point Credit Management for 275 MW of Rolls-Royce MTU reciprocating engine generation, intended for AI and high-performance computing campuses, with deliveries from late 2027 into early 2028. Amount and terms weren’t disclosed.
Energy Vault built its name on storage. The financing is for engines. When data center campuses can’t wait for grid connections, on-site generation is what gets funded, whatever the borrower used to sell.
InTandem Capital Invests in Atlas Health
InTandem Capital Partners completed a strategic investment in Atlas Health, which uses AI to match patients with charitable and government financial assistance for their medical bills. Terms weren’t disclosed. Atlas raised a $40 million Series A in 2022. Private equity buying into patient affordability is a bet that hospitals will keep paying someone to find money their patients didn’t know they could claim.
Xerox Exchanges Part of Its 2028 Debt
Xerox is swapping about $174 million of its 5.500% senior notes due 2028, roughly 31% of the issue, into new 10.250% first lien secured notes due 2030. For every $1,000 of old notes, holders get $690 of new notes and $60 in Xerox stock. Total debt falls by about $53 million, and about $121 million of 2028 maturities moves out to 2030. Settlement is expected around November 13.
Run the coupons and the trade looks different. The old $174 million cost about $9.6 million a year in interest. The new $120 million at 10.25% costs about $12.3 million. Xerox owes $53 million less and pays roughly $2.7 million more a year to carry it, and the new paper sits ahead of everything unsecured. Holders gave up principal for security and a coupon that nearly doubles. That’s the price of pushing a maturity two years out.
The Day in Short
The big deal’s real number is a date, the reactor deal’s is a blank, and the debt deal’s is a coupon. Read the headline second.