A Swedish transport authority is recommending a vote against the Europe-wide rollout of Tesla’s (TSLA) supervised self-driving software, unless the U.S. EV maker disables its ability to exceed legal speed limits, Reuters reported, citing a regulatory letter.
In a previously unreported
Aura Minerals board approves up to $200M share and BDRs buyback program
Source link
OpenAI, Anthropic—trillions in wealth are locked in private markets. Banks want in.
With valuations of nonpublic companies reaching record levels on the back of the AI boom, private-market access is increasingly becoming the defining battlefield for client acquisition in private banking.
Consider SpaceX’s public debut earlier this month. It was the largest initial public offering in history, adding $75 billion to its roughly $15.85 billion pre-IPO cash position and creating a market capitalization of over $1 trillion. Once OpenAI and Anthropic go public, the combined valuation of all three companies could be well over $3 trillion.
OpenAI filed an S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission June 8 for a confidential IPO. And Anthropic said Claude Code’s run-rate revenue has more than doubled since the beginning of 2026, underscoring how much wealth creation is taking place outside public markets.
“Much of the current innovation and growth is happening within private markets,” said David Frame, CEO of J.P. Morgan’s Global Private Bank. “Clients are increasingly seeking these opportunities,” he added.
According to a recent Titanbay/Campden Wealth report, the average ultra-high-net-worth investor (UHNWI) holds 20% of their portfolio in private equity, double the level two years earlier, and plans to raise that figure further.
Likewise, 86% of wealth advisers plan to increase private-market investments this year, with 47% raising allocations specifically to venture capital and growth, according to Hamilton Lane’s 2026 Global Private Wealth Survey.
The booming demand has led to a wave of new initiatives from banks and asset managers. In September 2025, Bank of America and Merrill launched the Alts Expanded Access Program for UHNWIs with a net worth of $50 million or more.
Morgan Stanley Investment Management launched its first-ever green private equity strategy, the North Haven Private Assets Fund, in May 2025. DBS Private Bank partnered with Hamilton Lane to launch PATH for Asian clients, while Goldman Sachs announced plans to invest $1 billion in T. Rowe Price to expand wealth-channel access.
But as interest in private equity rises, experts warn that private banks could be caught between long-term wealth building and growing demand for riskier assets. “There’s a dichotomy in the market,” George Walper, managing principal of CEG Insights, said. “Wealthy investors want more exposure to alternatives, to private markets—meaning more risk. At the same time, they want to be cautious and protect their assets.”
This article appears in the June 2026 issue of Global Finance Magazine.
Published on •Updated
The Bank of England left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 3.75% on Thursday, extending a pause that began in December 2025, as policymakers weighed the inflationary fallout from the Iran war against signs of resilience elsewhere in the economy.
Governor Andrew Bailey and fellow Monetary Policy Committee members were widely expected to keep rates on hold and maintain a broadly neutral stance on future policy moves.
The decision came a day after official figures showed UK inflation holding steady. Consumer prices rose 2.8% year-on-year in May, unchanged from April and below economists’ expectations of 3.0%, leaving the headline rate at its lowest level since early 2025.
However, the stable reading masked diverging trends beneath the surface. Transport costs accelerated sharply to 6.8%, driven by higher fuel prices and rising air fares, while food inflation eased to 2.2% and housing costs continued to moderate.
Though inflation remains above the bank’s target of 2%, the figure raised hopes that the upward pressure on prices emanating from the spike in oil and gas prices after the start of the Iran war on 28 February may have been less than anticipated.
Andrew Bailey, the bank’s governor, said the recent fall in oil prices has been “encouraging” while noting they are still higher than before the war.
“Whatever happens in the future, the higher energy prices of the past four months mean there’s already some inflationary pressure in the pipeline,” he said. “The Bank’s job is to make sure that doesn’t turn into sustained inflation above our 2% target.”
Analysts also cautioned that inflation could still accelerate later this year, as higher household energy bills feed through to prices. Lindsay James, investment strategist at Quilter, said: “Whilst inflation was below expectations in May and currently under 3%, it is still likely to jump closer to 4% later in the year due to the coming impact of a higher energy price cap.”
James added that while oil prices have retreated from recent highs, they remain above last year’s levels, suggesting underlying inflation pressures have not fully disappeared.
The decision to hold the key interest rate was not unanimous, with two of the nine Monetary Policy Committee members voting for a quarter-point rate increase, reflecting concerns that higher energy costs could still feed through into broader inflation pressures.
Thursday’s labour market release painted a mixed picture.
The unemployment rate dipped unexpectedly to 4.9% in the three months to April, down from 5.0% in the first quarter, yet payrolled employee numbers fell over the period, pointing to an underlying loss of momentum even as the headline jobless rate improved.
Wage growth, a metric the Bank of England watches closely for signs of persistent price pressure, held firm, with regular pay excluding bonuses rising 3.4% on the year.
“The labour market is still continuing to lose momentum, with the latest figures showing a further cooling,” stated Richard Carter, head of fixed interest research at Quilter Cheviot.
Sanjay Raja, chief UK economist at Deutsche Bank, struck a similar note, cautioning that “it’s clear that the labour market is not out of the woods yet,” though he added that the mixed data buys the committee more time to wait and see how the economy evolves.
The combination of cooling headline inflation, a softening jobs market and still-robust pay growth underscores the bind facing the committee. Strong earnings keep alive the risk of so-called second-round effects, where higher wages feed back into prices, even as hiring loses steam.
Oil fell sharply in early trading after US President Donald Trump and his Iranian counterpart, Masoud Pezeshkian, put their names to an initial accord to halt hostilities, a move expected to restore the flow of crude through the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important shipping arteries.
At the time of writing on Thursday morning, the front-month contract on WTI, the US benchmark, was down by 2.3% to $75 a barrel, while Brent crude, the international gauge, traded 2% lower at around $78 a barrel.
Both remain above the roughly $70 level seen before the conflict, but they have fallen well below the peaks of more than $100 reached only weeks ago.
The deal sets a 60-day window for the two sides to negotiate a final settlement on Iran’s nuclear programme, with Tehran agreeing in the interim to dilute its stockpile of highly enriched uranium.
Crucially for energy markets, it lifts US-backed sanctions, allowing Iran to resume selling its oil freely, and clears the way for tankers to move crude out of the Persian Gulf once more.
US President Donald Trump has said the strait will be fully open by Friday and operate without transit charges, a pledge that has encouraged traders to bet on easing supply pressures.
After signing the memorandum of understanding, Trump stated, “oil down, stocks up”, with hand motions.
The optimism arrives against a strained backdrop.
In its June Oil Market Report, the International Energy Agency said strategic oil reserves across advanced economies had slipped to their lowest level since 1990, with government stockpiles in OECD countries down by 163 million barrels since the conflict began as emergency releases accelerated.
The agency also trimmed its outlook for global demand, which it now expects to contract through 2026 as elevated fuel prices and supply disruptions bite, before recovering next year.
It cautioned that any rebound in supply may be gradual, citing the slow clearance of mines and continued disruption to shipping routes even with the interim deal in place.
Flows through the Strait of Hormuz had already begun to recover, rising from a May low to around 12 million barrels a day in early June.
Equities offered a patchier picture following Wednesday’s losses on Wall Street, where the S&P 500 fell 1.2% after fresh Fed projections showed nearly half of policymakers expect at least one interest rate hike this year.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 1%, and the Nasdaq Composite slid 1.3%.
In his first press conference as Fed chair, Kevin Warsh declined to forecast where rates would end the year and signalled a rethink of how the central bank communicates, dropping the customary hints about future policy direction from its statement.
US President Donald Trump, who had long pressed Warsh’s predecessor to cut rates, was unusually relaxed about the outcome.
“It’s all right. Whatever,” Trump told reporters in France as he attended the G7 meeting.
Asked about the prospect of a hike, he said it was “hard to believe” but that, with Warsh now in place, he was “guided by what he wants.”
US stock futures pointed higher early on Thursday, with contracts on the S&P 500 up 0.9% and on the Nasdaq Composite around 1.4% higher.
In Asia, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 and South Korea’s Kospi both jumped 2.3%, helped by hopes for an end to the Iran war and strong demand for technology shares.
European trading was more subdued, with the Euro Stoxx 50 rising 1% but the broader pan-European Stoxx 600 trading flat.
The UK’s FTSE 100, Germany’s DAX 30, Italy’s FTSE MIB, Spain’s IBEX 35, the Netherlands’ AEX, and Switzerland’s CH20 all traded between 0.4% and 0.8% higher than their Wednesday close.
France’s CAC 40 led the pack and jumped roughly 1.3%.
Additional sources • AP
A new report suggests tokenized securities offer a low-cost framework to rebuild the country’s oil sector.
Forced by hyperinflation and sanctions to embrace cryptocurrencies long before the rest of the world, Venezuela consistently ranks among the top countries for crypto adoption globally, according to a Chainalysis report.
But one digital assets firm believes that it lays the foundation for something big in the Latin American country.
“[Venezuela] has significant natural-resource assets, a large diaspora, and a population that is already familiar with digital assets and stablecoins due to years of economic volatility,” Jesse Knutson, head of operations at Bitfinex Securities, told Global Finance. “These factors could support adoption if the appropriate legal and regulatory foundations are established.”
Following President Nicolás Maduro’s apprehension by U.S. forces in January, a window may be opening.
According to a June 11 Bitfinex report, high issuance costs, protracted processes, and layers of intermediation are “hampering the green shoots of a recovery” already taking root in Venezuela. And while oil production surpassed one million barrels per day in 2025, its highest level in seven years, the nation remains far short of the 3.1 bpd it produced in the late 1990s. Bridging that gap will require foreign capital at scale.
Knutson said that tokenized securities infrastructure could dramatically lower the cost of attracting investors.
“Tokenization does not overcome those challenges, but it does allow the country to put in place a more efficient system with less friction, allowing the country to attract foreign capital more cheaply and a wider universe of investors to access Venezuela,” he said.
Years of hyperinflation and economic turmoil drove Venezuelans to adopt cryptocurrencies for payments, savings, and remittances at a rate unmatched elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere.
A UN report using 2021 data showed that around 10.3% of Venezuelans — roughly one in 10 — owned cryptocurrencies. It also warned that cryptocurrencies pose a threat to financial stability.
The Maduro regime, for example, undermined sanctions by leveraging digital assets to facilitate oil transactions. (It’s worth noting that the U.S. alleged “narco terrorism,” not a crypto-oil entanglement, in its indictment.)
Still, a grassroots familiarity with digital assets gives the country an edge, so long as there are “strong institutions, investor protections, disclosure standards, functioning legal systems, and trusted market participants,” Knutson added.
Knutson draws a parallel with El Salvador, which defied the International Monetary Fund when it became the first country in the world to make bitcoin legal tender.
Embracing digital assets helped El Salvador attract much-needed foreign investment. “Venezuela could achieve similar success by embracing blockchain technology in a way that provides regulatory clarity to issuers while offering robust investor protections,” Knutson said.
Bitfinex Securities itself operates regulated platforms in both El Salvador and Kazakhstan, with over half a billion dollars in real-world assets — ranging from tokenized treasury bills to community bank debt — currently trading on its platform.
Still, the firm stresses that tokenization’s success hinges on legal certainty, enforceable property rights and investor confidence.
“Those fundamentals remain critical in any jurisdiction,” Knutson said.
Contact the author: anoto@gfmag.com
designer491/iStock via Getty Images
Published on
The era of Chair Warsh begins in earnest this Wednesday, as US President Donald Trump’s pick to run the Fed presides over his debut rate decision and steps before the cameras for his first press conference in the role.
Few economists anticipate dramatic action on day one, but the meeting carries unusual weight for what it might reveal about the months ahead.
Policymakers are expected to hold the benchmark rate steady at a target range of 3.50% to 3.75%, which would mark the fourth consecutive meeting without a move. The committee cut 25 basis points in December 2025.
The bigger question is the language, with officials potentially revising their post-meeting statement to drop any hint that the next step will be a reduction, signalling instead that rates may stay elevated for some time, or even rise should inflation prove sticky.
Warsh inherits a far less accommodating picture than the one he faced when he was widely seen as campaigning for the job last year.
At that time, he argued forcefully for lower rates, echoing US President Donald Trump’s demands, and pointed to AI as a force that could expand the economy’s productive capacity and tame prices over time.
Many economists doubted that thesis even then, noting that the surge of investment in semiconductors and computing equipment was adding to inflationary pressure rather than easing it.
Inflation has indeed accelerated since the outbreak of the Iran war in late February, climbing to a three-year high of 4.2%, driven largely by costlier petrol.
US President Donald Trump has announced a framework for a peace deal that could end the conflict, but it is unclear whether the truce will hold, and prices for fuel, groceries and airfares could take months to cool even if Middle Eastern oil flows freely again.
By the Fed’s preferred gauge, inflation has now run above its 2% target for more than five years. Hiring, meanwhile, has remained resilient.
May brought 172,000 new jobs, a third straight month of solid gains, removing much of the rationale for the two rate cuts the Fed had pencilled into its January projections.
Because the rate itself looks settled, attention turns to the Fed’s updated Summary of Economic Projections and its closely watched “dot plot”, the quarterly projection of future interest rates.
According to Bank of America economist Aditya Bhave, the new dot plot could show the Fed keeping rates on hold for the rest of 2026, with at least three of the committee’s 12 voting members potentially pencilling in rate hikes this year.
Communication is the other wildcard. Warsh has argued that the central bank should speak less often and keep a lower profile, on the view that publicly stated positions can trap policymakers into defending them well past their usefulness.
One option would be to thin out the calendar of press conferences, reverting to the every-other-meeting rhythm favoured by Ben Bernanke, who chaired the Fed from 2006 to 2014, when the format was introduced. Leaner guidance, however, risks unsettling markets long accustomed to clear direction.
Adding intrigue, predecessor Jerome Powell remains on the board as a governor, a seat he can hold until January 2028, and is expected to vote on Wednesday’s decision, denying the Trump administration an additional vacancy to fill.
Additional sources • AP
Published on
Elon Musk’s space and AI conglomerate ended its third day of public trading worth roughly $2.65 trillion (€2.28tn), having displaced Amazon in the global market-capitalisation rankings.
The stock settled at $201.8 per share, in a debut week that has rewritten the upper reaches of the world’s equity leaderboard at remarkable speed.
The milestone caps an already extraordinary stretch for the company, which listed on the Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX only last Friday.
SpaceX priced 555.6 million Class A shares at $135 each, raising around $75 billion (€65bn) in what was the largest initial public offering in history, comfortably eclipsing the $29.4 billion (€25.3bn) that Saudi Aramco raised in 2019.
The company also increased the total capital raised to $85.7 billion (€73.8bn) after underwriters exercised the “greenshoe” option to purchase additional shares on Monday due to exceptional demand.
At Tuesday’s close, the stock was trading more than 50% above its IPO price.
During the trading session, share prices climbed as high as $225.6, briefly pushing SpaceX’s valuation above $3 trillion (€2.58tn) and, for a moment, ahead of Microsoft as the world’s fourth most valuable company.
The stock later pared those gains, closing below that threshold, but the intraday spike underscored the intensity of investor appetite for the listing.
Based on Tuesday’s closing prices, only Nvidia ($5tr), Alphabet ($4.5tr), Apple ($4.4tr) and Microsoft ($2.9tr) had larger market capitalisations than SpaceX. Eight of the world’s ten most valuable listed companies are tied to the technology and AI sector, a concentration that has defined markets throughout 2026.
Tuesday’s advance coincided with a significant strategic move.
Before the opening bell, SpaceX announced an all-stock agreement to acquire Anysphere, the developer behind the AI coding assistant Cursor, in a deal valuing the startup at $60 billion (€51.7bn).
According to a regulatory filing, a SpaceX subsidiary will merge into Anysphere, leaving Cursor as a wholly owned arm of the group, with completion expected in the third quarter, subject to regulatory approval.
The purchase deepens SpaceX’s push into enterprise AI, a market where rivals such as OpenAI and Anthropic have gained early commercial traction, and it follows the company’s merger with Musk’s xAI venture in February.
The acquisition stems from an option SpaceX secured in April, under which it agreed either to acquire Cursor for $60 billion (€51.7bn) later this year or pay $10 billion (€8.6bn) for a more limited partnership to access its computing technology.
However, despite all the positive news, the speed of the climb has drawn caution.
Sceptics argue that SpaceX remains overvalued, given that it has yet to turn a profit and only 3% to 4% of its total equity is publicly traded.
A fast-track route into major stock indices, which compels passive funds to buy the shares, is expected to further amplify demand for the limited supply of shares in the opening days of trading.
This article does not constitute financial advice, always do your own research and invest according to your specific circumstances.
Emanuel M Schwermer/DigitalVision via Getty Images
CFOs lag on the AI curve, risking the growth and value creation they want, EY warns.
CFOs are sitting on a goldmine of tech potential—but most aren’t ready to dig in. That’s the major takeaway from a new Ernst & Young survey titled the DNA of the CFO.
Finance chiefs want to make investment decisions and create value. Yet, the majority of these bosses remain constrained by skills gaps, limited AI readiness and outdated measurement frameworks.
The London-based accounting firm sourced responses from more than 1,600 CFOs and senior finance leaders across 28 countries and 22 industries. The consensus shows a widening gap between CFO ambition and actually getting the job done.
“While CFO ambitions are clear, there’s quite a gap when it comes to execution,” Myles Corson, EY Global Strategy and Markets Leader for Financial Accounting Advisory Services, told Global Finance.
Consider the numbers: 60% of CFOs wish to lead on value creation, but only about a quarter currently guide value-creation discussions or make key investment decisions.
Another finding from the EY CFO survey reinforces that disconnect: Only 27% of respondents say their organizations view finance as a key partner in value creation.
“Organizations that treat finance as a key partner have a common trait: their finance functions demonstrate insight beyond the ‘comfort zone’ of financial performance,” Corson said. “They are also more actively involved in decisions—and it’s this that builds their reputation as valuable business partners.”
A majority of respondents (68%) also say the definition of enterprise value needs to change. This reflects frustration with traditional metrics that fail to capture newer sources of growth. Nearly half (49%) say conventional measurement tools cannot adequately reflect value created by technology, data and long-term investments, while half (50%) cite difficulty in demonstrating upfront returns on investment.
The report also points to significant barriers in AI adoption across finance functions. Only 21% of CFOs say their organization’s AI readiness is “leading” or “advanced,” while fewer than 15% describe their teams as highly adaptable or confident using new technologies. Less than half of CFOs see strong AI potential in areas such as data analysis (49%), growth forecasting (45%), and dynamic pricing (41%).
However, confidence rises sharply among those further along the maturity curve: 71% of CFOs who describe their organizations as fully AI-ready say the technology can meaningfully support growth forecasting.
Finance teams continue to face structural hurdles in scaling AI, with 61% citing poor data quality, 51% struggling to articulate AI’s benefits clearly, and 50% reporting insufficient skills or capacity to use the technology fully.
The survey also highlights talent pool challenges within finance organizations. About 38% of CFOs say they are evolving faster than their wider finance leadership teams, and 68% of CFOs say they require new leadership styles and skills to remain effective.
Just 12% of CFOs say their transformation outcomes exceeded expectations. Organizations with highly adaptable teams are three times more likely to achieve successful transformation outcomes, so leaders who foster a culture of adaptability and continuous learning are more likely to drive differentiated outcomes.
“For finance leaders, one of the key questions is: What is the right balance between specialist and generalist roles?” Corson said.
In the current high-tech environment of continuous change, generalists with broad experience are increasingly important.
“Finance leaders need to assess how to consistently develop broader skills, whether through rotations or other structured programs, including the opportunity to develop collaboration skills across functions,” Corson added. “Future finance leaders will need to be more than simply stronger technicians: they will need to demonstrate the skills of a complete enterprise leader—financial discipline, strategic thinking, technological fluency, and the ability to lead change.”
Contact the author: anoto@gfmag.com
Dilok Klaisataporn
Japan’s trade deficit significantly decreased to JPY 378.7 billion in May 2026, down from JPY 662.5 billion a year earlier and performing better than the market’s expected JPY 564.6 billion shortfall, the contraction was driven by exports expanding faster than imports.
hapabapa
Amazon.com (AMZN) is facing a possible lawsuit from the US Federal Trade Commission that may lead to billions of dollars in civil penalties, over claims the e-commerce giant misled advertisers, Bloomberg reported, citing sources.
The FTC, which enforces antitrust and consumer
A $60B tech acquisition marks the aggressive start of SpaceX’s post-IPO capital strategy.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. — more commonly known as SpaceX — is not letting proceeds from the largest initial public offering in history sit on the launchpad, and piquing the Street’s curiosity on its cash management strategy.
The day after its IPO trades settled, the company, which added approximately $75 billion to its roughly $15.85 billion pre-IPO cash position, announced plans to acquire AI coding company Cursor in a $60 billion all-stock deal that is expected to close in the third quarter, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
SpaceX first announced it had secured the right to buy Cursor in April but held off due to its upcoming IPO, Bloomberg News reported.
The company did not respond to a request for comment.
The rocket-launch, connectivity, artificial intelligence (AI), and social media company’s IPO placed it in the top 10 U.S.-listed companies by market capitalization, roughly $2.1 trillion. It also placed it fifth among the U.S. companies with the largest cash positions. It trails only behind Berkshire Hathaway Inc. ($397.38 billion), Amazon.com Inc. ($145.97 billion), Alphabet Inc. ($126.84 billion), and Interactive Brokers Group Inc. ($100.39 billion), according to TradingView data.
The company has not detailed whether it plans to use the newfound capital to fund growth, reduce risk, repay debt, or preserve option value. With a $2.1 trillion market cap and near-guarantee to be included in the marquee stock indices, does it truly matter?
“What SpaceX does with cash and its capital structure are rounding errors in its valuation,” Aswath Damodaran, of New York University’s Stern School of Business, told Global Finance.
However, the treasury still has an important part to play, said John Graham, finance professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.
“There are examples of companies that grew too fast,” he said. “They were on a positive trajectory with their strategies, but did not manage their cash appropriately and went bankrupt.”
Graham noted that he was not privy to SpaceX’s capital allocation plans, but typically sees two typical uses for IPO proceeds, depending on the company’s maturity.
Startups often use their newfound cash to fuel their drive to profitability while keeping the lights on. Profitable companies tend to use their windfalls to let founders, early investors, and employees cash out a bit.
“Both of those are probably happening in this case, just on a larger scale,” he said.
Investors can view SpaceX as a mixture of mature and startup business lines. The company’s Starlink satellite-based Internet connectivity unit is currently the only unit generating profits on roughly $11.39 billion in revenue, according to its prospectus.
Whether that, combined with its IPO proceeds, is enough to subsidize its AI and other businesses remains to be seen, and raises a broader question about how SpaceX and the ‘Elon Premium’ will test the market’s logic.
“As things stand today, investors are essentially buying a company whose core business is launching satellites, which remains its largest source of revenue,” said Ismael García Puente, Deputy Director of Investment Strategy at Spanish investment manager Mapfre AM. “Its technology and AI-related businesses are still operating at a loss. We need to see how these segments evolve before we can assess their long-term profitability.”
Contact the author: rdaly@gfmag.com
Analysts see upside for Yum China after Pizza Hut deal
Source link
Hong Kong’s first biodiversity loan backs Henderson Land’s ambitious green waterfront transformation.
Henderson Land Development secured Hong Kong’s first biodiversity loan from HSBC and Hang Seng Bank to develop the city’s quarter-mile-long waterfront property.
The Central Yards project is the company’s flagship mixed-use development on the harborfront in the Central Business District. Although the loan amount remains undisclosed, local reports estimate it at HK$100 million ($12.8 million).
In mid-May, the two banks said the loan would provide a “scalable blueprint” for companies to achieve their sustainability goals and enhance Hong Kong’s position as a leading international sustainable finance center, helping companies integrate ecological and urban development.
The move aligns with what a growing number of Asia-based businesses want. HSBC’s latest sustainability survey found that 60% of Asian businesses now regard climate transition as a primary strategic focus.
The funding would support smart systems to manage and maintain a newly created urban forest with more than 400 trees and 280 native plant species planted at several sites along the “New Central Harbourfront.” It would also cover surveys, assessments, and monitoring of the project’s urban biodiversity, Henderson said in a mid-May statement, along with HSBC and Hang Seng.
Central Yards boasts more than 300,000 square feet of open green space, including the district’s largest elevated garden, which spans more than 160,000 square feet. The first phase of the project should open in the second half of 2027, with the second phase tentatively scheduled for completion in 2032.
Jane Street Asia will be Central Yards’ anchor tenant. The quantitative trading firm signed a lease in June 2025 for 223,437 square feet in the building at HK$137 per square foot per month (HK$30.6 million per month), excluding fees. The deal ranks among the largest leasing transactions in Central in the decades since Hong Kong’s 1997 Handover and the resumption of mainland Chinese rule over the former British colony. Henderson paid a record-setting HK$50.8 billion for a 50-year land grant to the prime site in 2021.
Vacancy rates for premium Hong Kong office space marginally increased to 13.5% in March, up from 13.4% the month before.
This article appears in the June 2026 issue of Global Finance Magazine.
SpaceX is buying Cursor for $60B. What exactly is Cursor?
Source link
Published on •Updated
SpaceX is pushing deeper into AI with its largest acquisition yet, striking a $60 billion (€51.7bn) all-stock agreement to buy Anysphere, the developer of the AI coding assistant Cursor.
The purchase, announced on Tuesday, is intended to strengthen SpaceX’s position in the enterprise AI market, where rivals such as OpenAI and Anthropic have found early commercial traction.
Anysphere is a San Francisco startup that uses AI to automate large parts of software development, and its Cursor tool is widely used by programmers.
According to a regulatory filing, the two sides signed a merger agreement under which a SpaceX subsidiary, X67 Inc., will merge into Anysphere, leaving Cursor as a wholly owned subsidiary.
The merger is expected to close in the third quarter of this year, subject to regulatory approval.
The deal lands barely a week after Elon Musk’s company completed a blockbuster listing, and marks an aggressive move beyond rockets and satellites into enterprise AI software.
At the time of writing, SpaceX shares were trading a few cents below $200 in premarket trading, up more than 4% from Monday’s close and roughly 50% higher than its IPO price of $135.
Tuesday’s rally could see SpaceX overtake Amazon by market capitalisation if gains hold through the session.
The acquisition follows an option SpaceX secured in April, when it agreed to either acquire Cursor for $60 billion (€51.7bn) later in the year or pay $10 billion (€8.6bn) for a narrower partnership to provide compute.
Founded in 2022, Cursor has grown quickly, reporting roughly $2.6 billion (€2.2bn) in annualised business-to-business revenue, according to company data shared with Reuters this month.
The firm had previously raised more than $3 billion (€2.5bn) from backers including Nvidia and OpenAI.
SpaceX merged with Musk’s chatbot venture xAI in February, and this new deal could hand xAI a stronger position in AI-assisted coding, an area where it has trailed competitors, while giving Cursor access to far greater computing power.
Published on
Wall Street’s most famous market label may be outdated.
The ‘Magnificent 7’ or ‘Mag 7’ defined the first phase of the AI rally, as it included Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Tesla, but a fresh grouping is now circulating among investors keen to capture its next leg.
In the wake of SpaceX’s blockbuster listing, analysts are looking to add Elon Musk’s company, as well as OpenAI and Anthropic, which are expected to IPO later this year, to a new market label.
Coined by the British financial firm Vanda Research, the ‘FAB 10’ stands for Frontier AI & Big Tech 10, and takes the original seven companies from ‘Mag 7’ together with the three new market darlings.
According to Vanda, last Friday’s SpaceX IPO offered the clearest signal yet that attention is widening beyond the ‘Magnificent 7’.
After Monday’s close above $192 per share, Elon Musk’s space and AI firm is now the sixth most valuable company in the world by market capitalisation.
The term ‘Magnificent 7’ was coined in late 2023 by Michael Hartnett, who wanted a single term for the megacap stocks powering the market to records.
Their combined value now sits at roughly $22.6 trillion (€19.5tn), with Nvidia alone worth more than $5 trillion (€4.33tn) as the most valuable company in the world by market capitalisation.
The three newcomers represent a different flavour of the same AI boom.
SpaceX brings aerospace and satellite connectivity through its Starlink unit, while OpenAI and Anthropic are among the leading developers of frontier AI models.
According to Vanda, the ten companies collectively map the direction of the AI and technology sectors over the coming decade.
However, a wrinkle in the label is that two of the additions are not yet listed.
OpenAI and Anthropic remain private, though both have filed to approach public markets this year, potentially at valuations surpassing $1 trillion (€861bn) and making the ‘FAB 10’ as much a shorthand as a tradable basket.
The ‘FAB 10’ is also not the only contender.
Bank of America has floated an ‘AI Big 10’ that instead adds the chipmakers Broadcom, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Micron, reflecting the semiconductor rally.
Others have suggested smaller clusters, such as the rival ‘MANGOS’ label, which has surfaced and includes Meta, Anthropic, Nvidia, Google (Alphabet), OpenAI and SpaceX.
Strategists caution that none of the names signals the demise of the ‘Magnificent 7’, which still accounts for roughly a third of the S&P 500 index. Investors are not abandoning the originals but simply broadening the definition of who leads the AI era.
As Vanda frames it, the next decade’s winners may simply need a bigger tent.
Published on
The world’s most valuable company, the chipmaker Nvidia, priced a $25 billion (€21.5bn) bond offering on Monday, marking its first issuance since 2021 and one of the largest by a technology company this year.
The deal was originally pencilled in at around $20 billion (€17.2bn) but was enlarged after demand ran more than three times the size of the bond, according to a person familiar with the matter cited by Bloomberg.
Investor appetite was the headline of the sale.
Orders reached as high as $85 billion (€73.2bn), allowing Nvidia to upsize the transaction and tighten its borrowing costs in the process.
The timing was also favourable.
The announcement of a US-Iran framework deal to end the conflict in the Middle East steadied credit markets, pushing investment-grade spreads to their narrowest levels since early February, before the Iran war began.
That backdrop helped Nvidia lock in relatively cheap long-term financing.
According to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Robert Schiffman, inexpensive long-dated debt lowers Nvidia’s weighted average cost of capital and helps bankroll its AI investments without threatening its AA credit rating.
A company spokesperson stated that the proceeds would be used for general corporate purposes, including repaying and refinancing existing notes.
Nvidia last tapped the investment-grade market in June 2021, when it sold $5 billion (€4.3bn) of notes across four maturities, according to a regulatory filing.
The contrast in scale underscores how quickly its financing needs have grown alongside the data centre build-out and increased demand from hyperscalers.
Nvidia joins a queue of technology giants raising vast sums to fund AI infrastructure.
Meta and Oracle have each issued $25 billion (€21.5bn) in bonds this year, while Amazon completed a single $37 billion (€31.8bn) deal, the largest US investment-grade offering of this year before Nvidia’s issuance on Monday.
For Nvidia, the raise also keeps share dilution off the table, giving it greater flexibility as capital commitments mount. The firm has invested $5 billion (€4.3bn) in Intel, pledged up to $10 billion (€8.6bn) to Anthropic and contributed $30 billion (€25.8bn) to OpenAI’s latest funding round.
Nvidia shares closed up 3.5% at $212.45 after the deal, valuing the company at about $5.14 trillion (€4.42tn).
On the other hand, Alphabet, Google’s parent company, opted for equity instead, pricing an upsized $84.75 billion (€73bn) capital raise earlier this month, after originally seeking around $80 billion (€68.9bn), according to a company filing.
The transaction, which includes a $10 billion (€8.6bn) private placement from Berkshire Hathaway, ranks as the largest equity capital raise on record and is intended to fund the group’s AI compute expansion.
Management has guided 2026 capital expenditure to between $180 billion (€155.1bn) and $190 billion (€163.7bn).
However, the equity move came on top of an already heavy borrowing run. According to its own filing, Alphabet raised more than $85 billion (€73.2bn) of debt across six major currencies and markets in the first quarter of 2026, taking its total debt balance above $100 billion (€86.1bn).
That included a US dollar bond round early in the year, leaving Google relying on both debt and equity financing to bankroll its AI ambitions.
PTC Therapeutics prices convertible notes for refinancing
Source link
