Some top investors in Intertek Group Plc are pushing the British product-testing company to engage with private equity suitor EQT AB , people with knowledge of the matter said. Canada’s PineStone Asset Management Inc. recently wrote a letter to Intertek’s board urging them to open dialogue with EQT, the people said. Montreal-based PineStone is Intertek’s third-biggest shareholder with a roughly 4%...
Some top investors in Intertek Group Plc are pushing the British product-testing company to engage with private equity suitor EQT AB , people with knowledge of the matter said. Canada’s PineStone Asset Management Inc. recently wrote a letter to Intertek’s board urging them to open dialogue with EQT, the people said. Montreal-based PineStone is Intertek’s third-biggest shareholder with a roughly 4% stake, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Some other top 20 investors have also been pressuring Intertek to engage with EQT, after it rejected several takeover bids from the buyout firm and said it wants to keep pursuing a potential breakup, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private. This week, EQT raised its offer for Intertek to £58 per share, or roughly £8.9 billion ($12.1 billion). Intertek said Friday it’s rejecting the latest bid, which it said “significantly undervalues” the company and carries “significant execution risk given its conditional nature.” Certain top shareholders believe that while the latest bid is not enough to get a deal done, it’s close enough that the Intertek board should start engaging, the people said. Some of them are hoping that EQT will increase its proposal to around £60 per share or more, according to the people. Shares in Intertek were trading 6% lower in early trading in London Friday, giving the company a market value of around £7.3 billion. Deliberations ongoing and there’s no certainty of a deal, the people said. Representatives for EQT and Intertek declined to comment. A representative for PineStone didn’t respond to emailed queries. Intertek announced a strategic review in April . In its statement on Friday, the company said it had received an “encouraging level of interest” from potential buyers for its Intertek Energy & Infrastructure business.
Devon Energy ( DVN ) launched a new $8B share repurchase program after completing its merger with Coterra Energy (CTRA). The company also raised its fixed quarterly dividend by 33% to $0.32 per share, signaling confidence in free cash flow generation and shareholder returns. The dividend is payable on June 30, 2026 to shareholders of record as of the close of business on June 15, 2026 The merged c...
Devon Energy ( DVN ) launched a new $8B share repurchase program after completing its merger with Coterra Energy (CTRA). The company also raised its fixed quarterly dividend by 33% to $0.32 per share, signaling confidence in free cash flow generation and shareholder returns. The dividend is payable on June 30, 2026 to shareholders of record as of the close of business on June 15, 2026 The merged company will operate under Devon Energy ( DVN ), while former Coterra shareholders now own about 46% of the combined entity. Devon ( DVN ) said the combined portfolio is expected to generate more than $1B in annual pre-tax synergies by the end of 2027, supported by a larger footprint in the Permian Basin. “With the merger now complete and a board approved $8 billion share repurchase authorization representing almost 15% of our current market capitalization, I expect Devon will be active and opportunistic in our buyback program. Devon has the scale, inventory depth, and financial strength to sustain a peer-leading capital return framework while maintaining a fortress balance sheet. We are exceptionally well-positioned to generate resilient free cash flow and deliver differentiated returns through all phases of the commodity cycle.” said Clay Gaspar , Devon’s President and CEO. The stock price traded about 1.4% higher on Friday during pre-market hours. More on Devon Energy Devon Energy Corporation (DVN) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript Devon-Coterra Merger: Good And Bad Devon Energy: The Easy Money Has Been Made Devon signals dividend increase over 30% as Coterra merger expected to close and $1B synergy target framed as “the floor” Devon Energy misses earnings and revenue estimates; shares slip
SoftBank Group Corp. has downsized plans for a $10 billion margin loan backed by its OpenAI stake after facing hesitation from some creditors, people familiar with the matter said. In separate discussions with potential lenders in recent weeks, the Japanese conglomerate and bankers helping it seek the loan have mentioned targeting an amount as low as $6 billion, according to the people, who asked ...
SoftBank Group Corp. has downsized plans for a $10 billion margin loan backed by its OpenAI stake after facing hesitation from some creditors, people familiar with the matter said. In separate discussions with potential lenders in recent weeks, the Japanese conglomerate and bankers helping it seek the loan have mentioned targeting an amount as low as $6 billion, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private matters. Discussions are ongoing and details including the eventual size of any borrowing could change, the people said. The shift comes after some investors who were pitched on the initial plan for $10 billion expressed concerns about the difficulty of reaching a valuation for an unlisted company like OpenAI, the people said. The US tech giant fell short of several monthly sales targets earlier in 2026 after rival Anthropic gained ground in the coding and enterprise markets, the Wall Street Journal reported in April, citing people familiar with the matter. It also missed an internal goal of reaching one billion weekly active users for ChatGPT by the end of last year, according to the report. OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar pushed back on concerns about missing internal targets, saying the company is meeting objectives and sees “a vertical wall of demand” for its products. More broadly, debate is intensifying over whether the hundreds of billions of dollars major tech companies are investing in AI will generate sufficient profits anytime soon. SoftBank has taken billions of dollars in debt to finance its large-scale investments in OpenAI, as founder Masayoshi Son seeks to position himself as a linchpin in the global artificial intelligence boom. Markets have indicated split views on the push. SoftBank’s shares have surged 39% this year , exceeding the 12.3% for Japan’s benchmark Topix index. In contrast, the cost of insuring SoftBank’s debt against credit risks has risen, with credit-default swaps widening about 61 basis po...
stockcam/iStock Unreleased via Getty Images Pinterest ( PINS ) has had a tough last year, at least since the middle of summer of last year. There were a couple of quarters in there where it seemed that Pinterest was losing ground to the much larger advertisers- Google ( GOOG ) and Meta ( META ). Their recent Q1 has shown they are still growing at a good pace, which the market rewarded immediately ...
stockcam/iStock Unreleased via Getty Images Pinterest ( PINS ) has had a tough last year, at least since the middle of summer of last year. There were a couple of quarters in there where it seemed that Pinterest was losing ground to the much larger advertisers- Google ( GOOG ) and Meta ( META ). Their recent Q1 has shown they are still growing at a good pace, which the market rewarded immediately after, with them up 20% pre-market and staying up 10-15% most of the day. That coupled with their recent buyback spree and their still relatively low price has me rating them a Buy. Previous to this quarter, I knew that Pinterest was planning on buying back shares when they announced a $1B convertible debt deal with Elliott Investment Management on March 3rd, 2026. It was funding intended to be used to buy back shares, as it was called an Accelerated Share Repurchase Agreement. They even said in that announcement that they planned to buy back $2B worth of shares total throughout the first half of 2026. This was a very large chunk of shares for a company that was trading at a market cap of around $12B-$13B at the time of the announcement. The thing I did not realize was just how fast they'd go through that $2B and how well they would time their buybacks. They announced on their recent earnings that, "Year-to-date through today, we repurchased roughly $2 billion of stock, or 109 million shares, at a weighted average price of approximately $18." Those buybacks resulted in the outstanding share count dropping approximately 16%. I assumed at first that they had already bought back a large chunk of shares before their March 3rd announcement, and the extra $1B deal helped top that off. But if you look at their stock price this year, you'll see that they must have done most of it during a fairly short window to manage to buy back shares at an average price of around $18. Data by YCharts It looks like to me that to average ~$18 a share, they would have had to buy back essentially al...
International Consolidated Airlines press release ( ICAGY ): Q1 GAAP EPS of €0.07. Revenue of €7.18B (+2.0% Y/Y). Strong balance sheet: net debt of €4,183 million; net leverage is at 0.5x. Liquidity of €12,731 million. "We are on track to continue with the remaining €1 billion of excess cash returns through to the end of February 2027, as previously communicated." Outlook: "Demand for travel conti...
International Consolidated Airlines press release ( ICAGY ): Q1 GAAP EPS of €0.07. Revenue of €7.18B (+2.0% Y/Y). Strong balance sheet: net debt of €4,183 million; net leverage is at 0.5x. Liquidity of €12,731 million. "We are on track to continue with the remaining €1 billion of excess cash returns through to the end of February 2027, as previously communicated." Outlook: "Demand for travel continues to be robust in our main markets and we have seen resilient booked revenue for the second quarter at 80%, which is in line with historical levels. Capacity will be lower than the 3% increase guided at full year results in February as a result of our actions taken already. At present we expect to increase capacity by c.1% in Q2 and by c.2% in Q3. We continue to review our longer term capacity plans. Based on the fuel curve as at 5 May 2026, including our hedging positions and sustainability costs, our fuel cost would be c.€9.0 billion. We continue to execute our hedging policy and are currently 70% hedged for the remainder of the year with a mix of instruments." "We continue to expect to generate significant free cash flow in the year but, given the impact of the Middle East conflict, for it to be less than the €3 billion guided at full year results in February. Capex is now expected to be around €3.5 billion (from €3.6 billion previously). " More on International Consolidated Airlines International Consolidated Airlines: Hedging Provides Cushion Amid Oil Shock, We Still See Upside International Airlines Group: Downgraded To Buy On Fuel Risk International Consolidated Airlines: Still Attractive Quant Rating Check: Analyzing the impact of Spirit’s collapse on airline standings Five undervalued large cap airline carriers amid turbulent stock prices
Earnings Call Insights: PRA Group (PRAA) Q1 2026 Management View CEO Martin Sjolund framed Q1 as “a strong start to 2026,” highlighting “cash collections grew 11% year-over-year” and “cash efficiency improved to 62% from 61% last year,” while noting this occurred “with a $15 million increase in legal collection costs.” Sjolund emphasized disciplined purchasing, saying, “In Q1 of 2026, we purchased...
Earnings Call Insights: PRA Group (PRAA) Q1 2026 Management View CEO Martin Sjolund framed Q1 as “a strong start to 2026,” highlighting “cash collections grew 11% year-over-year” and “cash efficiency improved to 62% from 61% last year,” while noting this occurred “with a $15 million increase in legal collection costs.” Sjolund emphasized disciplined purchasing, saying, “In Q1 of 2026, we purchased $221 million of portfolios globally as we remain disciplined with our buying and take a long-term approach focused on net returns rather than growth for growth’s sake,” and added the company “did also take the opportunity to invest in some adjacent lower cost-to-collect segments where we saw good returns.” On profitability and leverage, Sjolund said, “Net income increased to $28 million,” “Adjusted EBITDA for the last 12 months was up 14% to $1.3 billion,” and “our net leverage continued to tick down, ending the quarter at 2.7x.” CFO Rakesh Sehgal said, “Cash collections for the quarter grew 11% year-over-year to $552 million,” and added, “We generated $28 million in net income for the quarter or $0.73 in diluted earnings per share.” On strategy execution, Sjolund described PRA 3.0 as “our blueprint for transforming PRA into a high-performing technology-enabled global allocator of capital,” and said the company is “on a multiyear journey to completely transform our U.S. technology platform.” Outlook Management reiterated leverage and capital allocation direction, with Sjolund stating, “We intend to maintain our strong funding profile with a focus on reducing leverage to the mid-2x area over time.” Sehgal provided a portfolio investment range tied to PRA 3.0, saying, “We put a target out there that we would be investing between 1 to 1.3 over the next few years as part of our 3.0 plan.” On market conditions, Sehgal said, “As we look ahead to the next 12 to 18 months, we expect portfolio supply to remain relatively stable in the U.S. and Europe.” On technology timing, Sjolund...