Wrexham AFC , the Welsh soccer club controlled by Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney and backed by Apollo Global Management Inc. , has been caught up in the collapse of UK currency brokerage Argentex Group Plc . The club had placed £4.6 million ($6.3 million) with London-based Argentex, which collapsed into a form of insolvency in July as a result of soured foreign-exchange trades, a...
Wrexham AFC , the Welsh soccer club controlled by Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney and backed by Apollo Global Management Inc. , has been caught up in the collapse of UK currency brokerage Argentex Group Plc . The club had placed £4.6 million ($6.3 million) with London-based Argentex, which collapsed into a form of insolvency in July as a result of soured foreign-exchange trades, according to documents filed in the UK. The sum exceeded the amount of cash on hand reported at the end of 2024 by Wrexham’s operating company, Wrexham AFC Ltd., filings show. UK soccer clubs are cash-intensive projects, often losing money in their bid to defeat rivals. The involvement of the club adds to the far-reaching nature of Argentex’s collapse. The firm’s unraveling, caused by a portfolio of high-risk US dollar trades imploding in April, tied up thousands of derivatives transactions along with £34 million of loans owed to a company owned by UK mogul and Reform UK donor Christopher Harborne . While administrators overseeing the wind-down are confident that customers in Wrexham’s category will be repaid, others may not be so fortunate, filings show. A spokesperson for Wrexham declined to comment. A spokesperson for FRP Advisory, the firm overseeing the insolvency, said that no money has been paid back to creditors yet and that any repayments will need to be signed off by a court. Read More: Argentex Nearly Felled After ‘Zero-Zero’ Margin Dollar Trades Reynolds and McElhenney bought Wrexham for about £2 million in 2021 when it was playing in the lower tiers of English football. The club’s profile has risen significantly since then, after a documentary chronicling the actors’ ownership and three consecutive league promotions. They announced a deal to sell a minority stake to New York-based Apollo in December, and are now challenging for promotion to the Premier League. Wrexham used Argentex for basic FX services and didn’t have any derivatives with the firm, people famil...
London’s top property brokers, who have overestimated house price growth in the city’s priciest neighborhoods for years, have finally thrown in the towel. Savills Plc — which cumulatively overestimated prime central London house price growth by a margin of 42.7% percentage points in the 11 years through 2025 — now sees back-to-back annual declines. It’s the first time it has made such a gloomy pre...
London’s top property brokers, who have overestimated house price growth in the city’s priciest neighborhoods for years, have finally thrown in the towel. Savills Plc — which cumulatively overestimated prime central London house price growth by a margin of 42.7% percentage points in the 11 years through 2025 — now sees back-to-back annual declines. It’s the first time it has made such a gloomy prediction since the aftermath of the global financial crisis. The broker predicted that prices would drop 4% in 2025 — its most bearish call in years — though that was still a slight underestimate. It sees prices falling another 2% this year and failing to rise again until 2028. It’s a striking reversal. Since the downturn began in 2015 the broker saw prices rising a cumulative 18 percentage points when in fact they’ve fallen by 24.7 points. To be sure, a series of shocks in years when Savills had expected robust growth, including the Brexit vote, the coronavirus pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that triggered new transparency rules for UK property, account for much of the aggregate overestimate. Now the broker sees previously announced measures like the end of tax breaks for non-domiciled overseas residents delivering more of the same. “Despite global wealth continuing to grow, it remains reluctant to find a home in London in the current tax and regulatory environment,” Savills said in a report published this month. “Combined with an already shallower pool of buyers following the end of the non-dom regime, there is little to suggest a return to growth this year.” Read more: London Luxury Home Market Had Worst Year Since Pandemic The broader slump in the London market, driven partly by hikes to the stamp duty transaction tax and the coming so-called mansion tax on homes valued at more than £2 million ($2.8 million), has prompted some desperate vendors to offer discounts of as much as 50% over the past year. Residential sales above £5 million tumbled 18% in the first ...
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Presented by SAP The consumer packaged goods industry is experiencing a fundamental shift that's forcing even the most established brands to rethink how they operate. It's what some folks call the CPG squeeze, or a convergence of margin compression, trade policy headwinds, and the sobering reality that pricing-led growth is no longer a viable strategy. For companies that have relied on price incre...
Presented by SAP The consumer packaged goods industry is experiencing a fundamental shift that's forcing even the most established brands to rethink how they operate. It's what some folks call the CPG squeeze, or a convergence of margin compression, trade policy headwinds, and the sobering reality that pricing-led growth is no longer a viable strategy. For companies that have relied on price increases to drive revenue, it's a structural change that demands new approaches to operations, strategy, and competitive positioning. CPG companies now need to achieve annual productivity gains of 5% or more just to stay competitive. Traditional cost-cutting measures like travel freezes, hiring pauses, and other age-old efficiency drives from simpler times might yield a couple of percentage points at best. The solution lies in a more sophisticated approach: identifying which processes can be digitally enabled before making organizational changes, confronting questions about process efficiency, manual workflows, and opportunities for automation. But piecemeal solutions that address isolated problems can't deliver the systemic efficiency gains that CPG companies now require. This is driving increased interest in integrated technology platforms that can support decision-making and execution across all functional areas simultaneously. The data challenge at the heart of CPG decision-making Modern CPG operations run on data, but of course not all data strategies are created equal. Companies are facing a dual-barreled challenge: they need deep insights into their internal operations, while simultaneously understanding external market dynamics and consumer behavior. Historically, this has meant extracting operational data, which means losing critical business context in the process, and then needing to invest big on reconstituting that context so it can be analyzed alongside consumer and retail data. The disconnect creates real problems. When data loses its business context during extr...
Gigi Luk, CIO at GGL Capital Investment Group, says she's looking at strategies that focus on the global tech supply chain as she expects investors to continue to shift from mega caps to value AI names. She speaks with David Ingles and Annabelle Droulers on Bloomberg's The China Show. (Source: Bloomberg)
Gigi Luk, CIO at GGL Capital Investment Group, says she's looking at strategies that focus on the global tech supply chain as she expects investors to continue to shift from mega caps to value AI names. She speaks with David Ingles and Annabelle Droulers on Bloomberg's The China Show. (Source: Bloomberg)
Ceri Breeze/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Wells Fargo ( WFC ) raised CEO Charlie Scharf's 2025 compensation by 28% to $40M, marking a significant milestone for the bank. Scharf's package includes a $2.5M base salary and $37.5M in bonus and incentives, up from a salary of $2.5M and a bonus of $28.7M a year earlier. The bank's board credited Scharf's leadership in resolving major compliance issu...
Ceri Breeze/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Wells Fargo ( WFC ) raised CEO Charlie Scharf's 2025 compensation by 28% to $40M, marking a significant milestone for the bank. Scharf's package includes a $2.5M base salary and $37.5M in bonus and incentives, up from a salary of $2.5M and a bonus of $28.7M a year earlier. The bank's board credited Scharf's leadership in resolving major compliance issues and driving earnings and revenue growth. Wells Fargo CEO pay aligns with peers: Goldman Sachs ( GS ) CEO David Solomon got $47M (up 21%), while JPMorgan's ( JPM ) Jamie Dimon received $43M (up 10%). More on Wells Fargo Wells Fargo: Unappealing Growth Setup Wells Fargo & Company (WFC) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript Wells Fargo Is Strong, But Further Upside Looks Limited Wells Fargo hires Amazon Web Services exec Faraz Shafiq for AI push Wells Fargo CEO: ‘Growth to be stronger than people expect’
jewhyte AI startup Perplexity is said to have signed a $750 million deal with Microsoft ( MSFT ) to use its Azure cloud service, spreading its business beyond longtime cloud partner Amazon.com ( AMZN ). The three-year commitment will let Perplexity deploy AI models through Microsoft’s Foundry service, including those made by OpenAI ( OPENAI ), Anthropic, and xAI, Bloomberg News reported, citing pe...
jewhyte AI startup Perplexity is said to have signed a $750 million deal with Microsoft ( MSFT ) to use its Azure cloud service, spreading its business beyond longtime cloud partner Amazon.com ( AMZN ). The three-year commitment will let Perplexity deploy AI models through Microsoft’s Foundry service, including those made by OpenAI ( OPENAI ), Anthropic, and xAI, Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the deal. "We are excited to partner with Microsoft for access to frontier models from X, OpenAI, and Anthropic,” a Perplexity spokesperson said, according to the report. Perplexity hasn’t shifted spending from Amazon Web Services, long the startup’s main cloud provider, as part of the Microsoft deal, the spokesperson added. More on Microsoft Microsoft: The Stars Have Finally Aligned (Rating Upgrade) Microsoft: The Market Has Lost Its Mind Microsoft Q2: Non‑Obvious Risks Hiding Behind The AI Boom MSFT led the decline in tech stocks, are software stocks in trouble? The AI euphoria isn’t over as the Mag 7 stocks will continue to post earnings growth
Tesla’s falling car deliveries and declining profitability on the mainland have not stopped its Chinese electric-car rivals from imitating the US firm’s transition into an artificial intelligence entity. Xpeng , Li Auto and Nio , dubbed as Tesla challengers over the past decade, have taken similar steps to diversify into emerging technologies and position themselves for the future of transport. Th...
Tesla’s falling car deliveries and declining profitability on the mainland have not stopped its Chinese electric-car rivals from imitating the US firm’s transition into an artificial intelligence entity. Xpeng , Li Auto and Nio , dubbed as Tesla challengers over the past decade, have taken similar steps to diversify into emerging technologies and position themselves for the future of transport. These Chinese firms are now building next-generation vehicles, flying cars, robots and chips to create their own ecosystems and offer consumers alternatives to existing transport options, competing against their US rival on these new fronts. Advertisement “Tesla’s influence on its Chinese EV counterparts is not fading,” said Phate Zhang, the founder of Shanghai-based data provider CnEVPost. “Tesla’s pivot from car production to AI-related technologies has already inspired some Chinese rivals to beef up their technological heft.” 01:52 China’s Guangdong Xiaopeng tries to dispel rumours that its robot is human China’s Guangdong Xiaopeng tries to dispel rumours that its robot is human Tesla said on Wednesday that it was in the process of transforming itself into a physical AI firm from a hardware-centric business after reporting lacklustre earnings and deliveries last year.
(DAVOS, Switzerland) — At the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, Finland’s Alexander Stubb was asked by Caixin during an event: since U.S. President Donald Trump reignited the Greenland debate, if a “transfer of sovereignty” over Greenland were somehow realized, would it unravel the idea of a unified West — and turn what some are calling “NATO 3.0” into something closer to the Warsaw Pact th...
(DAVOS, Switzerland) — At the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, Finland’s Alexander Stubb was asked by Caixin during an event: since U.S. President Donald Trump reignited the Greenland debate, if a “transfer of sovereignty” over Greenland were somehow realized, would it unravel the idea of a unified West — and turn what some are calling “NATO 3.0” into something closer to the Warsaw Pact than the alliance’s original design? You've accessed an article available only to subscribers Subscribe today for just $.99. VIEW OPTIONS
As reports about a possible merger between Elon Musk-led Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) and SpaceX surface, a post by the billionaire from last year has resurfaced, which seemingly teases possible mergers between Musk's enterprises. A ‘Convergence' In a post back in November last year, Musk responded to influencer Sawyer Merritt after the latter shared a post detailing former Morgan Stanley analyst Adam...
As reports about a possible merger between Elon Musk-led Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) and SpaceX surface, a post by the billionaire from last year has resurfaced, which seemingly teases possible mergers between Musk's enterprises. A ‘Convergence' In a post back in November last year, Musk responded to influencer Sawyer Merritt after the latter shared a post detailing former Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas' views on possible collaborations between xAI and Tesla. "My companies are, surprisingly in some ways, trending towards convergence," Musk said in the post. At the time, Musk could be hinting at increased collaboration. However, it raises the question: Was Musk teasing a merger the whole time? SpaceX IPO The news comes as SpaceX is said to be preparing for an IPO this year, with talks of its public listing surfacing since Musk hinted at such an event at the Tesla annual shareholder meeting last November. Tesla's Q4 Earnings Meanwhile, Tesla held its fourth-quarter earnings call this week, which saw Musk announcing a push towards autonomous vehicles as Tesla discontinued the company's Model S and Model X vehicles. According to Benzinga Edge Rankings, Tesla scores well on the Momentum metric and offers a favorable price trend in the Long term. Price Action: TSLA slid 3.23% to $416.56 at market close on Thursday, but jumped 2.45% to $426.78 during the overnight session. Check out more of Benzinga's Future Of Mobility coverage by following this link. Photo courtesy: Shutterstock
Artificial intelligence is the greatest investment opportunity of our lifetime. The time to invest in groundbreaking AI is now, and this stock is a steal! AI is eating the world—and the machines behind it are ravenous. Each ChatGPT query, each model update, each robotic breakthrough consumes massive amounts of energy. In fact, AI is already pushing global power grids to the brink. Wall Street is p...
Artificial intelligence is the greatest investment opportunity of our lifetime. The time to invest in groundbreaking AI is now, and this stock is a steal! AI is eating the world—and the machines behind it are ravenous. Each ChatGPT query, each model update, each robotic breakthrough consumes massive amounts of energy. In fact, AI is already pushing global power grids to the brink. Wall Street is pouring hundreds of billions into artificial intelligence—training smarter chatbots, automating industries, and building the digital future. But there’s one urgent question few are asking: Where will all of that energy come from? AI is the most electricity-hungry technology ever invented. Each data center powering large language models like ChatGPT consumes as much energy as a small city. And it’s about to get worse. Even Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI, issued a stark warning: “The future of AI depends on an energy breakthrough.” Elon Musk was even more blunt: “AI will run out of electricity by next year.” As the world chases faster, smarter machines, a hidden crisis is emerging behind the scenes. Power grids are strained. Electricity prices are rising. Utilities are scrambling to expand capacity. And that’s where the real opportunity lies… One little-known company—almost entirely overlooked by most AI investors—could be the ultimate backdoor play. It’s not a chipmaker. It’s not a cloud platform. But it might be the most important AI stock in the US owns critical energy infrastructure assets positioned to feed the coming AI energy spike. As demand from AI data centers explodes, this company is gearing up to profit from the most valuable commodity in the digital age: electricity. The “Toll Booth” Operator of the AI Energy Boom It owns critical nuclear energy infrastructure assets , positioning it at the heart of America’s next-generation power strategy. , positioning it at the heart of America’s next-generation power strategy. It’s one of the only global companies capable ...