Indian vaccine developer Bharat Biotech International Ltd. is considering an initial public offering that may raise more than $500 million, according to people familiar with the matter. Deliberations are ongoing, and details of the deal including the size and timing may change, the people added, asking not to be identified to discuss a private matter. Bharat Biotech didn’t immediately respond to a...
Indian vaccine developer Bharat Biotech International Ltd. is considering an initial public offering that may raise more than $500 million, according to people familiar with the matter. Deliberations are ongoing, and details of the deal including the size and timing may change, the people added, asking not to be identified to discuss a private matter. Bharat Biotech didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Founded in 1996, Bharat Biotech says it has delivered more than 9 billion vaccines worldwide. Its products include vaccines for Covid-19 and hepatitis B, as well as remedies for burns and diarrhea. India’s market for first-time share sales has had a slow start to 2026 after two consecutive years of record fundraising. Stocks have been pressured by slowing earnings growth, global trade uncertainty and uneven foreign inflows. Large offerings in the pipeline include those of wireless carrier Jio Platforms Ltd., National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. and property firms .
TotalEnergies SE bought a bumper volume of Middle East crudes this month on a trading window that helps to set the price of the regional Dubai oil benchmark. The French oil major took 30 cargoes in February, each about 500,000 barrels, on the platform run by S&P Global Energy, according to traders and brokers monitoring the window. Varieties included the United Arab Emirates’ Upper Zakum, as well ...
TotalEnergies SE bought a bumper volume of Middle East crudes this month on a trading window that helps to set the price of the regional Dubai oil benchmark. The French oil major took 30 cargoes in February, each about 500,000 barrels, on the platform run by S&P Global Energy, according to traders and brokers monitoring the window. Varieties included the United Arab Emirates’ Upper Zakum, as well as Qatari Al-Shaheen and Omani crude. Trading house Mercuria Energy Group was the only other buyer this month, taking 10 cargoes, after being the leading purchaser in January. Activity on the window run by S&P Global Energy, better known as Platts, helps set the price of the Dubai benchmark. That, in turn, goes into determining the value of cargoes that originate from the Middle East — a region responsible for a third of the world’s crude supply. While there may be tens of cargoes traded in a given month, it’s unusual for a single entity to hold such a dominant position. TotalEnergies bought the cargoes in a month when benchmark prices, including both Brent and Dubai, broadly rose, supported by concerns over a possible US attack on Iran. Refiners from India — keeping purchases of Russian barrels to a minimum — also tapped alternatives from regions including the Middle East, aiding prices. TotalEnergies and S&P Global Energy didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Wage bill increased by £42m to £428m, accounts show Revenue hit record £703m but profit was modest £8m Liverpool had the highest wage bill in the Premier League when winning their 20th league title last season, the club’s latest set of accounts have revealed. Liverpool’s wage bill increased by £42m to £428m in the year ending 31 May 2025, when a Premier League title triumph in Arne Slot’s debut se...
Wage bill increased by £42m to £428m, accounts show Revenue hit record £703m but profit was modest £8m Liverpool had the highest wage bill in the Premier League when winning their 20th league title last season, the club’s latest set of accounts have revealed. Liverpool’s wage bill increased by £42m to £428m in the year ending 31 May 2025, when a Premier League title triumph in Arne Slot’s debut season as head coach and a return to the Champions League increased revenue to a record £703m. The club’s wages-to-revenue ratio stood at a healthy 61%. It was the biggest wage bill in the division, ahead of Manchester City on £408m. Continue reading...
With original dialogue in Turkish, this shuffling of potential partners in a sequence of meaningless encounters ranks with the finest auteur movies I spent Valentine’s Day not with my wife but with 18 Turkish women. No, wait, I can explain. It’s a new game called Speed Dates – Winter Edition , which I only chanced upon when I searched “Winter Games” on Xbox Live hoping for some Olympics fare. And ...
With original dialogue in Turkish, this shuffling of potential partners in a sequence of meaningless encounters ranks with the finest auteur movies I spent Valentine’s Day not with my wife but with 18 Turkish women. No, wait, I can explain. It’s a new game called Speed Dates – Winter Edition , which I only chanced upon when I searched “Winter Games” on Xbox Live hoping for some Olympics fare. And boy, did I find it! The game is in Turkish, with English subtitles. It already feels arthouse; like those films Channel 4 used to show with a red triangle in the corner of the screen. Continue reading...
Happy Mondays frontman says forthcoming book will include bullet-dodging scrapes in Jamaica and New York as well as ‘bust-ups and benders’ with his bands Happy Mondays and Black Grape frontman Shaun Ryder is publishing a new memoir and will personally sign every copy. “I’ve done more books now, I think, than Shakespeare, sort of,” said Ryder, announcing the release of 24 Hour Party Person . Contin...
Happy Mondays frontman says forthcoming book will include bullet-dodging scrapes in Jamaica and New York as well as ‘bust-ups and benders’ with his bands Happy Mondays and Black Grape frontman Shaun Ryder is publishing a new memoir and will personally sign every copy. “I’ve done more books now, I think, than Shakespeare, sort of,” said Ryder, announcing the release of 24 Hour Party Person . Continue reading...
The British-American author on arguing about Jane Austen, the joys of Jerome K Jerome, and revising his opinion of Philip Roth My earliest reading memory I used to read Donald Sobol’s Encyclopedia Brown stories with my mother. It’s a classic American kids’ series about a boy detective and his brilliant sidekick, Sally, who protects him as they tackle their arch enemy, Bugs Meany, a kind of high sc...
The British-American author on arguing about Jane Austen, the joys of Jerome K Jerome, and revising his opinion of Philip Roth My earliest reading memory I used to read Donald Sobol’s Encyclopedia Brown stories with my mother. It’s a classic American kids’ series about a boy detective and his brilliant sidekick, Sally, who protects him as they tackle their arch enemy, Bugs Meany, a kind of high school bully version of Professor Moriarty. We’d sit in the kitchen together and try to solve the crimes. Of course, for me it was also an opportunity to hang out with my mom. I’m one of five kids; attention was hard to come by. But I was also drawn to the picture Sobol paints of small-town all-American life, which I don’t think I ever felt a part of. We moved around too much. My favourite book growing up I remember finishing JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings at elementary school and already feeling sad about the fact that I’d never be able to read it again for the first time. I have a dim memory that I was in school, because the feeling has something of the flavour of the school hallway and the bright lights on the shiny tiled floors, and the general sense of being shut in for the rest of the day. Some of my older brother’s friends had already introduced me to Dungeons & Dragons, which shaped the next few years of my life. Most of my favourite novels started with the idea of some lonely figure wandering out into the world to see what the world would do to him. (Later, Alexandre Dumas’s The Three Musketeers was another favourite.) Continue reading...
Equinix ( EQIX ) and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) have entered into a joint agreement to purchase atNorth, a pan-Nordic data center operator, from Partners Group for $4B. CPP Investments will invest around $1.6B, owning ~60% controlling interest, and Equinix will own ~40% stake. The transaction is
Equinix ( EQIX ) and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) have entered into a joint agreement to purchase atNorth, a pan-Nordic data center operator, from Partners Group for $4B. CPP Investments will invest around $1.6B, owning ~60% controlling interest, and Equinix will own ~40% stake. The transaction is
Young people in China are embracing a new trend of ‘parenting parents’ to heal wounds they inherited from childhood and redefine the traditional value of filial piety. Many have posted that they are ‘reparenting their parents’ on social media. , the hashtag ‘reparenting parents’ has nearly 60 million views and 300,000 discussions on just one mainland social media platform. In much the same way the...
Young people in China are embracing a new trend of ‘parenting parents’ to heal wounds they inherited from childhood and redefine the traditional value of filial piety. Many have posted that they are ‘reparenting their parents’ on social media. , the hashtag ‘reparenting parents’ has nearly 60 million views and 300,000 discussions on just one mainland social media platform. In much the same way their parents taught them how to walk, such people are teaching their elders modern ways of living,...
Obioha Okereke used to think investing in gold was for risk-averse retirees. “I felt it was boring, to put it bluntly,” says the technology consultant, 29, who’s been meticulously managing his ambitious, growth-focused portfolio since his senior year of high school. But as his tech-heavy investments started to wobble last year and the metal extended its climb, Okereke decided to give gold a go. He...
Obioha Okereke used to think investing in gold was for risk-averse retirees. “I felt it was boring, to put it bluntly,” says the technology consultant, 29, who’s been meticulously managing his ambitious, growth-focused portfolio since his senior year of high school. But as his tech-heavy investments started to wobble last year and the metal extended its climb, Okereke decided to give gold a go. He bought into his first gold exchange-traded fund in September, first with $100, adding over $2,000 more since. It’s a small share of his overall holdings, but one he intends to keep increasing: His gold investment is up nearly 17% since he started, outperforming the rest of his portfolio. “I wanted something that was going to be a hedge against the uncertainty and the random swings,” Okereke says. “Gold just seemed to make sense.” Known as a “ haven asset ” in times of political and economic uncertainty, gold recorded its best year in more than four decades in 2025. Fueled in part by an expanding pool of US and European investors who’ve long underrepresented gold in their portfolios compared with those of their Asian peers, the metal’s price more than doubled from 2023 to 2025 before barreling past the once inconceivable $5,000-an-ounce threshold in late January. It’s since taken a breather, but not much of one, continuing to trade around that level. Gold’s ferocious run is rooted in a structural shift: Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine, the world’s central banks, led by the People’s Bank of China, have become sustained net buyers of the asset, adding more than 4,000 metric tons to their reserves since 2022 , data from the World Gold Council show. Those purchases have created a powerful floor under the market, fundamentally altering supply and demand dynamics and changing investors’ perception of gold’s strategic role. That marks a sharp change from the 1990s, when central banks were persistent net sellers, which coincided with a prolonged period of subdued performance for ...
bo feng/iStock via Getty Images This article updates my review of November 2024 in light of recent performance and current holdings. IDMO strategy Invesco S&P International Developed Momentum ETF ( IDMO ) was launched on 02/24/2012 and tracks the S&P World Ex-U.S. Momentum Index. IDMO has a portfolio
bo feng/iStock via Getty Images This article updates my review of November 2024 in light of recent performance and current holdings. IDMO strategy Invesco S&P International Developed Momentum ETF ( IDMO ) was launched on 02/24/2012 and tracks the S&P World Ex-U.S. Momentum Index. IDMO has a portfolio
Many U.S.-born Latinos feel afraid and anxious amid the political rhetoric. Still, others wouldn't miss celebrating their country (Image credit: Ilana Panich-Linsman for NPR)
Many U.S.-born Latinos feel afraid and anxious amid the political rhetoric. Still, others wouldn't miss celebrating their country (Image credit: Ilana Panich-Linsman for NPR)
When a loved one goes missing, relatives can feel guilty simply for eating, says Charlie Shunick, whose sister was kidnapped. Shunick now helps others navigate a nightmare "nobody is prepared for." (Image credit: Joe Raedle)
When a loved one goes missing, relatives can feel guilty simply for eating, says Charlie Shunick, whose sister was kidnapped. Shunick now helps others navigate a nightmare "nobody is prepared for." (Image credit: Joe Raedle)
Ukrainian women in their 50s and 60s say they've embraced cheerleading as a way to cope with the extreme stress and anxiety of four years of Russia's full-scale invasion. (Image credit: Anton Shtuka for NPR)
Ukrainian women in their 50s and 60s say they've embraced cheerleading as a way to cope with the extreme stress and anxiety of four years of Russia's full-scale invasion. (Image credit: Anton Shtuka for NPR)
Sen. Katie Britt, Republican of Alabama, is a budding bipartisan dealmaker. Her latest assignment: helping negotiate changes to immigration enforcement tactics. (Image credit: Andrew Harnik)
Sen. Katie Britt, Republican of Alabama, is a budding bipartisan dealmaker. Her latest assignment: helping negotiate changes to immigration enforcement tactics. (Image credit: Andrew Harnik)
Britain’s ultimate backstop against flood-related losses is planning to rely more on the capital markets, after its first ever catastrophe bond drew a lot of interest from specialist investors including hedge fund Fermat Capital Management . Flood Re , a state-backed insurance program, now plans to “layer up” on cat bonds, said Chief Executive Officer Perry Thomas . The goal is to create a pipelin...
Britain’s ultimate backstop against flood-related losses is planning to rely more on the capital markets, after its first ever catastrophe bond drew a lot of interest from specialist investors including hedge fund Fermat Capital Management . Flood Re , a state-backed insurance program, now plans to “layer up” on cat bonds, said Chief Executive Officer Perry Thomas . The goal is to create a pipeline of bonds that would follow a model used by Pool Re, the UK’s terrorism reinsurance program, he said. Flood Re’s £140 million ($190 million) cat bond , sold last March, reflects the program’s efforts to tap new sources of financing as the threat of flooding is forecast to become more pronounced. The UK government estimates that there are 6.3 million properties across England that are currently in areas at risk of flooding, a figure that’s set to rise significantly in the years ahead. Against that backdrop, Flood Re has been facing a “capacity issue,” Thomas said. “So you go out and find more capacity somewhere else” and “that’s where the cat bond became very useful,” he said in an interview in London. As commercial insurers and reinsurers face rising costs amid increasingly destructive weather patterns, Flood Re has come up against new financing challenges. It’s now trying out a variety of options to meet the moment, Thomas said. Flood Re has been “scouring the markets” for traditional forms of reinsurance and is now looking for other types of investors, Thomas said. The goal is to “go and try and find different people to provide the money, and we’re seeing quite a lot of that.” Flood Re was one of several new issuers tapping the market for cat bonds for the first time last year. John Seo , managing director and co-founder of Fermat, told Bloomberg earlier this month that he’s aware of 16 new cat bond issuers in 2025. That’s as much as eight times the historical average, he said. Of Flood Re’s bond, Seo said, “We usually don’t comment on explicit investments, but this is s...
US bonds are wrapping up their best monthly performance in a year against a backdrop of rising global risks, with resurgent demand serving as proof that investors still see Treasuries as the premier haven in turbulent times. During a month when warning signs flashed alarms in other markets — from real-world evidence of the disruptive and potentially disinflationary power of artificial intelligence...
US bonds are wrapping up their best monthly performance in a year against a backdrop of rising global risks, with resurgent demand serving as proof that investors still see Treasuries as the premier haven in turbulent times. During a month when warning signs flashed alarms in other markets — from real-world evidence of the disruptive and potentially disinflationary power of artificial intelligence to rising geopolitical tensions and worries about hidden dangers in private credit — traders flocked to US government debt. The result: Treasuries returned 1.5% in February, putting them on track for the best run since the same month last year. Long-dated US debt gained 4% . The rally is a reminder that, at least for now, the $30 trillion US government bond market has the edge as a safety play, despite doubts that have sprung up about the defensive appeal of US government securities under the turbulent policies of President Donald Trump ’s second term. “Absolutely US Treasuries will remain a go-to haven trade,” said James Athey , a portfolio manager at Marlborough Investment Management. “The market is far too big, liquid and dominant for it to be completely or easily cast aside as a flight-to-quality destination.” The gains have given positive direction to a market that has traded in a tight range for months amid mixed signals on US jobs, growth and inflation. While many investors say it will take a concrete economic catalyst for Treasuries to decisively move one way or the other, the flight to quality is providing a baseline of buying to offset negative pressures. “There is a safe haven component to the Treasury market,” said Gregory Faranello , head of US rates trading and strategy for AmeriVet Securities. “We could break through these levels, and technically the market trades pretty well, but I don’t see any fundamental reason for rates to move a lot lower from here.” The bullish dynamic has fueled advances across government bond markets, sending a global sovereign bond...