TheChek News Flow

The company is eyeing a takeover of Australian shoe retailer and wholesaler Accent, a distributor for Hoka, Skechers, Vans and others.

Mike Ashley‘s Frasers Group is on the acquisition trail again.

Frasers on Monday said it has made an all-cash take over offer for Accent Group. The per-share cash offer of 65 cents in Australian dollars is for the shares of Accent that Frasers doesn’t currently own, with a total value pegged at 316 million in Australian dollars or $225.1 million. The transaction is called an on-market takeover offer, meaning that Frasers will begin acquiring Accent shares on the open market beginning on June 30, 2026, with plans to conclude purchases on July 30, unless the offer is withdrawn or the offer period is extended.

According to Frasers, it already holds a 22.9 percent stake in Accent. The Bidder’s Statement, on file with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, does not include any conditions connected to the offer. Frasers disclosed on Aug. 28, 2024 that it had acquired a 14.65 percent “strategic investment” in Accent.

Thus far, Accent has not yet issued any formal statement on the target offer, although it has advised shareholders not to take any action yet. That formal statement, per Australia‘s Corporation Act, is due within 15 days from June 15, the day Frasers’ Bidder’s Statement was disclosed to shareholders. Frasers has a reputation for bottom-fishing, meaning it seeks to acquire companies at — or close to — below-market value. The current offer is below Fraser’s last share acquisition price of 90 cents in Australian dollars reportedly made in February. That might be due to Accent’s first-half report on financials for the six-month period ended Dec. 28, 2025, where it said the net profit after tax for the half year dropped 40.5 percent to 28.1 million in Australian dollars. Accent’s full year ends on the last Sunday of June each year.

Accent is a shoe retailer and wholesaler, as well as a premium distributor across Australia and New Zealand. Among its exclusive distributed brands are Skechers, Hoka, Ugg, Vans, Timberland, Merrell, Saucony and Dr. Martens. Other brands include sneaker destination site Hype, ITNO, Lacoste, Norda, Platypus Shoes, The Athlete’s Foot and others, according to Accent’s website.

When Frasers took its first stake in Accent, it said at the time that Accent had sales of 1.6 billion Australian dollars that came from nearly 900 stores and websites, “consisting of leading multi-brand sports fashion stores, vertical-owned brands, and it global exclusively distributed brands.

Separately, Frasers last year reportedly inked a long-term retail agreement with Accent to operate its Sports Direct retail chain across Australia and New Zealand.

Earlier this year, Ashley had set his sights on German sportswear brand Puma, and currently holds a 5.77 percent stake in the sports brand. Puma’s largest shareholder is Anta Sports, the Chinese sportswear giant that holds a 29.1 percent, followed by Group Artémis, the investment vehicle of the Pinault family that controls Kering Group.

The company also has long wanted to expand its international presence. In 2024, the U.K.-based Frasers Group acquired a non-controlling stake in fashion retailer Hudson Malta, which has operations in Europe and Africa. The “investment” was seen as an arrangement that gave Hudson the rights to operate some of Frasers’ brands locally, including the expansion of Sports Direct across Hudson’s markets.

UK firm’s SMR unit beats competition from GE Vernova Hitachi for its third major contract

Rolls-Royce will build small nuclear power plants for Sweden in a major boost for the British engineering group’s ambitions to lead the development of the nascent technology in Europe.

A group led by Rolls-Royce will build three mini reactors for the Scandinavian nation after beating competition from GE Vernova Hitachi. It is the third major contract for Rolls-Royce SMR unit, whose backers include CEZ, the Czech utility, and Qatar Investment Authority.

The latest win for Rolls-Royce SMR follows successful tenders in the UK and the Czech Republic as governments are backing small modular reactors to provide a reliable source of electricity to meet rising demand without carbon emissions.

Proponents of the SMRs, which are smaller than the conventional gigawatt-scale plants, say they can be built with fewer delays due to modular construction methods — where they are constructed in a factory and then transported to the final site for assembly — and avoid cost overruns. But critics say there is no certainty this will materialise. 

The International Energy Agency has estimated that more than 1,000 SMRs could be built around the world by 2050, with cumulative investment of more than $670bn in the sector. 

Under the deal announced on Monday, Rolls-Royce SMR will deliver three reactors, each designed to deliver 470 megawatts of electricity, next door to the existing Ringhals nuclear plant on Sweden’s west coast.

Peter Kyle, UK business secretary, said the award was a “major vote of confidence in British innovation and our nuclear industry — we are now at the heart of the European nuclear renaissance alongside our partners in Sweden”.

The so-called Videberg project will strengthen Sweden’s energy system by adding 1,500MWe of capacity — about 6 per cent of the country’s annual power consumption — for more than 60 years.

Anna Borg, chief executive of Sweden’s state-owned utility Vattenfall and a board member of Videberg Kraft, the nuclear power company owned by Vattenfall and Industrikraft, said Rolls-Royce was chosen over GE Vernova Hitachi partly to reduce the risk of geopolitical disruption.

GE Vernova Hitachi is an alliance between the US-based GE Vernova and Japan’s Hitachi.

The reactors will probably be built in the UK and the Czech Republic and then be assembled on site in Sweden, according to one person familiar with the project.

The first unit is expected to start operating in the mid-2030s. 

Sweden’s centre-right government has revived the nuclear industry after previous governments closed down several reactors dating from the 1970s and 1980s after several accidents.

A parliamentary election in September will probably lead to a change of government led by the centre-left Social Democrats, according to opinion polls, and its potential coalition partners are more sceptical of nuclear power than the parties that form the current government.

Anthropic, until Friday’s White House move, looked like one of the more rationally valued companies in its peer group

First comes innovation, then comes negotiation. Anthropic’s unfortunate skirmish with the US government, which slapped an export ban on its most advanced AI models on Friday, shows that for any industry, creating impressive products is of limited use if a company can’t sell them profitably. That’s a fact that investors chasing thirteen-digit AI valuations might previously have missed.

Anthropic’s case is, to be fair, an odd one. The White House’s curb on the company’s newest models comes in the context of an already-fractious relationship between the two sides. But it raises a wider question that could weigh on Anthropic and its chief rival OpenAI as they head towards initial public offerings. What if being good at AI doesn’t equate to delivering handsome returns to shareholders?

The stakes couldn’t be higher. Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which also has designs on creating leading-edge AI, went public on Friday valued at more than 60 times its expected $30bn revenue for this year. Across the market, credulity is at historic levels. Palantir, an exemplar of market ebullience, crested last year at 96 times sales. By contrast, older tech companies such as Facebook owner Meta Platforms, Google parent Alphabet and Musk’s Tesla have never exceeded 25 times, according to LSEG data.

Anthropic, until Friday’s intervention, looked like one of the more rationally valued AI companies. Co-founder Dario Amodei’s drive to sign up corporate users for its efficiency-enhancing tools has paid off. Based on its annual revenue run-rate of nearly $50bn, Anthropic’s proposed $1tn valuation, assuming little or no debt, would represent a multiple of 20. That’s roughly where Google started its public life in 2004, and Tesla in 2010.

Even when a company’s products are not taken off the market by political edict, profit depends on being able to extract decent prices from consumers. In the AI world, chipmaker Nvidia is one that manages this with ease, as a 75 per cent gross margin shows. AI model makers, though, may have less ability to dictate terms. OpenAI is considering drastically cutting what it charges users, The Wall Street Journal has reported, suggesting a price war could be in the offing.

Falling prices would be particularly concerning given AI giants — even the likes of Meta and Alphabet — can’t easily compress what they pay for access to chips, servers and human talent. OpenAI is in a slightly better place than Anthropic on that front, since it has spent the past couple of years furiously signing agreements to rent server space.

SpaceX — for all of its quirks — has a core business that does actually have pricing power. Its space launch and satellite communications are practically without peer; the latter makes up all of the group’s profit. The catch is that its jumbo $2.3tn valuation is largely a bet on selling yet-to-be-invented AI applications, over which it has much less price-setting clout.

Granted, Anthropic has bigger fish to fry. For a company that has been de facto blocked from selling its most powerful AI models, questions about the profitability of future revenue might seem academic. But even if Amodei manages to secure a speedy truce with the White House, Friday’s intervention is a reminder that it takes more than dazzling technology to justify a sky-high valuation.

Le projet de loi constitutionnelle, examiné mardi à l’Assemblée nationale et qui octroierait à l’île des pouvoirs élargis, suscite de vives inquiétudes sur les insatiables appétits des groupes criminels.

est un peu le cadavre dans le placard. Un sujet souvent évoqué à bas bruit dans les discussions en Corse, et pourtant assez peu présent dans les débats politiques sur l’autonomie de l’île. Le pouvoir d’élaborer des lois dans l’hémicycle régional, ainsi que le prévoit le projet de réforme constitutionnelle qui sera examiné le mardi 16 juin à l’Assemblée nationale, pourrait-il favoriser l’emprise de la mafia en Corse ?

Devant la commission des lois, le député LR de Haute-Corse, François-Xavier Ceccoli, a levé ce tabou : « Ce transfert du pouvoir normatif interviendrait dans un contexte que nul ne peut ignorer, a posé le parlementaire, le 2 juin, devant les députés. Il y a quelques mois, je défilais à Bastia, à l’appel de collectifs antimafia, pour dénoncer le poids des dérives mafieuses qui ruinent le présent de notre île et obèrent son avenir. Dans cette situation, chacun peut imaginer ce que signifie, pour un élu, délibérer sous pression. »

Quelques jours avant cette intervention, deux établissements de la place Saint-Nicolas, à Bastia, avaient été ravagés nuitamment par un incendie criminel. C’est dire si, dans un contexte violent et d’infiltration de l’économie locale, le débat sur le transfert de nouvelles compétences suscite des craintes.

Issu du processus dit « de Beauvau », ouvert dans la fureur des manifestations ayant suivi, dans l’île, l’assassinat du nationaliste Yvan Colonna, en mars 2022, ce texte confère à la Collectivité de Corse la faculté d’élaborer des lois et règlements dans des domaines à définir par une loi organique, hors fonctions régaliennes.

« Poser la question de la mafia dans ce débat est non seulement légitime mais indispensable, estime Jean-Toussaint Plasenzotti, membre de la direction collégiale du collectif antimafia Massimu-Susini, du nom d’un militant nationaliste assassiné en 2019. L’émergence de cette criminalité singulière n’est pas uniquement liée à un accroissement du pouvoir de décision des élus locaux, mais ce facteur est l’un des fondements de la réalité mafieuse. Cette inquiétude sourde est dans la tête de tous les Corses. »

Une note confidentielle du service d’information, de renseignement et d’analyse stratégique sur la criminalité organisée (Sirasco) de la direction nationale de la police judiciaire a mis des mots sur cette réalité : 25 bandes criminelles exercent sur l’île une « emprise de type mafieux ». La plupart de ces organisations, écrivent les agents de la police judiciaire, « ont pénétré les secteurs politiques, sociaux et économiques » de la société insulaire.

Une emprise très large

Au-delà d’une criminalité organisée jouant sur « la déstabilisation et les manœuvres dilatoires pour imposer l’omerta et la terreur », soulignée par la juridiction interrégionale spécialisée (Jirs) de Marseille dans un rapport sur le banditisme corse, le spectre de son emprise est très large. Elle prospère dans un climat de pressions où la violence est un carburant pour obtenir des marchés publics, influer sur l’aménagement du territoire et avoir la mainmise sur les activités économiques lucratives, notamment l’immobilier, le foncier, la restauration, la batellerie, le commerce, les transports, les déchets…

Sur l’île, les principaux piliers de l’économie, le tourisme et la construction, suscitent en effet d’insatiables appétits : racket, incendies de commerces, règlements de comptes… « Accroître le pouvoir localement, c’est également accroître la pression sur les élus, qui sont les principaux donneurs d’ordre en matière de marchés publics », convient un fin limier, aux premières loges des affaires criminelles corses.

Un chiffre en dit suffisamment sur la pénétration des systèmes criminels dans la société corse : selon un rapport élaboré en 2025 par l’agence française anticorruption et le service statistique ministériel de la sécurité intérieure, la Corse compte six fois plus d’atteinte à la probité que la moyenne nationale. Les deux départements de l’île comptabilisent « 6,3 infractions en moyenne par an pour 100 000 habitants, entre 2016 et 2024 ».

Le champ de ces atteintes à la probité est large. Il englobe des faits de corruption, détournements de fonds publics, prise illégale d’intérêt, favoritisme ou trafic d’influence. « Ces atteintes à la probité ne sont pas toutes reliées à la criminalité, mais on retrouve là l’un des signaux faibles de la dérive mafieuse, observe un ancien magistrat, jadis en poste dans l’île. Certains élus sont victimes de pressions, pour d’autres, cela relève de la connivence, mais cela montre que le mal est profond. »

Un arsenal sans précédent face aux dérives mafieuses

L’ancien préfet de Corse, Amaury de Saint-Quentin, en avait lui-même fait l’aveu. Le 28 janvier 2025, devant les députés de la mission d’information sur le processus d’autonomie, le haut fonctionnaire avait déclaré que le crime organisé imprégnait « l’intégralité de la société corse, jusqu’aux services de l’État ».

Si la chronique judiciaire illustre les difficultés à mettre hors d’état de nuire ces bandes criminelles, les pouvoirs publics déploient un arsenal sans précédent pour les combattre. Il y a tout juste un an, en juin 2025, le ministre de la Justice, Gérald Darmanin, a installé à Bastia un pôle régional « unique en France » dédié à la lutte contre le crime organisé. La feuille de route des autorités judiciaires en Corse fait d’ailleurs de la lutte contre les atteintes à la probité une « priorité incontournable » en raison du « contexte de pression de groupes criminels sur la sphère publique », écrit la direction des affaires criminelles et des grâces.

Dans le sillage de cette offensive, la préfecture a lancé, début 2026, une initiative inédite : une campagne de formation d’un millier d’agents publics pour détecter « les signaux faibles » d’une emprise criminelle dans leur activité. Une démarche qui reflète l’enracinement de cette criminalité dans l’île, où son ancrage social et économique dépasse de loin les activités illicites du racket, des jeux clandestins ou du trafic de drogue.

Reste, en toile de fond, une question lancinante, que le débat au Parlement ne suffira sans doute pas à trancher : l’autonomie fera-t-elle le jeu des groupes mafieux en Corse ? L’exécutif nationaliste, en tout cas, a son avis sur le sujet et renvoie la balle dans le camp de l’État.

« Nous n’avons pas encore obtenu ce statut, ce qui n’a pas empêché l’emprise mafieuse de s’accroître, avait opposé Gilles Simeoni, le « Monsieur autonomie » du pouvoir nationaliste, dans une interview à Corse-Matin, en février 2025. L’autonomie, c’est une collectivité autonome et un dialogue loyal avec un État qui exerce ses compétences régaliennes. Les normes de cette collectivité sont contrôlées dans le cadre d’un système sécurisé. Il faut rassurer. » Y compris dans les rangs du Parlement ?

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Technology champions offer a way to play the boom—but beware of geopolitics

SINGAPORE—The frenzy over artificial intelligence is sending technology-company valuations through the roof in the U.S. and Asian markets. One country still offers some relative bargains: China.

Stock markets feature a parallel universe of Chinese technology champions: an e-commerce giant that isn’t Amazon, a search-engine and robotaxi company that isn’t Google and a chip manufacturer with a four-letter name other than TSMC.

While some smaller Chinese tech companies have experienced bubbly surges this year, shares in larger companies that are investing heavily in AI often cost less per dollar of revenue or profit than their famous counterparts abroad.

“This is an attractive opportunity,” Eva Lee, head of Greater China equities at Swiss bank UBS, said in a recent note. Top companies in the AI field are at “historically low valuations,” she said.

Beijing is backing the AI industry with favorable policies and financial incentives, seeking to build a tech ecosystem that is independent of Washington.

“They’re in a different cycle,” said Alvin So, an equity strategist in Asia for Goldman Sachs. He observed that while the 2022 introduction of ChatGPT triggered the U.S. generative-AI boom, China’s market only found its footing early last year, when DeepSeek released a large language model proving local firms could compete globally.

Alibaba 9988 -0.82%decrease; down pointing triangle has integrated its Qwen AI model into its e-commerce platforms and is pouring $50 billion over the next few years into cloud infrastructure—even designing its own AI chips, much like Amazon and Google.

Alibaba trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 17, meaning investors are paying $17 for every dollar of earnings expected in the next year. The figure for Amazon, which runs a similar collection of businesses, is a pricier 27. “We view Alibaba as a global AI winner,” Morgan Stanley wrote in a recent note.

The risk is that the Chinese companies remain mostly stuck in their own market, which is in the economic doldrums. While large, China alone can’t match the global empire that companies such as Amazon have built.

Volatile geopolitics are a challenge. The Pentagon this month updated its list of Chinese businesses that it says work with Beijing’s military, designating around two dozen new companies, including Alibaba. That potentially limits their operations in America. Alibaba and other companies said they weren’t connected to the Chinese military and didn’t belong on the list.

Buying Chinese AI stocks isn’t seamless for American investors and sometimes is impossible. China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International, known as SMIC, is on a U.S. blacklist and Americans can’t buy its shares. Shares in SMIC’s bigger rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing or TSMC, are available through American depository receipts traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

Some Chinese companies are traded in Hong Kong, whose stock market is relatively open to global investors, and a few, including Alibaba, trade on the New York Stock Exchange. Foreign investors can also buy Shanghai- and Shenzhen-listed shares through a regulated channel involving brokers in Hong Kong.

More Chinese initial public offerings are coming that give investors an opportunity to get in on the ground floor. Memory-chip maker CXMT won approval last month to raise some $4 billion in a Shanghai IPO that will likely value the company in the tens of billions of dollars. It enters a market dominated by global giants like Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron—companies that have recently topped $1 trillion in market value thanks to the AI chip boom.

Goldman Sachs research shows global investors remain underexposed to China. While the country accounts for 10% of global AI-related market capitalization, global mutual-fund managers allocate just 1.2% of their global tech portfolios to Chinese AI equities, according to Goldman.

“For investors already heavily exposed to U.S.-centric AI leaders,” Chinese shares “offer differentiated exposure,” said Goldman’s So.

Some Chinese stocks are already mimicking the U.S. exuberance for AI, bringing their valuations far beyond bargain territory. Zhipu, which is developing a large language model to compete with the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic, listed in Hong Kong in January and its share price is now nine times the starting level.

Shanghai-listed Cambricon Technologies 688256 7.66%increase; up pointing triangle designs AI chips, competing with Nvidia. Its shares have tripled over the past year and trade at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 128, compared with 23 for Nvidia.

Other companies deep into AI, however, hardly look exuberant. Robotaxi leader Baidu BIDU -0.29%decrease; down pointing triangle trades at just 14 times expected earnings. Tencent, owner of the WeChat app that boasts more than a billion users in China, is testing an AI agent for the app that could help users more easily manage payments, food delivery and taxi-hailing. Its shares trade at 13 times forward earnings.

Chinese battery giant CATL, which investment banks say is likely to be a beneficiary of power needs for AI data centers, is trading at 19 times earnings on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.