FT : Darktrace CEO: ‘We didn’t have the valuation we knew we could get’

Darktrace CEO: ‘We didn’t have the valuation we knew we could get’
Jill Popelka has tried to strengthen the cyber company’s operations and cast off the shadow of early backer Mike Lynch

It is 15 months since Jill Popelka joined cyber security company Darktrace, thinking she was taking a board seat at the then publicly listed British tech group. In June she was appointed chief operating officer and she now holds the top job, after a whirlwind year in which the business was bought out by a US private equity firm.

“There were so many things that we didn’t know that transpired,” she says. “I would have been very happy in the COO role.”

In many ways it was serendipitous the American — “Texan, if you want to be more specific” — was already at the company when former chief executive, Poppy Gustafsson, was appointed UK investment minister by the new Labour government.

Under Gustafsson, Darktrace, which uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to detect possible cyber attacks against companies and monitor their IT systems for vulnerabilities, had expanded rapidly and built a strong reputation for product innovation. But it had been held back by a view among some investors that it lacked the operational rigour to support long-term growth. It had also struggled to disentangle itself from links to its early backer Mike Lynch, the late tech billionaire who was embroiled in a legal battle with US authorities over alleged fraud at Autonomy, the company he sold to Hewlett-Packard in 2011.

Gustafsson initially brought Popelka in to strengthen Darktrace’s operational backbone and deepen its US reach. In previous stints at cloud-based software company SAP SuccessFactors and Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, Popelka focused on strategy and customer experience, and became known as someone who could professionalise operations as companies expanded.

“[Poppy] hated process because she felt like it stifled innovation,” says the 49-year-old chief executive, a firm supporter of her predecessor. “Today, we’re not going to over-index on process . . . but we are going to apply what helps us scale.”

Having started her career at Accenture, Popelka is well versed in consultant speak. She peppers conversation with strategy shorthand and glances periodically at a whiteboard listing her leadership priorities: customer excellence; an “unmatched” employee experience (she’s written a book on the topic); the systems needed to drive growth.

Since taking charge, Popelka has hired commercially minded executives and parted ways with others. She has focused on reducing contract terminations, customer churn and doing “some basic things” to enable growth.

That included turning more to third-party vendors that account for the majority of sales in the cyber security space, rather than primarily selling directly to customers.

“Our partners [third-party vendors] are still working off an expectation that we don’t appreciate them and we don’t want to work with them, so I spend a lot of time sharing the story . . . that we’ve changed, and we respect our partners and we want to be an 80 to 90 per cent partner-led business.”

Darktrace was founded in 2013 in Cambridge by a group of mathematicians and cyber security experts, including former intelligence officials from GCHQ and MI5. It listed in London in 2021 and its share price tripled in the six months after it went public. But ties to Lynch, who led Invoke Capital, an early Darktrace backer, were initially a concern. Many of Darktrace’s early employees, including Gustafsson, had worked at Autonomy, an association highlighted in a 2023 short seller report alleging potential accounting errors at the cyber security company.

The hedge fund claims were dismissed by an independent review but put pressure on Darktrace’s share price and forced it to spend much of its public life defending its business practices and governance procedures. One former employee reckons there was some “scepticism about Darktrace along its whole journey”. 

Ultimately, the business was bought out by Thoma Bravo for £4.3bn last year. “The market was in a really difficult place, and we didn’t have the valuation we knew we could get,” says Popelka of the US takeover.

In a dramatic and tragic twist, Lynch, who was acquitted of fraud in a US court in June last year, died months later when his yacht Bayesian sank during a storm off the coast of Sicily.

Popelka, who is wearing Darktrace branded socks, insists the back-story is not an issue with customers. “I’ve probably had 50 to 60 customer conversations while I’ve been here. You know how many times Mike Lynch has come up? Zero,” she says. “It’s so far behind us.”

She is now focused on expansion — tapping into rising demand for cyber security as businesses become greater targets. The company is primed to make more acquisitions, having announced this year a deal to buy UK Cado Security, a cloud-based security specialist.

Popelka is keen to tilt further to the US, already Darktrace’s biggest revenue generator, with 35 per cent of the total. For the year to June 2024, the latest available figures before it went private, total revenues were $690mn and pre-tax profit around $70mn.

In time, the company’s American owner sees a potential to list it again, this time in New York. “I can see that, sure,” says Popelka. If Darktrace is able to focus on its strategic priorities and “get these things right, that outcome will come”.

In a swipe at UK business culture, she notes one difficulty for a technology company in the UK is “just that aversion to risk”. “We seem to have a hunger for it in the US. We’re willing to take on risk, as long as there’s a promise for opportunity . . . But [if] it’s not popular to do that in the market you’re in, then it’s a struggle.”

Popelka lives in Dallas with her husband and spends one week a month in the UK. She grew up on a farm, an only child to older parents. “My mom . . . loved me beyond belief. All she wanted was for me to live next door and make grandchildren,” she says. “She’s not with us much longer . . . I didn’t want to move here [to the UK] permanently until the end of her life. She needs to be my priority. I was hers for a long time.”

Popelka’s disposition is distinctly American: she declares she has “truly the best job in the world” and credits her father for building her self-confidence. “My dad believed I could be president of the United States . . . Not that I showed some major ambition, but he just believed I could do anything.”

That enabled her to leave her small town and study abroad. Later she lived in Germany and Singapore with her family; she has a daughter in her 20s who is a consultant and a son at university. 

She says her early life on the farm provided valuable experience for navigating today’s volatile business environment. “There’s an endless stream of things you cannot predict when you are raising animals and taking care of the land . . . You have to be pretty steady to be able to accept the challenges that come to your desk every day . . . you’ve got to have a really good gift for reframing.”

Despite her self-assured nature, Popelka cannot help but compare herself to her predecessor. “I’m not polished. Poppy had this incredible polish . . . incredible charisma. Her energy was undeniable, and I’m maybe a little more undulating in some of those ways. I have great energy 80 per cent of time, and I can get frustrated. I’m a total open book.”

While Thoma Bravo is not “breathing down my neck”, she says she likes “moving fast” as the competition in the sector is fierce. But Popelka recalls one time she was pushing for a faster rollout of a project despite her team not being ready. “Something inside me was like, well, if I keep driving the urgency on the team, they’ll just get more done. They got more done, but not the right things done. So I needed to kind of reprioritise and reset that.”

As a female tech chief executive at a time when many in the sector, and in the US government, are touting the benefits of “masculine energy”, Popelka is firm on the importance of inclusivity, unlike US President Donald Trump, who she calls “divisive”.

“I sincerely believe leaders are expected to create an inclusive culture. Without belonging, your team can’t grow, cannot innovate,” she says. “I don’t think cultural awareness goes out of style. There’s such incredible value in understanding different cultures around the world.”

FT : Maltese ‘golden’ passports were sold to Russians with Ukraine war links

Maltese ‘golden’ passports were sold to Russians with Ukraine war links
Paid-for citizenship that could be banned by European court was handed to people who later faced sanctions

Russian businessman Albert Avdolyan has been hit with EU sanctions over Moscow’s war in Ukraine, but can partially circumvent the bloc’s travel ban thanks to a Maltese passport he bought under a “golden” visa scheme that faces a European court ruling on its future this week.

Avdolyan, who received his passport in 2015, is one of seven people who acquired Maltese citizenship and were later hit by US, EU or Ukrainian sanctions over Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to a tally by the Financial Times based on names published in the country’s Government Gazette and leaked documents.

The passport-holders are among a larger group of 16 people who successfully paid for Maltese citizenship despite being politically exposed individuals, or who later appeared on sanctions lists or were convicted of crimes.

Malta is the last EU country that still offers citizenship for sale, drawing ire from the European Commission, which has taken the country to the European Court of Justice in a bid to halt the scheme.

The commission has argued the scheme “undermines both the essence and the integrity of EU citizenship”. The court is expected to rule on Tuesday.

Schemes offering citizenship or residency for cash have been common in Europe and the Caribbean for decades, but have drawn criticism. When the UK scrapped its golden visas, it said the scheme had given “opportunities for corrupt elites to access the UK”. The European Commission has said such programmes pose “significant risks, including corruption, money laundering and tax evasion”.

“It’s an insurance policy for some, it is an exit strategy for some . . . these schemes are very problematic for several reasons,” said Eka Rostomashvili of Transparency International. “It opens the EU’s doors, so not just Malta’s doors.”

Rostomashvili said it was a “trend” in Malta and other countries offering cash for citizenship that people would apply for passports “just before sanctions were placed on them or just before a big scandal would break and criminal prosecution would begin”.

People purchasing Maltese passports become EU citizens with the right to live inside the bloc. They can open EU bank accounts and businesses easily, and travel to many other countries without a visa.

Applying for citizenship in 2014, Avdolyan praised Malta’s “reliability, security, peace, quietness and pleasant people”.

Also among those who received Maltese passports were three individuals subsequently subject to US sanctions over the war in Ukraine, and three others sanctioned by Kyiv.

The sanctioned individuals include Evgeniya Vladimirovna Bernova, who the US accused of “deceptively acquir[ing] dual-use equipment” that could be used for military purposes “on behalf of Russian end users”. The US said she had “facilitated the export of equipment . . . to intended government end users in Russia” by a Malta-based company she operated.

Bernova said she had “acquired Maltese citizenship pursuant to a thorough and multi-tiered due diligence process” and that she had “genuine links to Malta”, including a business she said was an “actual investment in Malta, and nothing illicit or hidden”. She said she had invested in film production on the island and also had “deeply personal reasons” for pursuing citizenship.

Bernova said the sanctions listing was a “misapprehension by US authorities”.

At least one of the Maltese passports has subsequently been revoked.

In addition to people later sanctioned or convicted, those with paid-for Maltese citizenship also include political figures. So-called politically exposed individuals are treated by regulators as bearing a particular risk of corruption.

Three members of the Saudi royal family — Prince Khaled and his sons Bader and Mishaal — received Maltese passports. There was no immediate response to a request for comment from Prince Khaled and his family through their company.

The Maltese government also gazetted a “Gilberto Eduardo Gerardo Cojuangco Teodoro” as a new citizen in 2016, the same name as the current national defence secretary of the Philippines. A lawyer for Teodoro said he was “neither a citizen of Malta nor a holder of a Maltese passport” but declined to comment on whether Teodoro had returned a passport since 2016.

No allegations of corruption have been made against the Saudis or Teodoro.

The European Commission said: “EU values are not for sale. Investor citizenship schemes constitute a breach of EU law . . . they should be abolished.”

Malta requires applicants to make a one-off investment of at least €600,000, either purchase or rent a property, donate €10,000 to charity and live in the country for three years. The investment may be reduced to a single year for people investing €750,000.

Avdolyan, who owns coal and gas companies in Russia, said in his application that “as a businessman, the holding of such a passport will assist greatly with my regular trips to Europe and around the world”.

Avdolyan, whose four children and wife also acquired Maltese passports, can still travel to Malta, despite being hit with EU sanctions in February for his businesses “providing a substantial source of revenue” to the Russian government.

His sanctions listings note he is “closely associated” with state weapons giant Rostec.

Documents from the private company Henley & Partners, which were leaked to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and shared with other media, show the Avdolyans received residency cards in 2014 and travelled to Malta four times in the following year.

Henley designed and executed the “golden” passport system when it started in 2013.

The documents suggest the Avdolyans spent about two weeks in the country, supplying hotel and restaurant bills and private jet reservations as proof. The properties they rented — including a “boutique apartment” in Sliema on the coast overlooking Valletta — were selected and managed by Henley, which paid the rent yearly and emptied the mailbox monthly.

Identity Malta, the government body tasked with approving applications, said that “in principle” Avdolyan had fulfilled all the requirements of 12 months’ residency in Malta. Avdolyan said “we refuse to make comments regarding the points indicated”.

Pavel Melnikov, a Russian millionaire, received a Maltese passport in 2015 and a passport from St Kitts and Nevis in 2012 with the help of Henley, leaked records show.

In 2018, Finnish authorities raided his properties in the Finnish archipelago of Turku. He was sentenced for tax and accounting fraud in Finland in February. His citizenship of Malta has since been revoked.

Melnikov is appealing the conviction and said he would challenge the revocation of his Maltese passport, which he said took place “without legal grounds”. His lawyer, Kai Kotiranta, said: “Melnikov has denied any and all wrongdoings in Finland or elsewhere. He has obtained his nationalities based on the local legislations and clearances, which is nothing new or un-normal.”

Melnikov said he had obtained his Maltese citizenship “solely to be able to live and move around Europe, not to obtain any tax breaks. The Maltese passport was only obtained legally, following all legal requirements, and not through any criminal schemes”.

Another example is Semen Kuksov, who was jailed in the UK last year for laundering criminal funds. The Crown Prosecution Service said the 24-year-old acted as a courier “to collect criminal money and deliver the laundered money overseas”.

Amid similar revelations, Cyprus and Bulgaria abandoned their passport sales programmes under pressure from Brussels. But Malta’s government maintains its scheme, arguing it has tightened due diligence checks and barred Russian and Belarusian citizens from acquiring its passports.

“What Malta has done is sort of hacked the European Union,” said Matthew Caruana Galizia, of the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation. “We created this commons in the EU, and now member states are starting to sort of eat [away] at it.”

US President Donald Trump this year announced plans for a US “gold card” worth $5mn. In Europe, countries such as Portugal, Spain and Hungary still offer residency permits for cash, but not passports.

Caruana Galizia’s mother Daphne, a journalist who revealed the nascent golden passport scheme in Malta, was killed by a car bomb in 2017. Paul Caruana Galizia, her son, is now an FT reporter. The trial of two men accused of involvement in her murder began on Thursday in Malta.

The Maltese government did not respond to a request for comment.

Sarah Nicklin, spokesperson for Henley & Partners, said she could not comment on individual cases because of missing information and data protection. She said an individual “may pass all the stringent due diligence tests imposed, but still go on to engage in criminal activity”.

She said that “Malta did actually require applicants to establish a place of residence and other actual links to the country . . . Henley & Partners has, at all times, abided by the laws and regulations in all of the countries in which it operates.”

Henley, which previously received a fee from the Maltese government for every successful application, is now one of many companies executing the programme.

Matthew Caruana Galizia said improved due diligence checks would not fix the scheme, as the problem lay with the people drawn to apply. “It is not with incremental changes that [you can] stop . . . letting the bad guys in. It’s more to do with the nature of the scheme itself,” he said.

Campaigners fear an ECJ ruling in favour of Malta could embolden other countries such as Cyprus to revive or open new such schemes.

“If that happens, we will likely see a race to the bottom . . . in terms of standards, in terms of checks,” says Rostomashvili.

FT : European airlines’ emissions on course to exceed pre-pandemic levels

European airlines’ emissions on course to exceed pre-pandemic levels
Environmental data shows carbon dioxide from flights has risen, as airlines struggle to decarbonise

European airline emissions are on course to exceed pre-pandemic levels this year, underlining the aviation industry’s struggle to decarbonise as it lobbies Brussels for looser green rules.  

Carbon dioxide emissions from flights by European airlines are set to reach 195.2mn tonnes this year, according to forecasts from environmental group Transport & Environment, 4 per cent above 2019 levels.

That volume would be above the 187.6mn tonnes produced by the sector last year, when the industry made a near complete recovery to pre-pandemic levels of flying according to T&E.

European airlines have collectively committed to reaching net zero by 2050 through a mix of new technologies, notably alternative fuels, as well as carbon trading schemes and more efficient aircraft, engines and air traffic management. 

But carriers have complained that sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is too expensive, and not enough is being made, and last month urged the EU to soften some of its environmental rules.

The chief executives of four of the region’s largest airlines, including Ryanair and Lufthansa, have said the EU will probably need to delay rules that require fuel companies to provide airlines with an increasing amount of SAF each year. 

The airlines said that while the 2 per cent required this year was achievable, a rise to 6 per cent by 2030 would be impossible given current levels of production, and low investment in the new fuels by oil majors. The UK’s separate sustainable fuel rules will require 10 per cent by 2030, which the airlines also said would be hard to achieve,

The bosses have also called for the EU and UK’s flagship carbon pricing schemes for aviation, which levy charges on carbon emitted on flights within Europe, to be eased and brought in line with a cheaper global standard. 

In a statement the EU said that the rising number of flights “underscores the need for action to reach our climate commitments,” adding: “Aviation needs to do more.” 

Airlines produce around 4 per cent of the bloc’s total greenhouse gas emissions, with the jump recorded by T&E coming as travel has boomed since the end of the Covid-19 pandemic. Eurocontrol, the air traffic management body, has found that many EU countries already have air traffic above 2019 levels and expects that flights covering the whole of Europe will surpass 2019 in the first half of 2025.

Brussels is currently reviewing the scope of its emissions trading scheme (ETS), the main EU-wide tool for reducing emissions. The scheme currently only charges airlines for emissions on flights within Europe.

Flights outside the region are exempted, and instead subject to the international Corsia offsetting scheme, which charges much less to pollute. This means the most polluting long-haul flights pay less to emit carbon than shorter flights within Europe. The T&E data showed that the route with the highest emissions in 2024 was London to New York, which was responsible for 1.4mn tonnes of CO₂.

The commission said that if Corsia was not strengthened, then it could propose to extend the scope of the ETS to flights departing the EU to other destinations, although analysts have said this was likely to meet fierce resistance from countries such as the US. T&E estimated that expanding the ETS to all flights would have cost airlines about €7.5bn last year. 

Krisztina Hencz, aviation policy manager at T&E, said the review of the EU’s carbon markets was a chance to “rectify a loophole” and expand to include all airline emissions. “The sector continues to dodge the true cost of its pollution,” she said.

Airlines4Europe, the industry’s trade group, said the industry in Europe was “leading the way in decarbonising aviation”. Pushing for even tighter restrictions on European airlines may score headlines, but it does little to cut global aviation emissions — and risks undermining Europe’s leadership in clean aviation.”

FT : Swiss franc surge sparks bets on return to negative interest rates

Swiss franc surge sparks bets on return to negative interest rates
Switzerland’s currency has soared as investors seek a haven from US President Donald Trump’s trade war

The Swiss franc has soared to a decade high against the dollar as investors rush for shelter from the global trade turmoil, sparking bets that the country’s central bank will have to lower interest rates to zero or below to curb the currency’s rise.

The currency, historically a financial market haven because of the Alpine country’s political and economic stability, reached near-record strength against the dollar this week, with the greenback sinking close to SFr0.80 for the first time since the franc’s shock appreciation in 2015.

That has put policymakers in a bind, as they seek to restrain the currency to support the export-heavy economy without provoking a backlash from the US, which has already threatened Switzerland with high tariffs.

Those “cross-currents” put the central bank in a “staggeringly difficult” position, said Kit Juckes, chief FX strategist at Société Générale.

“The Swiss government doesn’t want major disinflationary pressures coming at it again, and so they’re frustrated,” he added.

Yields on short-term government debt have dipped into negative territory in recent days as traders bet that the Swiss National Bank will respond with interest rate cuts. Two-year Swiss yields, which reflect expectations for interest rates, traded marginally below zero on Friday.


The rapid appreciation in the franc risks a deflationary shock for Switzerland, say analysts, exacerbated by the growth impact of US President Donald Trump’s trade war.

At 31 per cent, the “reciprocal” tariffs placed on Swiss goods earlier this month — before being suspended for 90 days — exceed the levies on the EU. Switzerland relies on US consumers for more than 10 per cent of exports.

The situation has propelled the government into a diplomatic offensive.

Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter, who is also the finance minister, held a phone call with Trump hours before he announced the tariff pause. This week she travelled to Washington with the economy minister for a meeting with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, at which she said they discussed “opportunities for enhanced collaboration between our two countries”. 

Switzerland, which has historically sought to restrain the strength of its currency, is no stranger to sharp moves. In January 2015, the SNB suddenly scrapped its policy of capping the franc’s value against the euro, sending the currency soaring.

Analysts say Bern fears being branded a currency manipulator by the US again if it were to intervene heavily in markets to rein in the franc.

Switzerland was added to a US list of “currency manipulators” in the final weeks of the first Trump presidency, in part due to its intervention to cushion the financial turmoil from the coronavirus pandemic. It was removed from the list under the Biden administration.


The franc has also risen against the euro, leaving the export-reliant country in a difficult position with its biggest trading partner.

The SNB has already moved faster than its peers in cutting its key interest rate to 0.25 per cent, and further cuts are viewed as a diplomatically safer option to arrest the franc’s rise.

The SNB held rates well below zero for eight years — in part to stop the franc rising too far — before raising them into positive territory in 2022 to combat the burst in inflation that followed the pandemic.

“If the SNB is unhappy with the strong franc and constrained on FX interventions, lower rates are the only option,” said Francesco Pesole, FX strategist at ING.

Stefan Gerlach, chief economist at EFG Bank said negative interest rates “may well happen”, adding that currency intervention could also be necessary.

Gerlach played down the chances of Switzerland being labelled a currency manipulator again. There is a sense among “adults in the room” at the US Treasury department that this is not a problem, he said.

“It may be an issue if you push down the exchange rate to gain competitive advantage. But it is not an issue if your currency surges and you try to moderate its rise.” 

Markets are pricing in an around 80 per cent chance of the rate falling to zero at the next meeting in June, with a small chance it could move into negative territory later in the year, according to levels implied by swaps markets.

Annual inflation is sitting at around 0.3 per cent, already at the low end of the central bank’s target range of zero to 2 per cent. 

The Swiss central bank is “definitely worried,” said Gregor Kapferer, head of Swiss bonds at Vontobel, arguing greater intervention would be a “last resort”.

“During the last Trump administration they were called a currency manipulator but there were not really any consequences. Now Trump is following through so I think SNB will be a lot more cautious here.”

But Athanasios Vamvakidis, Bank of America’s global head of G10 FX strategy, suggested that the SNB “lean against the wind” with some interventions.

“It’s hard to imagine that the US administration will be complaining about some intervention” given the rapid appreciation in the currency, he said, adding that this approach seemed more likely than negative interest rates.

Leaving aside the 2015 shock, the dollar is closing on its 2011 all-time low against the franc.

“Maybe [the franc] just needs a calmer world than this,” said Société Générale’s Juckes. “The danger is, history says, over time, it gets stronger.”

FT : Vestas warns wind industry is falling behind global climate goals

Vestas warns wind industry is falling behind global climate goals
Europe’s largest turbine maker notes ‘big discrepancy’ between ambitious targets and reality on the ground

Europe’s largest wind turbine manufacturer has warned of a “big discrepancy” between the ambitious targets set for the industry and the reality on the ground, highlighting the steep growth required to meet global climate goals.

Anders Runevad, chair of Denmark’s Vestas, said streamlining the process of securing permits was just one of the changes needed to boost an industry that many countries are relying on to meet their net zero carbon emissions targets. 

The EU, which along with the UK has pledged to be net zero by 2050, wants to increase the power generated from land and seabed-based turbines from the current level of 285 gigawatts to 425GW by the end of the decade.

The industry has grown rapidly, but developers complain about lengthy waits for turbine planning permissions or grid connections. Projects have also been held back by unfavourable terms at auctions for seabed and government electricity price contracts that fail to compensate producers for higher costs. 

“There is a fairly big discrepancy between the ambitious political targets that have been set and then you translate that to what’s actually happening,” Runevad said in an interview. “We’re definitely behind that curve.”

He added: “I hope all these pledges and promises made are turned into real projects. For that to happen, the permitting process has to be improved, the auction process has to make sense for all parties, and we need to see continued investment in the grid.

“There’s a lot of hard work that remains in order to see the fantastic growth that’s forecasted or pledged.”

The comments from Runevad, a former Vestas chief executive, follow the warning from wind farm developer Ørsted this month that Europe’s offshore wind industry risked a “downward spiral” due to rising costs and uncertainty over future electricity prices. 

Vestas, the leading manufacturer of wind turbines outside China, returned to profitability in 2023 after enduring heavy losses the previous year as margins were squeezed by rising costs. It made a pre-tax profit of €705mn in 2024 on revenues of €17.3bn.

Runevad said he expected “some impact” on the company’s US operations from the tariffs being imposed under President Donald Trump, as a proportion of its components are imported, although the “absolute majority is locally sourced”. 

He said it was “hard to say” how the business uncertainty under Trump would play out, with the US president escalating a global trade war, noting that Vestas had coped with previous tariffs. 

“There’s no point trying to optimise a situation that’s changing so quickly,” the Vestas chair said, adding that “more clarity” was needed on policy.


Trump’s tariff war focused on China comes a year into a European Commission investigation on whether unfair subsidies for Chinese wind turbine makers were helping them to undercut competitors such as Vestas and Siemens Energy.

Runevad said that while competition was generally good, “we have to compete on equal terms”.

Vestas shares have fallen to DKr88 from a high of more than DKr300 at the end of 2020, reflecting broader weakness in clean energy stocks.

“I share [investors’] frustration with the share price,” said Runevad, adding that the company would keep working on improving profitability and other long-term goals. “That’s what we should focus on, and then the market will decide the share price.”

FT : Zealand Pharma says obesity drug deal with Roche will help it stay independ

Zealand Pharma says obesity drug deal with Roche will help it stay independent
Danish biotech is developing petrelintide in partnership with the Swiss pharma group

The head of Zealand Pharma has called its $5.3bn partnership with Roche to commercialise an obesity drug with fewer side-effects the “best deal ever”, saying it will help preserve the Danish biotech group’s independence.

Adam Steensberg, Zealand’s chief executive, said the deal with the Swiss pharmaceutical company announced last month would help the company become a “generational biotech” that would not have to sell itself.

Steensberg said that conversations with potential partners — “pretty much all the large pharma companies” — on its new drug, petrelintide, began last September. It took until March to agree the deal with Roche.

Petrelintide is based on the gut hormone amylin that makes you feel fuller for longer. The companies will develop it as a standalone drug and as a combination with Roche’s potential obesity drug, which works in a more similar way to weight-loss drugs already on the market based on the gut hormone GLP-1.

Steensberg said Roche chief executive Thomas Schinecker had convinced him that the company was committed to becoming a leader in the obesity field, which is currently dominated by Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly. Earlier this week, Zealand announced Utpal Singh, a former Lilly executive, as its new chief scientific officer.

Many other companies have been buying early-stage potential obesity drugs. 

“We didn’t just want to hobnob with a CEO from another company who just wanted to say: I am in obesity,” Steensberg told the Financial Times. 

Roche will split profits 50/50 with Zealand, and Zealand will also receive half the value of a planned product combining petrelintide with a drug that Roche acquired as part of a $3.1bn deal to buy Carmot Therapeutics in 2023. Roche will carry the cost of building manufacturing facilities. 

On the day the Roche deal was announced, shares in Zealand rose as much as 40 per cent. But they have now lost about 40 per cent in the wider market sell-off of recent weeks. 

Studies have shown amylin-based weight-loss drugs can cause fewer side effects than drugs based on GLP-1.

In an early study of petrelintide, a smaller percentage of patients experienced the side effect of nausea often associated with GLP-1 based drugs. Patients also lost less weight, but the trial was over a shorter period than many GLP-1 studies.

Petrelintide is now being tested in two mid-stage trials and is unlikely to be on the market before 2029 or 2030. By this point, the patents on Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy drugs will have expired or be about to expire in many markets, meaning Zealand’s drug may have to compete with much cheaper generic GLP-1 versions. 

Steensberg believes the demand will be so great that there will be space in the market for a number of options, particularly if petrelintide causes fewer side-effects. He added that having cheaper GLP-1 drugs would free up healthcare budgets to spend on petrelintide. 

He also pointed to data highlighting the extent of the obesity problem: the US Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation found that 5mn people died because of obesity in 2019, compared with about 3.5mn from Covid-19 in 2021.

“Obesity is killing more people . . . than corona did in the peak years,” he said. 

Forbes : Private Equity Firm Velocity Capital Is Investing More Than $100 Millio

Private Equity Firm Velocity Capital Is Investing More Than $100 Million In A European Soccer Agency

Since major sports leagues opened their doors to institutional investors, a wave of private equity firms has flooded in to capture outsized returns that have often dwarfed the S&P 500’s. In the last year alone, Ares Management purchased a piece of the Miami Dolphins, Arctos Partners invested in the Buffalo Bills, and Sixth Street agreed to provide more than $1 billion toward the record-setting $6.1 billion sale of the Boston Celtics. But buying up stakes in teams isn’t the only way to realize the upside of the sports industry, and Velocity Capital Management is looking at a different kind of opportunity.

On Tuesday, the New York-based middle-market private equity firm will announce that it has agreed to make a strategic investment in Unique Sports Group, a soccer talent agency headquartered in London. Velocity is committing more than $100 million to the deal, a person with knowledge of the transaction tells Forbes.

The agency, which represents more than 350 soccer players, including West Ham United defender Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Tottenham Hotspur forward Brennan Johnson and Arsenal midfielder Ethan Nwaneri, will use the capital to fuel its growth strategy, by making acquisitions, expanding into new territories and opening additional lines of business, such as entering women’s sports.

“The type of business that Unique has is exactly the type of company that we like to invest in because it is providing a vital service,” says David Abrams, Velocity’s managing partner. “They’re providing a vital service to teams in an industry that we think has tremendous tailwinds.”

Unique will mark the sixth—and largest—investment to date for Velocity, which launched in 2022 and is aiming to raise $500 million for its debut fund. (According to a public filing from February, it currently has $256 million under management.) Rather than picking up passive minority stakes in pro teams, as some of its competitors have done, Velocity focuses on playing an active role in adjacent and complementary businesses in sports, media and entertainment, chasing traditional private equity returns in the 25% range for investors.

Led by Abrams, who previously served as chief investment officer at Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, and Arne Rees, former CEO of data firm Sportradar U.S., Velocity has stakes in sports consulting firm Elevate, racing series operator Parella Motorsports, content monetization platform Videocites, experiential retailer Camp and the X Games.

Its latest deal comes at a time of mass consolidation in talent representation, with major players such as CAA, WME, Excel Sports Management and Wasserman gobbling up numerous smaller competitors over the past few years. In some cases, the spending sprees have had private equity backers: TPG invested in CAA in 2010 before exiting in 2023, for instance, and Shamrock Capital took a minority stake in Excel in 2020.

Unique CEO Will Salthouse knows his agency might have been a tempting target for one of those juggernauts but sees the firm fighting against the trend by staying independent—an attainable future with Velocity’s support.


“Adding verticals that can go and compete with [bigger agencies], that’s my vision,” Salthouse says, “and that’s always been my vision from starting this business 18 years ago.”

Abrams believes Velocity’s cross-pollinating portfolio can aid that pursuit. For example, Elevate, which drives commercial opportunities for brands, teams and leagues, could steer club owners toward Unique when they’re looking to upgrade on the field, and Videocites’ platform can help the agency’s athlete clients monetize their content. Abrams points to Endeavor—the holding company behind WME, which recently went private under Silver Lake after spinning off its investments in UFC and WWE—as a possible roadmap, with the powerhouse agency having started in talent representation and later diversified its business through acquisitions of other companies and intellectual property.

“I think you will have more potential exit paths than ever before,” Abrams says. "So from an investment perspective, we think there’s more options for exit than just one or two big agencies that might want to consolidate us.”

In the meantime, Abrams is excited about one lever Unique is already pulling to offset the low-margin, resource-intensive nature of talent representation: the transfer market. Whereas agents in baseball, basketball, hockey and American football can make money only off the contracts they negotiate for clients—with their fees capped at 3% for on-field deals in the NFL, for instance, and 4% in the NBA—soccer agents also broker arrangements between clubs to buy and sell players.

One industry insider tells Forbes that representatives in the sport can collect roughly 10% from selling clubs in transfers, on top of commissions of up to 6% on playing wages. While Salthouse says that contract terms can vary and that there’s “no standard amount” of commission on these deals, Unique’s negotiation of forward Jhon Durán’s $83 million move last year from the Premier League’s Aston Villa to Saudi Pro League club Al Nassr demonstrates the upside that agencies operating in other sports simply can’t tap.


Abrams only expects the money flowing through soccer to increase as the Premier League continues its financial growth. The league’s commercial and broadcast revenue is rising 17%, to $15.3 billion, for the 2025 to 2029 cycle, according to news site SportsPro, and that uptick could trickle back to transfer fees and player wages given that, under UEFA’s Financial Fair Play Regulations, the amount that clubs are allowed to spend is directly tied to how much revenue they generate.

At the same time, however, other leagues across Europe are not necessarily matching that upward trajectory, with media rights payments flattening in recent years.

“I don’t get concerned that media rights will level off because our experience has been with that intellectual property, even in a global financial crisis, it’s not dropping by 50%,” Abrams says. “So there is a lot of stability in the value of it.”

And reliability is especially attractive in the current economic environment. The number of M&A deals has been declining since 2021, in part because of former President Joe Biden’s perceived skepticism of tie-ups and the Federal Reserve’s efforts to slow inflation with higher interest rates. Meanwhile, the business world’s optimism that the downward trend would reverse itself under a second Trump administration has all but dissipated amid the sitting president’s erratic moves and tariff policies, which have rocked public markets.

But as Salthouse notes, “there are no tariffs” on soccer, and the sports industry largely continues to charge ahead. Last year saw record M&A activity in the sector, with the deal count rising 44% to 410, according to a report from financial advisory firm Oaklins, and private equity firms nearly doubled their involvement, accounting for 190 of those transactions in 2024.

“We’re not investing in teams; we’re investing in these essential infrastructure businesses around the space,” Abrams says. “So if there is a change in the world economy and recession or trade war, it doesn’t really matter.”

WWD : Hudson’s Bay Extends Liquidation to Entire Fleet

Hudson’s Bay Extends Liquidation to Entire Fleet
Canada's venerable retailer suffered from too much debt, failure to pay bills and insufficient investment in its department stores for years.

After triggering liquidations at 86 locations across Canada, the Hudson’s Bay Co. has decided to liquidate its remaining six Hudson’s Bay stores and one Saks Fifth Avenue location.

The company had been seeking a buyer for the six stores, but on Friday said it believed that a viable bid for the current six-store model is unlikely, and therefore liquidation sales in those stores began Friday. Should an 11th-hour bid surface, the six stores could stop liquidating.

A company called Reflect Advisors continues to solicit interest in parts of Hudson’s Bay, including certain properties and other assets, as well as a refinancing of all or a portion of the business of the company. But the deadline for these submissions is Wednesday, leaving little hope for Hudson’s Bay to live on, even as a sliver of what it once was.

The 73 other Hudson’s Bay, 13 Saks Off 5th and two Saks Fifth Avenue locations began liquidation sales last month, as reported by WWD.

The closure of Hudson’s Bay, given that it operated 79 stores across Canada — including some huge downtown locations in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal — dramatically alters the country’s retail landscape and put thousands of people out of work. Hudson’s Bay employs 9,364 people.

The venerable retailer, considered the oldest company in North America having been founded in 1670, originally as a trading company, was dragged down by more than 1 billion Canadian dollars in debt, a weak consumer economy and an inability to pay bills. Its first department store opened in 1881 in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Past talks to secure financing fell apart. Over the years a handful of retail companies and private equity players considered buying Hudson’s Bay, but they reconsidered after examining the books. Still, Hudson’s Bay’s business had been floundering for years, even before Richard Baker’s NRDC firm took control of the Toronto-based department store chain. However, under Baker’s 17 years of control there has been a revolving door of senior leadership, flip-flopping strategies and the abdication of market share as well as some lucrative monetization of retail real estate. Retail experts saw a lack of investment in the stores, diminishing service levels and deteriorating physical conditions, like malfunctioning escalators and water damage in certain locations.

The Hudson’s Bay and Saks Fifth Avenue stores in Canada are expected to operate no later than June 15, although some might close earlier. Additionally, nine Saks Off 5th stores will close Sunday. Through a licensing agreement, three Saks Fifth Avenue and 13 Saks Off 5th locations have been operating in Canada.

Hudson’s Bay was severed from Saks Global late last year. It is a separate company from Saks Global, which operates Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue and Saks Off 5th, and which has also been late paying bills. But both businesses are under Baker’s control.

Currently, Hudson’s Bay stores are offering 40 to 70 percent discounts storewide, depending on the category. Saks Fifth Avenue in Canada is offering up to 30 percent off storewide, and Saks Off 5th is offering 40 to 60 percent off its lowest ticketed prices. Select luxury brands and the HBC Stripes Collection are not being discounted. In addition, select store fixtures, furnishings and equipment will soon be available for purchase at participating locations.

“Hudson’s Bay extends its sincerest gratitude to its dedicated associates and loyal customers for their overwhelming support over the years and throughout this chapter,” the company said in a statement Friday.

The Information : Andreessen Horowitz Comes to Deel’s Defense in Spy Battle

Andreessen Horowitz Comes to Deel’s Defense in Spy Battle
With billions on the line, venture-capital firm has told Deel to fight hard against claims it paid a spy for information on a rival

The Takeaway
• Software startup Deel is accused of spying on archrival Rippling
• Andreessen Horowitz has big stake in Deel, and a difficult history with Rippling’s CEO
• VC firm has been involved in Deel’s defense against Rippling lawsuits

Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has landed in the middle of a nasty Silicon Valley spy scandal between one of its most successful startups and a company run by a chief executive the VC firm pushed out nearly a decade ago from the company he founded.

The VC firm is playing a central role in the fight between rival human resources software companies Deel, which it backs, and Rippling. Andreessen has been advising Deel, one of its fastest-growing investments, to push back against the accusations Rippling made in a California court filing last month that Deel hired a spy to deliver inside information on Rippling.

The spy scandal has put billions of dollars in potential profits at risk for Andreessen, which is Deel’s biggest investor. There’s also a personal element to the fight: Deel is accused of spying on Rippling, whose chief executive, Parker Conrad, has said he was pushed out of his previous startup, Zenefits, by Andreessen Horowitz nearly a decade ago.

The battle escalated Friday when Deel said in a Delaware Superior Court filing that Rippling defamed it for years by making allegedly false and misleading statements about the company to the press, government officials and others. It said in the lawsuit that Rippling CEO Conrad “has made it his life’s goal to exact misguided and petty revenge on those connected with Andreessen.”

In the middle of it all is a top partner at the VC firm, Anish Acharya, who is the only venture capitalist on Deel’s six-member board. In internal meetings at Deel a few weeks ago, Acharya argued against singling out any Deel executives, a person with direct knowledge of the meetings said. He argued that Deel’s board should take no immediate action, make no public statement and deny any wrongdoing at that time. The company hasn’t announced an investigation into the allegations. It is unclear whether the board is investigating the matter.

Deel said in its response to Rippling’s lawsuit that Rippling failed to show that any information obtained by the spy was valuable enough to constitute a trade secret. Deel also characterized the Rippling employee as a whistleblower, rather than a spy. The employee, Keith O’Brien, admitted to spying on Rippling for Deel in a sworn statement in a court in Ireland, where he lives.

(Deel alleged that O’Brien took directions from Michael Roddan, one of the authors of this story, who was working on an article about Rippling and Deel. The Information previously reported that Roddan didn’t know O’Brien existed until the accused spy was named by Rippling in a lawsuit.)

Andreessen Horowitz helped bring in its favored advisers. Deel replaced its law firm, Paul Weiss, with Skadden Arps, which has worked with Andreessen Horowitz, to prepare a legal defense and countersuit against Rippling. Paul Weiss would not comment. Andreessen also helped bring in a new crisis public relations representative, Michael Sitrick, to handle the fallout.

A Deel spokesman, who also represents CEO and board member Alex Bouaziz, said the details of the internal discussion are inaccurate but would not comment further. Earlier, the spokesman said: “As you know, information concerning any of the types of communications with counsel you allege is confidential and privileged and the company has no interest in litigating this matter in the media.”

Andreessen Horowitz did not comment.

Huge Investment at Risk

The VC firm owns about 20% of Deel, the company said in a lawsuit against Rippling Friday. That likely would be among the largest percentage ownership stakes any single VC firm has in a private company valued over $10 billion. The stake would be worth more than $2.5 billion based on Deel’s most recent valuation of $12.6 billion.

Deel said in the lawsuit that Rippling had already done it harm. It claimed Rippling launched a campaign to defame Deel in 2022 by allegedly planting false and misleading claims about Deel in the media and with regulators.

Bouaziz on Friday told Deel staff that he appreciated his employees’ patience as the legal team worked on the company’s “response to Ripping’s smear campaign” in a slack message to staff. “Thanks for hanging in there,” he said.

A victory in Rippling’s California lawsuit against Deel would be payback for Conrad, who said he was pushed out as head of an earlier startup, Zenefits, by Andreessen Horowitz nearly a decade ago.

Zenefits laid off half its staff soon after and was later sold to a competitor at a fire sale price. Since then, Andreessen Horowitz and other VCs have more firmly backed their founders.

Deel, which helps companies pay remote employees and do other back office tasks, was Acharya’s first investment after he joined Andreessen. He courted Bouaziz before investing in 2020 and has remained close with him.

Acharya’s strategy for handling Deel’s crisis came as the alleged espionage scandal dramatically escalated. Board members learned that the accused spy alleged that he was paid by Deel executives.

Soon after, the alleged spy made a sworn confession in court saying that he was personally recruited by Bouaziz and his father, Philippe, who is also the company’s chairman and chief financial officer. When Rippling caught the spy in a honeypot trap, Deel’s lawyers allegedly coached him to destroy his phone and offered to fly him and his family to Dubai where he would be financially supported by the company, according to the alleged spy’s sworn statement.

In addition to Philippe and Alex Bouaziz, other board members are Acharya, former Illumina boss Francis D’Souza, former Coupa Software CFO Todd Ford and ex-SAP executive Franck Cohen.

VCs Back Their Founders

Acharya’s support for Deel follows a recent playbook by Andreessen and other VCs to more aggressively support even the most embattled founders. In 2022, the firm backed a new real estate venture, Flow, by Adam Neumann, the disgraced WeWork cofounder. The next year, it worked to keep in place the CEO of Synapse, a fintech startup that later collapsed, owing customers tens of millions of dollars.

Another Andreessen-backed founder who won the firm’s support amid controversy was Henry Ward of Carta, whose startup secondary trading business was accused of misusing customer data last year. “Everyone stuck with me,” he said in an interview Monday. “I think the world quadrupled down on founder-led companies.”

He added the VC firm “had a history” of pushing out founders in the past, referring to Conrad and Zenefits. “My view is they probably learned from that.”

In a podcast interview in 2022, Acharya was asked how he navigates conflict with Bouaziz. “Generally, the way I work is that we always defer to the founder,” Acharya said. “So whatever Alex wants to do, I always commit to giving him the strong form of the truth, and then supporting him in whatever he decides.”

It’s an industry trend that Bouaziz had noticed. He said in a separate 2022 podcast interview that venture capitalists had become “a lot more founder-centric than they used to be, compared to some super cutthroat investors that were in the past. It’s a luxury we have nowadays that a lot of previous entrepreneurs did not have.”

The strategy of always deferring to founders is being tested by Deel. In his confession in the High Court in Dublin, O’Brien said that Deel executives, including Alex and Philippe Bouaziz, arranged to pay him about $6,000 a month to pass on Rippling’s confidential business information.

O’Brien also laid out an alleged cover-up. He said that two of Deel’s most senior internal lawyers encouraged him to destroy his phone in spite of a court order and flee Ireland with his family to Dubai, where he would be financially supported by the company. One of those lawyers, Asif Malik, had moved from the UK to Dubai, Rippling’s lawyers said in court earlier this month. Deel’s board didn’t learn about the alleged cover-up until O’Brien’s affidavit was unsealed by an Irish court on April 2, a person familiar with the matter said.

Rippling is suing Deel over the alleged spying in U.S. federal court in California and in Ireland. The High Court in Dublin ruled earlier this month that Alex Bouaziz, and the lawyers Asif Malik and Andrea David Mieli could be added as codefendants to the case. Malik and Mieli did not respond to requests for comment.

Rippling’s lawyers told the court that they have had trouble serving summonses on Deel defendants in its Irish lawsuit. Rippling told the High Court that Deel’s law firm did not respond to requests that it accept service of the summons on behalf of Deel, while French bailiffs in charge of serving court summons on Alex Bouaziz have been unable to locate him at his Paris address, according to a person briefed on the matter. Bouaziz’s aunt told the bailiffs her nephew was in Dubai, the person said.

A Deel spokesperson said Bouaziz was in Dubai for a family holiday. The spokesperson said Malik’s move to Dubai had been planned for a year. (Malik registered a private consultancy in the UK with a registered address in the UK in March. The spokesperson didn’t respond to questions about this.)

Alleged Spy’s Confession

O’Brien in his confession claimed that money was transferred to him via a bank account held by Deel COO Dan Westgarth’s wife. Westgarth has resided in the United Arab Emirates since late 2024, according to documents filed with the UK companies registry. Westgarth’s wife was employed by broker Robinhood doing crypto compliance but left the company earlier this year, according to a Robinhood spokesperson. Philippe Bouaziz also resides in the UAE.

The Deel investment was the first and by far the best for Acharya, until recently a relatively low-profile consumer tech and fintech investor and weekend DJ who goes by the name illScience. He was promoted to be the firm’s head of consumer investing last year. A software engineer by training, he previously founded and sold two companies—one to Google and another to Credit Karma—before joining Andreessen Horowitz in 2019.

That year, he met Bouaziz in San Francisco’s South Park, in a meeting brokered by Deel angel investor Ryan Hoover.

Acharya has said he was drawn to Bouaziz’s energy rather than his technical knowledge. “We didn’t talk that much about the business,” Acharya later recalled in a podcast interview. “It was that feeling I remember—that feeling that this person is going to do something.”

The firm led Deel’s $16 million Series A round at a $60 million valuation, Bouaziz has said. It followed on with additional investments in later rounds.

Bouaziz later said he took Acharya’s initial investment offer at a discount to others. “​​I liked the fact that he was new at the firm, so tying his future to ours was a big part of my thinking process,” Bouaziz said.

Deel became one of Silicon Valley’s fastest-growing software startups in part by allowing companies to hire and pay software engineers in lower-cost countries. It charged customers fees to become the “employer of record” for employees based in countries where the customers didn’t have legal offices, and later expanded into running payroll for companies around the world.

Deel told investors last year in a presentation it was the fastest company ever to reach $500 million in revenue, and it forecast about $1.7 billion in revenue by 2026.

Andreessen Horowitz touted Deel and its CEO. The firm published a case study on Deel, saying it was “reshaping how businesses hire, pay and manage talent across 150+ countries.” Last month, Bouaziz had a headline speaking gig at the VC firm’s annual fintech conference in Park City, Utah. Ben Horowitz is also close to Bouaziz, people familiar with the matter said. Acharya’s personal X profile displays a banner picture of himself with Bouaziz.

Conrad started Rippling soon after his dismissal from his startup, Zenefits, and has since criticized Andreessen Horowitz for abandoning him. Zenefits never regained its previous startup sheen, and was sold to HR software firm TriNet in 2021.

Conrad’s resignation from Zenefits in 2016 came at a board meeting called by Andreessen Horowitz. Conrad, who was accused by the state of California of breaking state insurance-broker licensing laws, rejected an offer to stay at the startup in a lower role. “I’m not going to fight it,” Conrad later said. He later paid a $350,000 fine to the Securities and Exchange Commission, without admitting wrongdoing.

In 2017, he announced he started Rippling, a company that would similarly focus on human resources software. He later said that part of what fueled his redemption effort was a comment from then-Andreessen Horowitz partner Lars Dalgaard, that Conrad wouldn’t succeed in founding another company. Dalgaard did not respond to requests for comment.

>>> Barrons Weekend Summary

Cover Story:
-The business of overseeing an endowment has evolved significantly, with managing millions or even tens of billions of dollars across the capital markets becoming a match of three-dimensional chess. Harvard Management Co. CEO N.P. "Narv" Narvekar, who manages Harvard University's $53B endowment, has been facing criticism from Students for Justice in Palestine and conservative activists like Christopher Rufo who accuse universities like Harvard of padding their endowments with federal grants while spreading far-left ideology. In February 2024, Narvekar, along with Harvard Corp. senior fellow Penny Pritzker and President Alan Garber, received a subpoena from the House Committee on Education and the Workforce related to an investigation into Harvard's handling of on-campus antisemitism. Harvard's endowment has seen a plunge in fund-raising, with philanthropic contributions falling by 14% in fiscal year 2024 as several billionaire donors publicly severed ties with Harvard over its response to campus antisemitism.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has requested that the Internal Revenue Service start the process of revoking Harvard's tax-exempt status.

Interview:
-Scotts Miracle-Gro, a seed company based in Marysville, Ohio and it is owned by Jim Hagedorn, CEO. The company's two flagship brands, "the grow side" and "the kill side," own Ortho and distribute Roundup to consumers. Miracle-Gro, originally a liquid-based plant fertilizer product, was co-founded in 1950 by entrepreneur Horace Hagedorn. In 1995, Scotts offered to buy Miracle-Gro for $400M, but Hagedorn decided it was worth more than Scotts. Today, the company has a market cap of nearly $3B, with Hagedorn and his family controlling 25% of the company's common stock. Hagedorn began investing in the weed business in 2013, when SMG invested in a Colorado indoor-gardening products company focused on growing marijuana. The company created a subsidiary, Hawthorne, which made acquisitions in companies selling marijuana cultivation supplies and invested in a Canadian business directly involved in growing and selling marijuana.

Tech Trader:
-Wall Street is experiencing uncertainty as tech earnings season begins and tariffs continue to impact investor sentiment. ServiceNow, IBM, Intel, and Alphabet reported mixed views on the current state of tech. Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Amazon.com, and Apple are expected to report within a 24-hour period next week, with the Nasdaq Composite down 11% on the year. The economic environment has drastically shifted due to ongoing tariff announcements from the Trump administration. Investors will be more focused on guidance tech companies provide than quarterly results. Intel CFO David Zinsner stated that the current macro environment is creating elevated uncertainty across the industry. The stock was down 7.3% on Friday due to Intel's weaker-than-expected outlook.

The Trader:
The healthcare sector is expected to perform well in 2025, despite concerns about Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and UnitedHealth Group's earnings guidance. The Health Care Select Sector SPDR exchange-traded fund is flat this year, while the broader market is down. Tariffs and trade war worries are less of a concern due to the domestic focus of many industry companies. Investors appreciate that many of the companies in the group are relatively recession-resistant. Jonathan Curtis, chief investment officer at Franklin Equity Group, believes that people will continue to get sick, pay insurance premiums, and see their doctors. However, there are also exciting opportunities in the sector due to innovative medications and biotech-developed treatments. Eli Lilly, the largest holding in the Health Care ETF, is up 11% in 2025, while Johnson & Johnson and Amgen are up due to solid earnings and strong pipelines.
-Coca-Cola shares have seen a significant increase, up nearly 18% this year and trading near a record high, making it the top-performing stock in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Warren Buffett is also a shareholder, with Berkshire Hathaway holding a stake of over 9%. The company's stock is expected to be discussed at Berkshire's annual shareholder meeting on May 3. Despite concerns about President Trump's aluminum tariffs and the impact of GLP-1 weight loss drugs and the Make America Healthy Again movement on sugary beverage intake, Coke remains bullish. CEO James Quincey believes the company can adapt to changing consumer behavior and tighter regulations from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and 23 of the 29 analysts covering Coke have a buy on the stock. Coke recognizes the need to expand its beverage portfolio beyond carbonated sodas, with a push into milk and protein shakes with Fairlife, the lactose-free dairy brand bought in 2020.

Features:
-President Trump's recent campaign to pressure Fed Chair Jerome Powell may signal that the Federal Reserve still holds the final say in monetary policy. Trump's attacks on the central bank, involving social media and public and private comments, tested the extent to which American political leaders can influence monetary policy and the central bank's willingness to resist them. The standoff between Trump and Powell, dubbed "Mr. Too Late" for the Fed's refusal to cut interest rates, was rooted in the Trump administration's "Liberation Day" announcement of a trade policy shift that would apply a baseline 10% tariff on most imports. The proposal was met with skepticism, leading to stock falls and lower Treasury yields. The White House implemented a 90-day pause on many new tariffs, except for those on China.
-A small part of Pope Francis's legacy will be financial, as the Vatican's investments are generating profit, possibly due to a renewed focus on social values aligned with the Catholic Church. In 2023, the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA) made nearly 46 million euros from its investments, covering 37.9 million euros for Church expenses and the rest as profit. ASPA invested in international securities and fixed-income securities, providing consulting, financial solutions, and access to capital markets for the Church. The total investment rose more than 40% from 2022, when the Church issued a document outlining "faith-based measures for Catholic investors." The Church reiterated that it wouldn't invest in companies that didn't conform to Church teachings, such as the immorality of abortion, birth control, pornography, excessive alcohol use, weapons, capital punishment, and mining. The Church believes that investing in companies that score well based on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics aligns with the principles of Catholic Social Teaching. However, it isn't entirely clear which companies the Church believes fit those criteria, as it doesn't list specific holdings.

Europe:
-Apple and Meta Platforms have been fined by the European Union for breaches of the EU's Digital Markets Act. The move could exacerbate tensions between President Donald Trump and the Trump administration, who has previously threatened tariffs as retaliation for sanctions on US companies. Apple received a €500M ($571.3 million) penalty, while Meta, the owner of Facebook, was fined €200M. Trump has previously threatened tariffs in response to digital services taxes, fines, practices, and policies imposed on American companies. The relatively small scale of the fines could reduce the likelihood of retaliatory action from the Trump administration. The EU Commission requires companies to comply with the Commission's decisions within 60 days to avoid periodic penalty payments.

Emerging Markets:
-The US is increasingly resembling an emerging market, with President Donald Trump attacking the independence of the Fed and its chairman, Jerome Powell. Trump demands aggressive rate cuts and threatens to fire Powell if he doesn't get them, but this time amid a generational loss of confidence in the US dollar and Treasury bonds. Trump's behavior, including his irrational tariffs and administration's abandonment of traditional allies, disregard for the rule of law, and threats against Powell, intensifies the drop-off in confidence. The growing US debt since 2008 provides an ominous backdrop. This is a result of the "EM-ification" of US politics, where growing social polarization, political violence, and institutional conflict generate political instability, policy uncertainty, and market volatility typical of emerging markets. Since at least 2017, most US assets have rallied despite an 18% increase in political risk, a bigger increase than seen for any other developed market.

Commodities:
-Gold has seen a 30% increase in value this year, reaching $3,406 per troy ounce. Over the past 20 years, SPDR Gold Shares has surged 630%, 85 points more than the SPDR S&P 500. This is not expected, as businesses are expected to outperform gold over decades. Gold's price action is mostly about demand, as nearly every ounce found is still around somewhere. Since 2022, price action has been ravenous and broad. The US and its allies placed sanctions on Russia, including its largest banks, and China went on a bullion spree. However, other central banks have stepped in, possibly due to decadeslong diversification by finance ministers away from the US dollar. The recent uptick in gold stockpiling looks to JPMorgan Chase, the world's largest bullion dealer, like a debasement trade. Investors are nervous about President Trump's tariffs, his browbeating of the Federal Reserve Chairman over interest rates, and blowout US deficits.