FT : EDF to keep 4 UK nuclear power stations open longer than planned

EDF to keep 4 UK nuclear power stations open longer than planned
Latest extensions to plants’ working lives could see some sites keep running into next decade

French state-owned energy giant EDF will keep four ageing nuclear power stations in Britain open for longer than planned, in a boost to the UK’s energy security.

The company said two stations currently due to close in March 2026 — Hartlepool and Heysham 1 — will now remain online until March 2027, while Heysham 2 and Torness, that were scheduled to close in March 2028, will stay open until March 2030. 

The plants, three in northern England and one in southern Scotland, were built in the 1980s and were originally meant to close in 2023, but their working lives have already been extended once. 

The latest extension will help make up for the delay to the Hinkley Point C power plant that EDF is building in Somerset. It is currently due to start generating in 2029 at the earliest, four years later than its original date.

The government needs to find ways to meet rising demand for low-carbon power as part of the push to cut carbon emissions. The government of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is aiming to decarbonise the UK’s electricity system by 2030.

In a report last month on how this goal could be reached, the government-owned National Energy System Operator (NESO) said it assumed at least one of the four nuclear power plants would still be available in 2030. 

Under the new timeline, all four will have closed by March 2030, but EDF’s ambition is to keep generation running for longer depending on plant inspections and regulatory oversight.

The new dates represent the “most likely” view of how long the stations would stay open, the company added, though it cautioned there was “a risk” they could close sooner. It announced the move on Tuesday following a board meeting in Paris. 

Mark Hartley, managing director of EDF’s nuclear operations, said the company had invested about £8bn in its British nuclear fleet since 2009, and planned to invest a further £1.3bn between 2025 and 2027.

The four advanced gas-cooled reactors are among five nuclear power plants still running in the UK after several closures over the past few years due to their age.

The fifth, Sizewell B in Suffolk, a pressurised water reactor, started generating in 1995. It is due to close in 2035, but could be extended for another 20 years.

Nuclear power accounted for around 14 per cent of the UK’s electricity generation last year, down from about 20 per cent in 2013, according to UK government figures. 

But despite efforts to replace dwindling capacity, Hinkley Point C is the only new nuclear power plant currently being built in Britain.

EDF and the UK government have yet to take a final investment decision on a second planned plant, Sizewell C, as they try to attract external investors to the project. 

Responding to EDF’s announcement, Fintan Slye, chief executive of NESO, said nuclear power “has an important role to play” in the electricity system.

Ed Miliband, the secretary of state for energy, said the extensions were “a win for our energy independence”.  

FT : China’s ties with Saudi Arabia buoyed by green tech

China’s ties with Saudi Arabia buoyed by green tech
Warming relations between Xi Jinping and Saudi crown prince complicate outlook for Trump administration

Chinese exports and investment are pouring into Saudi Arabia as the kingdom’s demand for green tech deepens a relationship once defined by oil sales and challenges business ties with its traditional western partners.

Bilateral trade has for many years been almost totally dominated by Chinese purchases of Saudi oil. But now, Chinese exports to Saudi Arabia are tracking towards a record high, at $40.2bn in the first 10 months of the year, up from $34.9bn for the same period last year, according to Chinese government data.

China has also become the kingdom’s largest source of greenfield foreign direct investment, with investments from 2021 to October this year totalling $21.6bn, about a third of which were in clean technologies such as batteries, solar and wind, according to investments tracked by fDi Markets. This compares with $12.5bn from the US, the next highest.

The figures herald a sea change, with China eclipsing the kingdom’s traditional investment partners, the US and France. Many of the Chinese deals have yet to show up in official Saudi figures, indicating the capital has yet to be deployed.

A “major shift” was under way, said Camille Lons, an expert on China and the Middle East and policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

“When the Saudis look at the map of the world, they increasingly see themselves as this ‘middle power’,” she said. “They try to be less dependent on the US. Deepening their relationship with China is a way to do exactly that.”

Stronger Saudi-China ties could complicate the outlook for the incoming Trump administration in any dealings with Riyadh, said Lons. “If Trump decides not to deliver what they really want in terms of security guarantees, tech co-operation, they can agitate with the Chinese ‘card’, saying ‘we have other options’.”


Analysts said the deepening economic co-operation followed high-level political and diplomatic efforts, including Chinese President Xi Jinping’s late 2022 trip to Riyadh, his talks with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Beijing’s intervention in March 2023 to help restore ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

“The [2022] meeting of the two heads of government basically triggered meetings down the chain,” said Charles Chang, greater China lead for corporate ratings at S&P Global Ratings. “The relationship between China and Saudi Arabia began to diversify very rapidly.”

For Xi, trade with Saudi Arabia is strategically important to deepen China’s influence outside the US and Europe, where it faces rising threats of sanctions and tariffs, analysts said. China’s focus on trade and investment also marks a change from the debt-led Belt and Road infrastructure plan.

For Prince Mohammed, the kingdom’s day-to-day ruler who co-chairs the China-Saudi Arabia High-Level Joint Committee, Chinese investment supports his efforts in achieving his so-called Vision 2030 modernisation drive, designed to diversify the economy, transition to cleaner energy and project the kingdom on to the global stage.

Riyadh has so far been careful to balance relations with the US, its most important military partner, and has limited trade with China in sensitive industries such as defence and artificial intelligence, according to Saudi officials.

Saudi investment in China’s oil and gas industry as well as Chinese investment in the Saudi renewable energy sector is powering the expansion of trade. Ken Liu, head of China renewables, utilities and energy research at UBS, forecasts $432bn in additional energy-related annual trade between the Middle East and China by 2030.

There has been a flurry of new deals in recent months highlighting the deepening ties. Backed by Saudi investment, ageing Chinese oil refineries are diversifying towards more downstream petrochemical products including diesel, methanol and ammonia.


Saudi Aramco in September expanded its Chinese refinery and chemical partnerships with Rongsheng and Hengli, two of China’s biggest petrochemical groups. Saudi Aramco also announced a plan with China National Building Material Group to build clean tech manufacturing facilities in Saudi Arabia.

Investment group EWPartners, which is backed by the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund PIF, in mid-October announced a $2bn plan for a so-called KSA-Sino special economic zone at Riyadh’s King Salman International Airport and for more Chinese companies to localise manufacturing there.

A bid to better integrate the two countries’ financial systems is also gaining traction. In June, China approved exchange traded funds that track the performance of the FTSE Saudi Arabia Index, allowing Chinese investors to gain exposure to top-tier Saudi stocks, including Saudi Aramco and Saudi National Bank. In return, Saudi Arabia’s Capital Market Authority allowed the listing of the country’s inaugural ETF tracking Hong Kong-listed Chinese stocks.

In August, PIF signed memorandums of understanding worth a total of $50bn with six of China’s biggest state-owned banks. And in November, China picked Saudi Arabia as the venue for its first sale of US dollar sovereign bonds in three years.

Beijing is also trying to leverage deeper Saudi ties to promote broader international use of the Chinese currency. The kingdom, like most other international oil producers, has long been reluctant to accept payment in renminbi because of a limited ability to use the proceeds.

Still, in a research note, S&P analysts pointed out that while meaningful renminbi-denominated oil trading between China and Saudi Arabia might still be decades away, the more comprehensive Saudi-China ties could over time support the so-called petroyuan.

Ultimately, said Chang of S&P, the ground was prepared for the relationship to increasingly “go beyond oil”. “If Saudi Arabia looks for countries that have been able to industrialise in a centrally planned way very rapidly, China is probably the best example. That puts the long-term interests of the two countries in alignment.”

FT : Activist investor targets HarbourVest investment trust’s 45% discount

Activist investor targets HarbourVest investment trust’s 45% discount
London-based Metage Capital says FTSE 250 trust not delivering value for its shareholders

An activist investor, which successfully campaigned to overhaul the management of the Hipgnosis Song Fund last year, has taken aim at a FTSE 250 investment trust, claiming it is not delivering value for its shareholders. 

London-based Metage Capital has written to the board of HarbourVest Global Private Equity Limited (HVPE), demanding it revamp its strategy to close the share price’s wide 45 per cent discount to net asset value (NAV) at the end of October.

Metage argued that since chair Ed Warner took over in July 2020 the performance of the trust’s shares has trailed well behind the value of its underlying investments. The percentage difference between the value of its NAV per share and the investment trust’s share price has doubled. Closing this gap would be worth £1.3bn to shareholders.

Among Metage’s proposals are that HVPE spend more available cash on share buybacks. The activist points to a system used by the open-ended investment vehicle HarbourVest Global Private Solution SICAV SA (HGPS), designed for European markets, which launched in January 2023.

“Metage recommends that the board brings forward formal proposals to align the investment portfolio of HVPE with that of HGPS and institutes quarterly tenders for 5 per cent of the company’s outstanding shares,” wrote Tom Sharp, Metage’s chief investment officer, in the letter.

HGPS has already raised assets under management of $1.3bn as of September.

HVPE would not comment on the Metage letter. Its share price has done well for shareholders over a long period. The investment company’s NAV per share growth over the past 10 years of 242 per cent has far outpaced the 151 per cent of the FTSE All-World Total Return index.

Although the majority of private equity investment trusts trade at market prices well below their net asset values, HVPE has trailed this group. Against its peer group of listed private equity trusts, HVPE’s differential has expanded in the last three years to 12 per cent from 3 per cent, according to data from Investec.

HVPE has made efforts to close the gap with net asset value, including buying back its shares. Since the investment company started buying back shares in September 2022, it has acquired over $120mn of shares, according to the company. HVPE has a market value of £1.85bn.

Metage would like to see more cash used for buybacks and less for new private investments. HVPE has also bolstered its debt to prepare for a surge in merger and acquisition activity in the coming year. It believes the investment trust will have more opportunities to sell some of its portfolio holdings and distribute profits to its shareholders.

Some analysts see this debt level as high. “There has been a material increase in the risk profile, with the [debt relative to NAV] having increased from 6.8 per cent to 20.6 per cent in the past two years,” the highest in the sector, according to Alan Brierley at Investec. Metage disagrees with adding to this debt.

Activist investors have taken more interest in the UK investment trust sector in the past two years. Elliott Management of the US took a 5 per cent stake in Scottish Mortgage Trust, managed by Baillie Gifford, using derivatives earlier this year.

Another US fund, Saba Capital, has targeted investment trusts. Saba raised its stake this month to 29 per cent in the European Smaller Companies Trust after demanding buybacks worth as much as half of the outstanding shares.

Metage holds 342,849 shares of HVPE and another 330,000 using a share swap.

FT : Claridge’s owner to triple its number of hotels as luxury travel booms

Claridge’s owner to triple its number of hotels as luxury travel booms
Maybourne wants to create a portfolio of properties, from Paris to New York and Dubai, in a decade

Claridge’s owner Maybourne is planning to nearly triple its number of hotels in the next decade, expanding into Paris, New York, Miami and Dubai to tap into booming demand for luxury travel.

The company, which owns and operates six hotels — four in London and one each in Beverly Hills and the French Riviera — is looking to have 15 to 17 by 2035, according to co-chief executives Gianluca Muzzi and Marc Socker. Half of these would be management contract only, rather than under Maybourne’s ownership.

“Before, [our focus] was mostly around the hotels . . . to preserve their identity, but what we are doing now is to establish and strengthen the presence of the management company, Maybourne itself,” Muzzi told the Financial Times in an interview at the Emory, the group’s new London hotel.

Maybourne, which is ultimately owned by Qatari royals Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani and Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, will open a hotel and serviced apartments in Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris, renovating the former Defence Ministry building. Muzzi said it would be “another historical landmark hotel, similar to the Connaught and Claridge’s in London”.

It is also planning another UK hotel in a historic building in Hampshire, while Dubai and New York hotels will be newly built. “We would end up being, probably by the end of the decade, at maybe 15, 16 or 17 hotels . . . mainly in urban gateway cities,” said Socker.

He added there were also plans to expand into Asia further into the future, in places such as Singapore and Tokyo.

The expansion by the owner of some of London’s best known hotels comes as luxury travel continues to benefit from a post-pandemic boom.

In London, average daily room rates for luxury hotels rose by 42 per cent between 2019 and 2023, compared with a 27 per cent increase for the whole market, according to real estate company CBRE.

In Paris and Milan, rates increased by 42 and 60 per cent respectively, compared with 37 per cent growth for all hotels in these cities.

“Given the golden age of travel and [that] people are looking for new experiences, we want to create a strong management company and a strong lifestyle brand,” Socker said. “Maybourne before was more a [business to business] brand. Now we’re coming out with the consumer brand, and are prepared to enter into these new commercial ventures.”

Socker said that Maybourne would launch a “membership community” next year. This would give exclusive access to some services and parts of its hotels. It will also license its spa and wellness brand to be operated elsewhere.

Maybourne has been in expansion mode following the pandemic. The Emory, its first London hotel in 50 years, added to its two international properties, the Maybourne Beverly Hills and the Maybourne Riviera on the Côte d’Azur.

The company, whose Qatari owner has been in a dispute with Irish property developer and previous shareholder Paddy McKillen over the value of a stake in the business, reported turnover of £29.1mn for the year ended December 2023, up 40 per cent year-on-year. Its pre-tax losses were £11.1mn, widening from £6.1mn the previous year, owing to interest expenses from intercompany loans. Claridge’s recorded a pre-tax profit of £7.2mn for 2023.

FT : Activist shareholder intensifies campaign for Rio to quit London

Activist shareholder intensifies campaign for Rio to quit London
Palliser Capital says dual structure has been an ‘unmitigated failure’ that cost shareholders $50bn of value

Activist investor Palliser Capital has stepped up its campaign for Rio Tinto to abandon its primary London listing, demanding an independent review of whether the miner should follow rival BHP and unify its corporate structure in Australia. 

Rio Tinto’s dual-listed structure, with its primary listing in London and a secondary one in Sydney, had been an “unmitigated failure” that had deprived shareholders of $50bn in value, Palliser said in a letter sent to the board on Wednesday and seen by the Financial Times.

The UK-based hedge fund, which holds a stake worth about $250mn in Rio, first made its call for the company to quit London in May. The latest crusade has been timed to coincide with Rio’s investor day in London.

Australian investment firm Blackwattle Investment Partners has also backed the unification campaign, writing to the board earlier this year to highlight the deep discount at which the UK-listed Rio Tinto traded compared with its peer on the Australian Securities Exchange.

That valuation gap has widened to 19 per cent, from 15 per cent in May, according to Blackwattle.

A successful campaign by Palliser, whose chief investment officer James Smith was at Elliott Management when it campaigned for BHP to abandon its dual corporate structure, would deprive the FTSE 100 of the world’s second-largest mining company.

Rio shares would still be traded in London under Palliser’s proposal via a secondary listing. BHP moved its primary listing to Sydney in 2022.

Rio has repeatedly said that unifying its listing would cost “mid-single digit billions of dollars” in tax. The company has also said that it had conducted an internal review and concluded that such a move would destroy value. 

Chief Financial Officer Peter Cunningham said earlier this year that Rio wanted to do some “rebalancing” of its listing — which is split 77/23 in favour of London — and that conducting share buybacks in the UK could be an option to achieve that.

Rio is however constrained in how much it can buy back in London, because its shareholder Chinalco, the Chinese state owned aluminium group, cannot hold more than 14.99 per cent of Rio’s London shares owing to a national interest limit set by the Australian government in 2008.

Alternatively, Jakob Stausholm, chief executive of Rio Tinto, also said in October that the company was considering issuing shares in Australia after it agreed to buy lithium developer Arcadium.

Asked by an analyst why the company was paying cash for the acquisition, therefore increasing its debt, Stausholm said he was thinking “a little bit” about issuing shares.

Palliser’s letter calls for a committee of three to four independent directors, alongside an external shareholder representative, to review the change in corporate structure and listing. The fund has also targeted one of Japan’s biggest property groups in recent weeks.

Ray David, a partner at Blackwattle, said that collapsing the share structure into the higher valued ASX-listed stock “still makes sense for shareholders” especially in a consolidating market where companies can finance acquisitions by using shares instead of paying cash.

Since it adopted the dual-listed structure, Rio Tinto has done all its M&A transactions in cash, rather than in shares.

FT : Bundesbank chief calls for softer debt brake to ramp up investment

Bundesbank chief calls for softer debt brake to ramp up investment
German central bank president Joachim Nagel urges Berlin to relax rules to address defence and infrastructure shortfalls

The head of Germany’s Bundesbank has called on Berlin to soften its tough spending rules, warning that Europe’s largest economy faced a “complicated” and “weak” outlook.

Germans are set to head to the polls in February, with the post-pandemic stagnation of Europe’s largest economy feeding into widespread voter discontent with Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s ruling coalition.

Bundesbank president Joachim Nagel told the Financial Times the next government needed to reform its so-called debt brake, which bans Berlin from borrowing more than 0.35 per cent of GDP in any fiscal year, to address the longer-term economic risks facing Germany.

More fiscal space to address structural threats — such as boosting defence spending and modernising the country’s infrastructure — would mark a “very smart approach”, Nagel said.

The Bundesbank president’s remarks are the most outspoken yet on how he believes a future chancellor should deal with Germany’s limited fiscal leeway.

The current outlook was, Nagel said, even “more complicated” than at the start of the 21st century. While unemployment was much worse then, “there was no geopolitical fragmentation and world trade was growing strongly”.

Germany’s economy has effectively seen no real growth since the second half of 2021, with its dominant manufacturing sector under pressure from high energy costs and waning competitiveness.


The return of Donald Trump to the White House could exacerbate those challenges, with the president-elect threatening a blanket tariff of up to 20 per cent on all US imports.

The Bundesbank will not officially update its growth forecast until later this month, but Nagel said 2025 was likely to be “another year of weak growth” for the German economy, with the central bank’s estimate likely to be about 0.4 per cent.

Growth was likely to be even weaker, should Trump implement blanket tariffs on the scale he had pledged, the central banker said.

“If you put major increases in tariffs on top of current forecasts, the economy might broadly stagnate for even longer,” he said, adding that “even the labour market might show more noticeable weakness”.

Germany’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate, as defined by the Federal Employment Agency, remains relatively low at 6.1 per cent. However, this level partly reflects the creation of an abundance of low-paid positions in the services sector, at the expense of well-paid manufacturing work.

Nagel said he was still confident that the country could overcome any crisis, saying: “Past experience shows that when Germany is feeling the pain, Germany will change.”

He singled out discussions over reform of the constitutional debt brake as an example of how Germany could cope.

“We can think about making a distinction between consumption expenditures and investments to get more leeway on the structural investment side,” he said, pointing out that German debt to GDP has fallen significantly and is approaching the level of 60 per cent set by the EU’s stability and growth pact rules.


The inability to balance spending needs with the limited financial leeway created by the debt brake was a main reason for the collapse of Scholz’s ill-fated three-way coalition between the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Free Democrats last month.

In the run-up to the snap election, which is likely to take place in February, an overhaul of the strict borrowing cap has become a central topic. The leader of the opposition and most likely candidate to secure the chancellorship, Christian Democratic Union party boss Friedrich Merz, has signalled he might be open for limited reforms of the debt brake.

The Bundesbank first floated ideas to reform the debt brake in 2022.

Nagel said in March that Germany “in certain periods of time” could run “slightly” higher deficits without putting stability on the line.

Nagel acknowledged that the debt brake, agreed in 2009, had been “a very helpful tool” after public debt shot up dramatically in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. During the euro crisis, having the break in place also delivered the message “that governments have to get their debt and deficit situation under control”.

The Bundesbank boss, who has a vote on the European Central Bank’s governing council, declined to give any indication of his views about the next rate decision, scheduled for December 12.

However, he said the ECB’s 2 per cent inflation target was “in sight” and should be reached “by the middle of next year at the latest”.

Eurozone inflation was 2.3 per cent in November. The ECB’s latest forecasts imply rate-setters will hit their goal over the course of 2025.

He stressed that he would not “over-emphasise” the risk of the ECB undershooting its 2 per cent target as core inflation — a measure seen as a better indicator of the persistence of price pressures — was “still very sticky”.

FT : Global macro funds roar back to life

Global macro funds roar back to life
Donald Trump’s US presidential election victory has led to huge paydays for some hedge funds.

Some of the biggest winners include Jeffrey Talpins’ Element Capital and Kenneth Tropin’s Graham Capital Management, which were positioned in “Trump trades”, or assets that did well when the president-elect prevailed.

Element gained about 9 per cent in November while Graham’s Proprietary Matrix Fund — which includes strategies run by fund managers and computer-driven ones — made about 3 per cent, two people familiar with the figures told DD’s Amelia Pollard. 

After years of middling returns following the 2008 financial crisis, hedge funds that specialise in trading currencies, commodities, bonds and stocks are back to making big gains from bets on market swings around last month’s presidential election.

Pablo Calderini, the chief investment officer for Graham, said the fund ran “many scenarios” and “stress tests” to ensure the portfolio was well guarded against any shocks that might come its way — especially if the race was so close that it sparked social unrest.

The US dollar has emerged as one of the biggest Trump trades, with the currency up 5.4 per cent against a bunch of other currencies since the start of October.

Still, the going’s good for almost everyone right now. The S&P 500’s also been on a tear, up more than 27 per cent this year.

“None of this is breaking the pound. None of this is a massive bet on the yen,” said Steven Kelly, the associate research director at the Yale Program on Financial Stability.

The real question is how long the good times will last. Kelly added: “If and when Trump blows something up, are the macro hedge funds on the right side of that trade as well?”

FT : BlackRock’s deal spree bestows fortunes across Wall Street


BlackRock’s deal spree bestows fortunes across Wall Street>

A little more than a year ago, BlackRock founder Larry Fink telegraphed to Wall Street that the world’s largest asset manager was on the hunt for “transformational” deals.

Twelve months on, he has delivered. The asset manager has struck deals worth nearly $30bn this year, reshaping Wall Street and putting BlackRock in direct competition with a new set of powerful rivals.

On Tuesday, the asset manager clinched its latest target: the $12bn acquisition of credit investing powerhouse HPS Investment Partners.

The push has moulded BlackRock — best known for passive equity and debt index products that spurred the demise of scores of traditional active asset management groups — into a new force in private capital.

It’s now in direct competition with Blackstone, Apollo, KKR and Brookfield.

The year of dealmaking started in January, when Fink agreed to buy private investment firm Global Infrastructure Partners. In July, BlackRock paid £2.55bn to acquire private capital data provider Preqin.

Both HPS and GIP are giants, each managing more than $100bn. The acquisitions give BlackRock more than $600bn in private capital assets and the private market data to create new indices.

Fink’s deal spree has also showered enormous wealth across Wall Street.

BlackRock paid $12.5bn in cash and stock to buy GIP, making its founders the asset manager’s second-largest shareholders. Co-founder Adebayo Ogunlesi enjoyed a multibillion-dollar windfall, and he joined BlackRock’s board of directors.

HPS initially planned to go public, but found a hungry potential buyer in BlackRock instead. While HPS’s co-founders — Scott Kapnick, Scot French and Michael Patterson — tried to reach the windfall that GIP’s partners had won months earlier, they came up slightly short.

The HPS acquisition price is a notch below that of GIP and comes with no cash, relying entirely on BlackRock’s stock. The GIP deal was also struck before a 30 per cent run in BlackRock’s shares this year, which has in effect pushed the takeover value towards $15bn.

But HPS is also in line for an additional 1.6mn shares if it meets certain targets within five years of the deal closing, a consideration worth $1.6bn at today’s levels. Add in the $400mn of HPS debt BlackRock may retire, and the total price inches up to roughly $14.4bn.

Advisers to BlackRock have also fared well. Robert Steel at Perella Weinberg, a close friend of Fink and vice-chair of the investment bank, had advisory roles in all three deals.

DD would note that perhaps the biggest winner of all is Mark O’Hare, founder and majority owner of Preqin. The data provider sold for cash, almost all of which went into O’Hare’s pocket, instantly making the former BCG consultant among Britain’s wealthiest people.

>>> US After Hours Summary: PSTG +23.8%, OKTA +14.5%, MRVL +9.6%, CRM +6.9% high

After Hours Summary: PSTG +23.8%, OKTA +14.5%, MRVL +9.6%, CRM +6.9% higher on earnings; CURV -23.8%, BASE -10% lower on earnings; CPB -3.3% names a new CEO, also reports earnings

After Hours Gainers:

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: PSTG +23.8%, OKTA +14.5%, MRVL +9.6%, CRM +6.9%

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: HRTX +92.4% (favorable court decision), JANX +3.2% ($300 mln stock offering), RUSHA +1.2% (authorizes new $150 mln share repurchase program), SGML +0.7% (production at full capacity; record shipment of quintuple zero green lithium), WULF +0.7% (announces Nov production data), RJF +0.6% (authorizes new $1.5 bln share repurchase program, also increases dividend), FTAI +0.5% (announces sale of remaining offshore energy vessels), RIO +0.2% (RIO and Sumitomo Metal to form JV), GSAT +0.2% (PSN and GSAT announce exclusive partnership), G +0.1% (signs strategic collaboration agreement with AWS), GENI +0.1% (announces collaboration with TNT Sports and NBA 2K), STC +0.1% (CEO contract extension)

After Hours Losers:

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: CURV -23.8%, BASE -10%, CPB -3.3% (also CEO to retire; names new CEO; increases dividend), BOX -3.1%, UNH -1.1%

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: TRVI -23.7% (announces topline results from study of oral nalbuphine), LUNR -13.7% (launches $65 mln stock offering and concurrent private placement), GXO -10.1% (CEO to retire), CRGY -3.6% (to acquire Eagle Ford assets from Ridgemar Energy for $905 mln; also announces 18 mln share offering), IREN -1.9% ($300 mln convertible notes offering), ODFL -1.1% (reports LTL operating metrics for Nov), ED -0.3% (7 mln share offering), DTE -0.1% (increases dividend)