TheChek News Flow

OpenAI is gaining on Anthropic with business users, new data indicates

Until both OpenAI and Anthropic get close enough to their planned IPOs to release their financials, we have to look to other sources for signs of how well their businesses are doing. One of those sources, Ramp, the corporate credit card and expense management company, has just released some surprising new data: OpenAI has started gaining on Anthropic with U.S. businesses.

OpenAI, which was once the runaway leader with both businesses and consumers, lost the lead among Ramp’s paying business users back in May. That’s when Anthropic hit 41% market share to OpenAI’s 39%. The ChatGPT maker has never regained that lead. As of July, Anthropic has nearly 44% to OpenAI’s nearly 40%.

The data covers more than 70,000 American businesses that spend billions via Ramp’s bill pay and corporate card products. Ramp’s customers are spread across industries but, as a popular Silicon Valley corporate credit card, they do skew toward the tech industry.

A closer look at the most recent data, according to Ramp economist Ara Kharazian, shows that OpenAI is currently growing faster among this segment in Q3 to date than Anthropic. Mind you, there’s still a month left in the quarter and that’s like 30 AI years, so the trend could easily shift again before it’s over. Ramp also declined to provide actual dollars spent, sharing only percentages.

To borrow ChatGPT’s own hedging style for a moment: This isn’t a measure of the total market. It excludes large enterprises that use spend-management tools from providers like American Express, rather than Ramp. But it’s enough data to show market indications. And what it shows is that Anthropic hasn’t won permanently. Businesses are willing to flop back and forth as each lab releases new models, volatility that should give both companies’ investors pause about how “sticky” enterprise AI spending really is.

“GPT-5.6 Sol is really good, increasingly the choice for developers,” Kharazian posted on X about OpenAI’s new growth. “Fable 5, meanwhile, disappointed both in adoption and real-world application given price + data retention requirements imposed by regulators,” he continued.

That may be an over simplification. Fable — Anthropic’s higher-end model tier — is expensive but it’s also built for a more targeted set of use cases than a general chatbot. Still, Anthropic did cause some outrage when it warned Fable users that it must retain their data for 30 days.

Ramp’s data also suggests that both companies should be growing business revenue, even as they duke it out for market share, because the market overall is expanding. The percentage of companies that pay for AI among these Ramp customers has been steadily climbing. It topped 50% in March. It reached nearly 56% by July.

Nike's troubles go back to 2020 at the onset of COVID, compounded by a shift from wholesale to direct-to-consumer, and lack of product newness.

Nike Inc.’s turnaround is taking much more time than initially expected, and that brings with it two things investors dislike — slow growth and a lot of uncertainty.

Wall Street wants growth, and investors who focus on the short term tend to think along the lines of: “what have you done for me lately?” But even long term Nike investors might have something to gripe about.

Shares of Nike are trading in the $40 range, about 78 percent below its November 2021 high and along its trading price back in 2014. And Nike shares might even go lower. That could depend on what company executives, including chief executive officer Elliott Hill and new chief financial officer David Denton, disclose on the first quarter earnings conference call. Nike is expected to report earnings around the end of September or at the start of October.

As Footwear News has reported, Nike’s troubles started long before Hill rejoined Swoosh in October 2024 as the sportswear giant’s new chief executive officer. He was a former Nike executive who served in several leadership roles before retiring in 2020.

Former CEO John Donahoe pushed forth on a direct-to-consumer focus in June 2020 that saw Nike pull out of some wholesale channels. That paved the way for challengers such as Hoka and start-up On Running to gain some floor space at retail shelves and garner some much-needed marketing visibility. And as the downward direction of Nike’s performance continued under Donahoe’s tenure, the brand lost share in crucial categories such as running, compounding the criticism that the business also lacked innovative products.

The issues at Nike weren’t entirely Donahoe’s fault. He was serving as a director at the sports brand before taking on the CEO reins within weeks of the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. And if Donahoe had the difficult task of steering Swoosh through the pandemic and the economic aftermath, Hill’s challenges were just as daunting, if not more so and are still ongoing.

Wall Street saw Hill as the best choice to become the athletic giant’s fifth chief executive. His institutional knowledge of the brands — both Nike and Jordan — and deep experience in the U.S. and overseas gave him a certain amount of credibility for the much-needed turnaround, as well as the recognition that there won’t be any quick fixes.

One success, as part of Hill’s “Win Now” strategy, has been the immediate focus on Nike Running, viewed by Wall Street as a definite bright spot. That turnaround success was confirmed by retailers in July 2025 with the successful launch of the Vomero 18 in February 2025 that has grown into at least a $100 million franchise. And in Nike’s fourth quarter conference call on June 30, Hill said: “Running grew $5 billion — $1 billion over the last five quarters, and we gained five market share points.”

Investors, of course, want to see more growth in other components of Nike’s business too, and perhaps on a faster timeline. But macroeconomic challenges are making that harder to do.

And Nike certainly has seen some hiccups. Just when it seemed China was the primary stumbling block overseas, European sales began faltering too as consumers pulled back due to inflationary pressures and higher promotional activity. The issues with the Chinese and European markets are being addressed, even if they aren’t yet fully fixed. With so many balls in the air that need turnaround attention, Nike at least does have other positives coming down the pike.

Hill also said during the June 30 conference call that the sportswear division will be introducing more than a dozen new footwear styles in the second half of fiscal year 2027, which starts next January. “And it’s not just going back to the Vault and doing old retro shoes. It is leveraging innovation, and you’ll see some newness and freshness coming in new silhouettes,” the CEO said.

Athletes don’t have to wait until next year for some of that newness. Earlier this month, Nike introduced a new training footwear system as Hyrox soars in popularity — the Hybrid Fly and Hybrid RN, available in men’s and women’s — giving Swoosh athletic performance shoes to help athletes move from running to lifting and dynamic movement without sacrificing speed, stability or traction.

And Hill also said the company sees “momentum gaining in training, tennis, golf and outdoor.” That traction follows the realignment of 8,000 employees last October to Nike’s Sport Offense initiative, which aligns the three brands — Nike, Jordan and Converse — “into more nimble-focused teams by sport.”

Jefferies equity analyst Randal Konik has a “buy” rating on shares of Nike. Following the fourth quarter earnings report for the three months ended May 31, Konik noted that the China cleanup is progressing while the performance business continues to scale. He saw sportswear in general and Jordan Streetwear as the two categories that still need work, adding that the “core is stabilizing” and “not getting worse.” And he noted that Sport Offense is the right approach.

Some investors wonder if it might be a tall order for Nike to get back some of the market share it lost to up-and-comers like running shoe brand On when Nike pulled back on wholesale accounts under Donahoe. Konik disagrees with that thinking. The Jefferies analyst has long stated that On’s wholesale growth — as well as that of other Nike running competitors, such as Hoka — was due to that pullback and that retailers are likely to pivot back to Nike with their open-to-buy dollars.

Konik’s not the only one who thinks that. Williams Trading analyst Sam Poser last week noted that the Swiss performance running brand could lose “share to Nike over the next six-to-nine months,” following concerns in On’s second quarter earnings report over its wholesale channel strategy. If both are right, that would be good news for Nike.

For now, with newly onboarded David Denton about to co-host his first earnings call as CFO, there’s been a greater focus on what it might mean to have a new financial sheriff in town, especially one who isn’t from Nike’s inner ranks.

While Wall Street analysts were surprised by the June disclosure that Denton on Aug. 17 would succeed Matthew Friend, the move was also seen as the natural progression of Nike’s ongoing turnaround strategy. BTIG analyst Robert Drbul noted that Nike’s last external CFO hire was in 1999 when Don Blair joined from Pepsi. “While Nike still faces many global challenges with its brand and an evolving, highly competitive industry, we would surmise that the company will likely benefit from fresh eyes from an external perspective,” Drbul said.

What investors see instead is potential caution ahead. Nike said Denton’s focus will be on “disciplined execution,” as well as on capital allocation and long-term value creation. For investors, bringing in an outsider suggests more conservative guidance is in the works. That kind of thinking is grounded in the belief that Nike’s turnaround is going to need much more time to effect, maybe through much of fiscal year 2027 — and that’s a no-go for anyone focused on a shorter time horizon. What they may not realize is that Denton’s mandate on “disciplined execution” and focus on capital allocation might be what the company exactly needs to support the next stage of Nike’s turnaround strategy and creation of long-term value for shareholders.

Private Credit’s Next Big Thing Is $1 Trillion in British Pensions

Deal that includes Standard Life, CVC and Goldman Sachs is latest to tap an increasingly popular source of investor cash

LONDON—Private credit giants have found a $1 trillion-plus source of capital to invest: dowdy old British pensions.

London’s Standard Life said on Thursday it struck a deal to invest in private-market assets supplied by buyout company CVC Capital Partners, Goldman Sachs GS -1.93%decrease; down pointing triangle and PGIM, the asset-management arm of Prudential Financial PRU -1.33%decrease; down pointing triangle. The U.K. insurer said the partnership would help boost its business taking over the management of defined pension plans from companies.

The deal, in which investors will earmark $2 billion, is the latest example where U.K. life insurers managing pensions are turned into a source of funding for private credit.

Apollo, Brookfield and Blackstone did their own deals over the past year, muscling in on a booming market for legacy pension plans that life insurers are competing to take over from the companies that first sponsored them.

Britain is home to thousands of these old defined-benefit plans, which fell out of favor 25 years ago and are mostly closed to new members. The biggest still manage tens of billions of dollars in assets.

Defined-benefit plans in the U.K. have more than £1 trillion ($1.35 trillion) of liabilities they haven’t offloaded to insurers, said Stephen Purves of consulting firm XPS, who advises on transfer deals. “It’s a big prize,” he said.

Insurers are betting they can earn more than they have to shell out to retirees by adding private assets to the mix of government and corporate bonds most pension plans own before being taken over. The model was pioneered by Apollo and its competitors in the U.S.

It means Brits will increasingly depend on private markets—at home and in the bigger American market—for their retirement income.

That could push capital into housing, energy systems and infrastructure, possibly giving Britain’s sluggish economy a boost.

But regulators and analysts worry insurers are chasing complex offshore investments that introduce new risks into the industry as part of the pensions boom.

About 40% of the assets backing U.K. insurers’ fast-growing retirement books come from private markets and other sources, where assets don’t trade frequently or on exchanges, analysts at S&P Global estimate. Of that, around a third are private-credit investments such as loans to midsize companies, more than in other European countries.

The caveat, the ratings agency said in July: Lack of standardized data made it hard to calculate insurers’ exposures to different types of assets.

Transfers of U.K. pension plans to insurers aren’t new. But they have proliferated since rising rates pulled down pension plans’ obligations faster than their assets. Many plans flipped to a surplus for the first time in over a decade.

All of a sudden, they could afford to pay insurers to take on their obligations through a contract known as a bulk annuity. The first step is to hand a plan’s assets over to an insurer, which starts to manage them. Eventually, it administers the whole thing.

Insurers like private-market assets because they are a good match for long-dated liabilities.

Gareth Truran, the Bank of England official who supervises insurers, said this spring pressure to secure profit margins is encouraging some insurers to take risks without sufficient compensation, though he added that their assets are overwhelmingly investment grade.

Brookfield recently bought life insurer Just Group, which it plans to feed with infrastructure, energy and real-estate investments.

Instead of buying an insurer, Blackstone agreed to supply private-credit assets for Legal & General to buy against its huge book of retirement obligations. One early deal: lending to a grocery-distribution center in North Carolina.

“The U.K. is one of our most important markets,” said Phil Sherrill, an insurance executive at Blackstone.

Blackstone is also tapping in to Britain’s booming pensions market indirectly through a Bermudan reinsurer it provides with private-credit investments.

The Bank of England, however, says U.K. insurers don’t hold enough loss-absorbing capital against this kind of offshore arrangement and plans to make them hold more.

Of the North American players in the U.K., Apollo is taking the biggest swing.

Athora, a European insurer in which it owns a minority stake, recently bought Britain’s Pension Insurance Corporation, which specializes in taking pension plans over from companies. Combined, the pair form one of Europe’s biggest life-insurance groups with £118 billion in assets for 3.1 million savers and retirees.

They include current and future pensioners from Rolls-Royce and British American Tobacco, which Pension Insurance Corporation took over before Athora swooped in. Among its latest deals: to take on all 253 members of the pension plan for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music.

“It’s one of the largest and most vibrant in Europe,” Athora CEO Todd Solash said of Britain’s market for pension transfers. He said Athora’s relationship with Apollo, its co-owner, will give Pension Insurance Corporation access to private-credit assets that the American investment giant churns out.

Plenty of those assets will be in the U.K., Solash said, matching Athora’s U.K.-pound denominated liabilities. Apollo already has major investments here such as lending several billion pounds to build a nuclear power plant in southern England.

Unlike Athene, its in-house insurer in the U.S., Apollo doesn’t own Athora outright. Instead it gets paid to source and manage assets for Athora. In quarterly earnings published this month, Apollo said it gained $65 billion in fee-paying assets to manage in the second quarter thanks to Athora’s purchase of PIC.

Monte dei Paschi readies twin takeover bids for Banca Generali and Banco BPM

Plan would create an Italian banking group with a combined market valuation of about €70bn

Monte dei Paschi di Siena is preparing twin bids for Banca Generali and Banco BPM, in a bold move as it races to fend off a hostile takeover by Intesa Sanpaolo.

Two people close to the Italian bank said on Thursday that a majority of its board had backed a plan that would create a banking group with a combined market valuation of about €70bn.

The plan consists of separate all-share bids for Banca Generali — the wealth management arm of insurer Generali — and Banco BPM. Banca Generali has a market capitalisation close to €8bn while Banco BPM’s market value is just over €25bn. The plan also envisages a cash dividend for MPS shareholders, the people said.

MPS’s planned double bid is the latest twist in a protracted run of consolidation of Italian financial services groups and comes after Intesa Sanpaolo in June launched an unsolicited takeover offer for MPS, valuing the lender at around €36bn based on current market prices.

Intesa’s plan if it manages to acquire MPS includes breaking up the Siena-based lender and selling half of MPS’s roughly 1,260 branches, its historic brand and much of its central infrastructure to insurer Unipol.

Intesa, Italy’s largest banking group, would retain the remaining branches as well as Mediobanca, which MPS took over last year, making it the largest shareholder in insurer Generali.

MPS chief executive Luigi Lovaglio faces an uphill battle to fend off Intesa and create an enlarged banking group through simultaneous takeover bids with MPS’s board and shareholders remaining deeply divided.

Talks with Banco BPM over a “merger of equals” broke down last month, scuppering what appeared to be the most viable option for MPS to fend off Intesa’s approach.

The talks collapsed after Crédit Agricole said it had not been involved in the discussions and made clear that no deal could proceed without its support.

The FT reported this month that MPS was considering a takeover of Banco BPM after the informal “merger of equals” talks broke down. People close to the discussions said MPS’s proposal to take over Banco BPM had not been agreed in advance with Generali or Crédit Agricole, whose support would be needed because of the size of its holding.

Crédit Agricole’s deputy chief executive Jérôme Grivet said last month: “Nothing can happen against us or without us.”

MPS’s proposed bid for Banca Generali would also make Generali’s support pivotal as the insurer would have to decide whether to tender its controlling stake in the lender in return for shares in its own largest shareholder MPS. Tendering its shares would be likely to attract scrutiny from Generali’s independent directors under its so-called related-party transaction rules.

Lovaglio’s latest plan is broadly consistent with the Italian government’s original ambitions for MPS to become part of a large, Italian-focused banking group capable of competing with the country’s two dominant lenders, Intesa and UniCredit.

Rome began privatising MPS two years ago following its 2017 nationalisation but still retains a small stake.

In an interview with Italian financial daily Milano Finanza, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni last week said that she hoped MPS would not end up “broken up”, losing its name and identity.

Banca Generali and Banco BPM declined to comment.

Quant hedge funds suffer worst day in 2 years as Treasury boosts buyback and Moderna shares leap

Tumultuous session puts further pressure on momentum trades that have been unsettled since AI-related stock sell-off

Quant hedge funds had their worst day in more than two years, in a session that coincided with the US Treasury’s efforts to shore up the government bond market and sharp share price moves.

Wall Street banks told clients this week that quant funds, which use computer-driven strategies to systematically trade across asset classes, were down significantly as markets remained volatile. Funds that had big exposures to the “momentum” factor, or buying stocks that are already going up and selling those that are going down, were hit particularly hard.

Goldman Sachs wrote to clients on Wednesday afternoon in New York that its “global momentum” index was well outside historical norms, with systematic long-short hedge funds down 1.4 per cent as of 1pm Eastern time, their worst day in more than two years, according to a note seen by the FT. Goldman declined to comment.

While momentum trades often mirror the market, Morgan Stanley said in a note to clients it was the first time in at least five years the bank had observed its “pure momentum” index down more than 4 per cent while the broader S&P 500 index was higher on the same day, according to a note to clients seen by the FT. Morgan Stanley declined to comment.

Investors navigated a tumultuous trading day on Wednesday, putting further pressure on momentum trades that have been unsettled since the AI-related stock sell-off several weeks ago.

The Treasury announced it would “at least double” purchases of long-term government debt in an effort to steady the market, while shares of vaccine maker Moderna nearly tripled after announcing successful trial results for an experimental skin cancer therapy.

Despite the whiplash of recent weeks, systematic long-short funds were still up 1.7 per cent so far this month, according to Goldman’s note.

One portfolio manager at a large asset manager said it “doesn’t take a lot of [Modernas] to get risk managers to freak out a bit”, referring to how much the drugmaker’s stock had surged.

“Volatility is exceptional, so options makers are losing money left and right,” said one hedge fund manager. “The market is rotating every day, so what makes money today is almost always down tomorrow.”

The losses among quant firms follow a brutal July, in which a weeks-long sell-off in AI-related stocks caught Wall Street off guard. Many hedge funds suffered monthly losses. The most high-profile casualty was Situational Awareness, the highly leveraged AI-focused fund which was ultimately forced to sell most of its public stock positions at a steep discount to Citadel.

Even financial firms that are known to reliably make money took a hit. Jane Street, the secretive trading shop that has emerged as a dominant player in global markets, posted a roughly $15bn loss last month as a result of its bet on Situational Awareness and related AI stocks.

“If you have a seven Richter earthquake, in the subsequent days you will have tremors,” said a top quant hedge fund executive. “You don’t just go to zero. [Market participants are] taking risk down.”

Quant hedge funds have run into difficult periods before from factor investing, which involves investing in securities based on certain underlying drivers, such as “value” or “growth”. In 2018, the industry was subsumed by a “quant winter” that dragged on for years as automated investing strategies sputtered and struggled to make money.

Authority plans to reduce number of passages for only the second time

The Panama Canal Authority is to limit the number of daily ship transits from September because of a lack of rainfall amid an intensifying El Niño weather pattern.

The waterway vital to global shipping will allow 32 vessels to pass daily from September 15, compared to the current 36, the authority said on Thursday. The first cuts will begin on September 3.

The canal, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and carries more than 3 per cent of global maritime trade, relies on fresh water to operate its locks and has had less rain than normal. It enacted restrictions last month that forced ships to carry less cargo in order to contend with lower water levels.

The canal suffered a historic drought between 2023-2024 and slashed booking slots for the first time. Since then, it has implemented water-saving measures, but on Thursday the authority said low rainfall meant it needed to take further action.

This year’s El Niño, when surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean rise potentially causing severe drought and warmer winters, could be one of the most intense ever. Leading climate scientists have called it a “super El Niño” and expect severe weather disruption across several continents.

Global logistics companies have been preparing for possible disruptions in the 110-year-old canal.

Prices to cross the canal hit record highs in August, averaging about $1.1mn, more than 16 times the average cost for the same period last year. The price surged after the US and Israel’s bombardment of Iran began in February, leading to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

The authority said from September 3 it would divide its daily auctions for transit slots into four categories according to the type of cargo to promote more equitable allocation. It will also prioritise ships with the most capacity in its larger Neopanamax locks. It strongly advised users to arrange bookings in advance.

The new allocation measures were put in place after the canal struggled to persuade liquefied natural gas and food commodity traders to return to the route after slot reductions in 2023 and 2024.

“Should additional operational adjustments become necessary, the canal will provide customers with timely updates,” the authority said. “Because weather conditions are changing more rapidly than originally anticipated, the Panama Canal will make every reasonable effort to announce any future adjustments as far in advance as possible.”

As well as being vital for global trade, the canal is also an essential revenue source for Panama’s government, providing almost $3bn of income in fiscal year 2025.

US President Donald Trump has criticised China’s influence over the canal, vowing last year to “take back control”.

Danish shipping group Maersk and Switzerland-based MSC in February took over operations of two key ports on the canal after Panama’s top court annulled the contract of CK Hutchison, the Hong Kong-based operator. CK Hutchison is seeking more than $1.5bn in damages.

The slow sucking sound of AI

Searching for signs of crowding out

At the end of yet another dinner party dominated by AI chatter, I often ask myself whether other important topics have been crowded out. Applied to the economy more broadly, it’s also worth asking whether AI mania is sucking resources from other sectors. Data centres and model development require vast quantities of chips, electricity and financing. Does the craze mean others are going without?

Over the long term, this will hopefully seem like a silly question. When AI has solved cancer and climate change, no one will be sniping about whether too much money and electricity were poured into the industry. There is no fixed lump of credit. Historically, innovation has made investment worthwhile, like when electrification made it viable to use a new class of small factory machines.

Here and now, though, constraints can bite. I wouldn’t advise running energy-intensive manufacturing near a data centre, or stuffing cheap phones with the memory chips that make AI run. Financing should be more elastic, and will need to be, as the big tech companies turn to debt markets to help with the AI build-out. But other borrowers hungry for cheap credit could still face a squeeze.

Starting with financing flows, eyeballing the raw data, AI-related companies do seem to be eating up a growing share. Silicon Valley Bank reported that over the past 12 months AI companies have received almost two-thirds of US venture capital dollars. And according to Goldman Sachs, roughly a quarter of US gross investment-grade debt issuance this year has come from AI-related companies, including hyperscalers, software providers and data sector funders.

Also in America, the real economy is showing signs of the AI boom too, reinforcing fears that the less whizzy bits are being starved of resources. As spending on capital in AI-related areas including information-processing equipment and data centres rose over last year, other types of private investment fell. Within office construction, spending on data centres has soared while the rest has sagged.

While suggestive, neither of the trends in financing nor investment proves that AI is sucking anything away from other sectors. The buzz could be stimulating capital. In a recent report, Silicon Valley Bank described how, although higher Treasury yields normally would curb VC investment, more recently those ties have been severed “as the fear of missing out on this step change . . . has pushed VC investment to new heights.”

As for the real investment trends, the AI boom could be masking underlying economic weakness caused by something else entirely. Although some have warned that AI is imperilling a broader revival in US manufacturing, other more obvious culprits include government subsidies running out, tariff uncertainty and tight monetary policy in response to sticky inflation (not itself caused by AI).

International comparisons can offer some reassurance. If AI were simply reallocating a fixed pot of capital spending within countries, one would expect to see no relationship between AI mania and overall investment levels. But researchers at the Bank for International Settlements found that countries more strongly orientated towards AI (or more “prepared”) saw stronger growth in both business and total investment over the two years up to the end of 2025. That suggests that AI has been delivering a real boost.

If crowding out is happening within credit markets, it probably isn’t massive. A recent note from Jessica Rindels and David Mericle of Goldman Sachs argues that non-AI companies haven’t experienced a noticeable uptick in their relative cost of debt. Their financing costs probably are slightly higher overall because of the increase in competition for financing from hyperscalers and their pals. Based on estimates of the effects of quantitative tightening, a restriction in the credit supply, Rindels and Mericle guesstimated a 0.05 percentage point effect.

Signs could also emerge in sectors beyond the corporate world. AI-related borrowers have been demanding long-term funds, of the sort governments typically issue. Just this week, analysts were citing the massive bond issuance to fund the AI build-out as being behind the punishing pricing in long-term sovereign debt markets.

As the AI boom progresses, signs of crowding out could become more obvious. By one estimate, for example, AI investment in the US will rise from 1.8 to 2.8 per cent of GDP between this year and 2028. Perhaps there will be a lot more dinner parties to discuss it all — and perhaps those wanting to talk about something other than AI will have to shout a little louder to be heard.