TheChek News Flow

Russia deepened Iran support with missile launcher deal

Moscow increased military aid for Tehran despite strains from Ukraine war

Russia agreed to supply Iran with 90 launchers for the advanced guided missiles widely used by its forces in Ukraine, a sign of Moscow’s military support for Tehran despite the demands of its own sputtering war effort. 

A production schedule for 2024 and 2025 from a major Russian defence manufacturer, seen by the FT, details an export order for the helicopter-mounted launchers to a buyer identified by a code name used in Russian defence documents to refer to Iran.

The order, which has not been previously reported, shows how the two allies have strengthened their military ties since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. 

Western intelligence officials say Russia and Iran have further deepened their partnership during the war in the Middle East this year, despite US President Donald Trump’s recent claims that Moscow was doing “very little, if anything” to help the Islamic republic. 

The FT has previously reported that Russia has helped Iran develop supersonic cruise missiles, sold it Verba shoulder-launched anti-air missiles and engaged with Tehran over information potentially relevant to nuclear weapons.

“It is indicative of Russia’s willingness to continue supplying Iran despite its own wartime demands and with far less concern about western objections than in the past,” said Nicole Grajewski, a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The production document, provided to the FT by Dallas Analytics, a Ukrainian private intelligence organisation, was sent in a May 2024 letter from Vympel, a leading Russian designer of missiles and launch systems.

Vympel urged another Russian defence bureau, KBM, to speed up deliveries of components for two types of missile launchers, APU-L and APU-305, which are primarily mounted on helicopters. Delays could put nine contracts at risk, it warned in the letter.

The accompanying production schedule lists seven Russian customers and two foreign buyers. China is named as one of them, with an order for 192 APU-305 launchers. The other buyer, identified only as “K-10,” ordered 90 APU-L launchers. 

Rosoboronexport, Russia’s state-owned arms agency, uses K-10 to refer to Iran, according to a person familiar with the matter and internal Russian documents obtained by the FT.

One contract for Yak-130 jet trainers and light attack aircraft seen by the FT explicitly identifies the buyer as “K-10, Iran”. Another, a 2023 production schedule from a subsidiary of Russia’s state-owned defence conglomerate Rostec, lists six Yak-130s destined for K-10, with two scheduled for production in the first half of the year and four in the second.

The schedule matches publicly reported deliveries. In 2023, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported that Iran had received two Yak-130s. By the end of 2024, all six had been delivered, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

The document does not establish whether the launchers destined for Iran were ultimately delivered.

Both types of launcher are designed to carry Russia’s light multipurpose guided missile, known as LMUR or Izdeliye 305, a precision weapon capable of striking moving targets. First unveiled at Russia’s Army Expo in 2021, the missile entered military service in 2022 and has since been widely used by Russian forces in Ukraine.

“This missile is much faster than a drone and reaches its target far sooner. At around 230 metres per second, it covers 14km in about a minute,” a representative of Dallas Analytics said. An operator can guide the missile in flight, allowing it to strike small, moving targets with precision.

“The concept is shoot-and-scoot: move to a firing position, launch, hit the target and withdraw quickly,” the representative added. The short-range weapon is particularly suited to raids and ambushes, leaving the enemy little time to react.

According to the US Army’s Worldwide Equipment Guide, APU-L launchers are designed for Russia’s Mi-28 attack helicopters and can carry two missiles each, while the APU-305 carries one.

Iran already has Russian Mi-28 helicopters. In November 2023, deputy defence minister Mehdi Farahi told Tasnim that arrangements had been finalised for the helicopters to join Iran’s armed forces.

In January 2026, Tasnim journalist Mohammad Taheri posted a photograph of an Mi-28 with the message: “Inshallah, you have a good military service.” Later that month, photographs of an Mi-28 in a hangar in Tehran emerged online, with open-source researchers geolocating the aircraft to an Iranian aviation facility.

Russia is walking a fine line to make sure its support of Iran does not disrupt its other relationships, including with other Middle Eastern countries and the US, said Hanna Notte, Eurasia programme director at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. 

“Russia still has certain red lines when it comes to its involvement in this war,” said Notte. “Which is why the support it has provided to Iran is operationally helpful but is not the game changer in this war.

Fresh blow ahead of start-up’s IPO as tech giant turns down option to more than double Texas data centre contract

Nscale’s ambitions for a $35bn stock market listing face a fresh test after the UK’s most valuable AI start-up lost out on a potential new deal with Microsoft worth tens of billions of dollars.

The US software giant has rejected an option to more than double the size of its existing contract to rent computing power at a data centre site in Texas, according to three people familiar with the matter.

The move means that Nscale, which counts former Meta executive Sheryl Sandberg and former UK deputy prime minister Sir Nick Clegg as board members, must find new customers for the site or lose out on billions of dollars in future revenues.

Microsoft and Nscale declined to comment.

The setback comes as the Nvidia-backed British company, led by former Australian cryptocurrency miner Josh Payne, prepares to launch an IPO this year.

But investors have grown wary of the debt-laden construction of AI infrastructure, particularly so-called neoclouds such as CoreWeave and Nebius.

Anger over the building of AI data centres across the US has emerged as one of the reasons voters rejected incumbent Republican candidates in the US midterm elections on Tuesday. Incoming Democratic governors, including in Texas, have called for an immediate moratorium on data centre development.

Securing new contracts for future business is crucial to the ability of neocloud groups to continue borrowing and finance the building of data centres.

Nscale also faces other challenges. Earlier this year, Microsoft pulled out of a $3bn deal to lease computing capacity from its UK data centre in Essex. The start-up’s flagship site in West Virginia — central to its $45bn computing deal with Anthropic — has also been hit with construction delays and local opposition.

Nscale, which made a net loss of $1bn on revenue of $141mn in the first half of 2026, is also developing sites in Portugal and Norway. The company says it has “line of sight” to about 10GW of potential power capacity — or the annual electricity consumption of almost every household in Britain.

In its IPO prospectus, Nscale stated it has up to 1.2GW of capacity coming online in Ward County, Texas. Around 500MW is connected to a data centre built on land owned by Nscale. The remaining 700MW is due to come from an adjacent site being developed by crypto miner Ionic Digital.

Nscale has right of first refusal to find customers for the Ionic site, and therefore benefit from computing deals connected to the venue.

In October 2025, Nscale announced a deal to lease to Microsoft around 240MW at the Ionic site, with the US tech giant “holding an option on a second phase of 700MW”.

The company clarified to the FT this week that the option was closer to 500MW and related to leasing additional capacity at Nscale’s own site. Microsoft decided not to take up the option, according to people familiar with the matter.

Nscale reached a deal with robotics company Figure in September to lease a portion of capacity at its own Ward County data centre and has signed undisclosed deals with other companies at the same location, said people familiar with the matter

Nscale is in discussions with several other potential customers for the site it owns, said a person close to the company.

However, power has not yet been secured for the remaining capacity at the Ionic site, for which Microsoft still has right of first refusal, according to Ionic’s SEC filings. The crypto miner reserves the right to “provide the expanded energy capacity to other AI, enterprise, or cloud infrastructure companies”, or use it for its own operations, according to regulatory filings.

Microsoft’s decision not to take the extra capacity in Texas will not affect Nscale’s total backlog worth $103bn, according to a person familiar with the matter. The start-up is also in talks with Anthropic over expanding its deal to lease a second 460MW data centre at its biggest site in West Virginia.

ANI Pharmaceuticals has made a cash offer for Egetis at SEK 11.25 per share, a 12.6% premium to yesterday's close of SEK 9.99. The total value is about SEK 5.3bn, including the convertible and the warrants. The Egetis board unanimously recommends the offer, holders of 42.2% of the shares have undertaken to accept, and the offer is not subject to any financing condition. The acceptance period should run from around 20 November to 18 December, with settlement around 29 December.

In our view, the price is low:

1. Thin premium. 12.6% is well below usual biotech takeover premia, and it is measured on a share price that already reflected the FDA approval (28 September) and the PRV sale (4 November).

2. The buyer gets the PRV cash. Net PRV proceeds to Egetis are about SEK 920m. After pro forma net cash of about SEK 1bn, ANI pays around SEK 4.3bn (about USD 430m) for Emcitate. That implies peak US sales of about USD 95m at 4x, or roughly 145 paid patients. The premium on the product itself is only about 10%.

3. The timing favours ANI. The offer comes before the first US sales, with a reported list price of about USD 950k per patient per year. ANI captures the regulatory de-risking without paying for the commercial upside.

4. Our valuation is higher. Our sum of the parts gives SEK 13.6 in the standalone base case, SEK 15 in our central scenario and about SEK 16 in a takeover at 5x base-case sales.

Why the offer is still likely to go through:

- Committed holders. The 42.2% who have committed are largely holders who funded the company at SEK 4.50 to 5.10 and are now more than doubling their money.

- Price ceiling. ANI states it will not raise the price unless a competing offer is announced, and under Swedish takeover rules that statement is binding.

The key point to check is the acceptance threshold. If the offer is conditional on 90% acceptance, the usual level for a Swedish squeeze-out, about 10% of the capital could block it. ANI would then have to waive the condition, or a competing bid would be needed to unlock a higher price. We also need to see whether the undertakings fall away in case of a superior offer. Both points should be in the offer document, expected around 20 November.

Happy to discuss.

Best regards,

Laurent Chekroun

+41 79 350 71 09

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Please find attached our update to the April note on the pharma/biotech M&A cycle. It covers every transaction announced between 8 April and 5 November 2026.

OVERNIGHT, UNCONFIRMED. The Wall Street Journal and Reuters reported last night, citing people familiar with the matter, that AstraZeneca made a non-binding offer of about $10bn for Rhythm Pharmaceuticals in October, reportedly through its rare-disease unit Alexion. The per-share figure differs between the two reports: $124 (WSJ) and up to $134 including milestones (Reuters). AstraZeneca declined to comment and Rhythm did not respond. Rhythm shares closed up 28% at $110.68, below both figures. We treat this as a rumour until a company statement.

THE THESIS IS UNCHANGED AND THE DATA SUPPORTS IT. The cycle is driven by patent expiry calendars and balance-sheet capacity, not by equity market direction. The XBI reached almost $170 in August and stood at $159.10 on 4 November. Public-company takeouts were thin in Q3, yet private-company deals filled the gap and the pace of buying did not slow.

- 46 deals, of which 34 carry a headline value of $1bn or more (values include milestones and CVRs).

- Five deals at $10bn or above: Recordati/CVC and GBL (about $12.4bn), Sun Pharma/Organon ($11.75bn EV), AbbVie/Apogee ($10.9bn), GSK/Nuvalent ($10.6bn) and Vertex/Crinetics ($10bn).

- Lilly signed 10 deals, including Kelonia (up to $7bn) and AtaiBeckley (up to $3.8bn including CVR).

- Year to date: $207.8bn across 76 deals on a broad definition that includes licensing-type biobucks and take-privates. This already exceeds our March forecast of $140-180bn.

- Private equity is now an active buyer (Recordati, Esperion, Theramex).

- Lilly completed the Centessa acquisition on 24 June.

- Travere received full FDA approval for Filspari in FSGS on 14 April.

- Abivax reported positive Phase 3 maintenance data on 30 June (shares +36%). No bid has been announced.

THE SETUP INTO YEAR-END. In our list, the last deal of $5bn or more is Curium/Lantheus on 3 August. The gap at the top end is now three months while the buyers' reasons have not changed. Commentators such as Adam May argue that the XBI masks the damage done to quality small and mid-cap biotechs, which are the natural targets. If so, targets are cheap for buyers who have to defend rising pharma valuations ahead of the cliff. The JPM Healthcare Conference in January is the natural stage for pharma to present its plans. A first $5bn+ takeout, such as the Rhythm report if it converts, would reset target valuations quickly.

RUMOUR BOARD. Rhythm (new), Abivax, Revolution Medicines and Nanobiotix are the names with a reported buyer, none confirmed. Viking, Structure, Celcuity, Travere, Inventiva and MapLight remain structural candidates with no bid reported.

Two caveats. Sources differ on the headline value of three deals (AtaiBeckley, Actio, ITM), and the note shows the maximum announced. The GSK/Nuvalent premium of 40% comes from secondary sources.

The point remains the same: weaker equity prices lower the reference for the next bid, not its likelihood.

Best regards,

Laurent Chekroun

+41 79 350 71 09