TheChek News Flow

UK’s nuclear research body consults on plans to cut about 200 jobs

Move by UKNNL leads union to question government claims about ‘golden age’ for sector

Britain’s national nuclear research body is consulting on plans to cut its staffing by up to a fifth because of financial pressures, leading union officials to question the government’s claims to be building a “golden age” for the industry.

The United Kingdom National Nuclear Laboratory (UKNNL) is looking at cutting about 200 jobs from a workforce of about 1,100 via a mixture of voluntary and compulsory redundancies.

Described by ministers as “the custodian of some of the UK’s most critical nuclear skills and capabilities”, the public corporation’s research supports the development of cutting-edge technologies in nuclear generation, defence and other areas such as medicine.

The union Prospect, which represents staff at UKNNL, said the proposed cuts appeared to be driven by funding problems that had left the organisation unable to pursue its goals — and even, the union claimed, to honour its own contractual redundancy terms — rather than by any change of strategy. 

“This would be a huge loss of skilled nuclear capability at exactly the time we are trying to scale up,” said Sue Ferns, Prospect’s senior deputy general secretary. 

The proposed cuts at UKNNL are taking place as the government presses ahead with controversial plans to speed up the construction of nuclear power stations by weakening protections for nature, while also creating a fast-track system for “defence nuclear” projects. 

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has hailed these reforms — recommended by a task force led by John Fingleton, former head of the Office of Fair Trading — as a triumph of deregulation that will boost economic growth and energy security and usher in a “golden age of nuclear”. 

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was on a visit to the laboratory’s Lancashire site when he pledged last year to “build, baby, build” by changing planning rules. 

But UKNNL — which receives some grant funding but relies chiefly on commercial revenues — has run into mounting cost pressures and financial difficulties.

A strategic review of the laboratory, published at the end of 2024, led to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero taking a tighter grip and installing new management, although without any significant new injection of core grant funding at last year’s spending review. 

The government argues that UKNNL’s operating costs have risen significantly in recent years and that the job cuts are part of a reset that is essential to make it sustainable. 

The staff at risk of redundancy were “highly specialised” and unlikely to find similar roles near the UKNNL’s main sites, making the government’s recent announcement of a £65mn expansion of doctoral training places in nuclear science look “completely incoherent”, Ferns said. Prospect has also been campaigning against job cuts at the UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.

The UKNNL said the laboratory was consulting with recognised trade unions “on proposals that may involve changes to our organisation and a reduction in roles”, although no final decisions had been taken. 

Given a “challenging” fiscal environment, the proposals were “about making sure we have the right structure and skills” to lead research in nuclear fission for decades to come, it added.

It declined to comment on the claim that UKNNL was unable to honour its own contractual redundancy terms.

Banks prepare to offload $18bn in debt tied to EA take-private deal

Blockbuster junk bond and loan offering will test investor appetite at a time of heightened nerves over AI disruptions

Wall Street banks have started offloading $18bn of debt tied to the $55bn leveraged buyout of video game maker Electronic Arts, a test of investor appetite as the war in Iran and AI advances shake the credit market.

The marquee transaction, which will help finance the biggest-ever leveraged buyout, is being closely watched for signs of investor uptake as banks ready a handful of large deals they are keen to move off their balance sheets.

The deal comes as riskier bonds and loans have come under pressure in recent weeks following a sell-off of software debt, pushing up borrowing costs of junk-rated companies. It comes after EA agreed in September to be taken private by a Saudi-backed consortium assembled by Jared Kushner and Silver Lake.

“Banks want to de-risk,” said Joseph Lynch, global head of non-investment-grade credit at Neuberger Berman. “Now we have this backlog of macro concerns, banks are saying ‘let’s not sit on this for another month, let’s just get this off our books right now’.”

More than a dozen banks, led by JPMorgan, launched a $5.75bn dual-currency leveraged loan sale on Monday, followed by another $9bn of high-yield bond issuance scheduled for the next few days, according to people familiar with the matter. The financing package also includes a $3.25bn term loan held by banks, which was launched in late January.

In a bid to secure big cheques, JPMorgan has been privately asking its largest asset management clients to commit at least $500mn each, according to people familiar with the efforts.

The bank also organised one-on-one investor meetings with Andrew Wilson, the chief executive of EA, during its annual leveraged finance conference in Miami earlier this month, the people added. 

JPMorgan declined to comment.

A banker familiar with the transaction sought to distance EA — maker of EA Sports FC, Madden NFL and The Sims series — from the enterprise software companies that face the biggest threat of disruption from AI.

“It’s not a software-as-a-service business,” the banker said. “What EA sells is the experience, and they differentiate themselves with licences and contracts with major sports franchises.”

EA management, who pitched potential investors on a call on Tuesday, said they believed AI would provide a boon to the gaming industry, allowing companies in the sector to eventually reduce their engineering workforces.

They told investors generative AI could not replicate the physics simulations that the company’s gaming engines process, and instead offered a view that the two could coexist, like Oscar-winning film director Steven Spielberg and YouTube content creator MrBeast, according to a person on the call.

Despite that optimism, video game stocks have come under pressure as new AI models have been unveiled, including from Google’s debut of Project Genie. The search giant’s AI “world model”, while still only a prototype, showed that video game-like virtual worlds could be created instantly using only a short text prompt.

Investors see robust initial demand for the EA leverage loans — sold in dollars and euros — which are expected to yield 3.5 to 3.75 percentage points above benchmark at 98.5 cents on the dollar, or just below 7.5 per cent all-in yield, according to people briefed on the debt sales. The loans are expected to receive a split of BB and Ba3 credit ratings.

The secured bonds are being marketed at similar yields, while the unsecured high-yield bonds were expected to yield about 8.5 per cent, the people said.

The banks selling the debt are offering investors higher compensation for risk than is typically on offer for similarly rated deals, in part because the transaction is so large.

Initial pricing on the deal resembles that of a B-rated issuer, which on average sold loans at about 3.8 percentage points above the benchmark rate in the past 30 days, according to PitchBook LCD data. BB-rated companies, on the other hand, traded about 2.4 percentage points above the benchmark during the same period. 

“The initial price talk looks pretty attractive to us,” said a large institutional investor who committed to the loans across both currencies. “We think they’re pricing it at the right level for the risk that the business carries.”

Stable recurring revenue from game subscriptions, combined with the potential to increase sales from advertising, bolstered the creditworthiness of EA, the investor added. 

Investors also took comfort in the $36bn equity commitment from the consortium formed by Silver Lake, Affinity Partners and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, said Marina Lukatsky, global head of research, credit and US private equity at PitchBook LCD.

“When you have a larger equity component, there’s a bigger cushion to soften the blow if something happens to the company’s performance in the future,” Lukatsky said.

However, some investors remain defensive, particularly considering the narrower yields in final pricing owing to strong demand. 

“Anything that has AI disruption risk is an absolute non-starter for us,” said another institutional investor who shunned EA’s loans.

Containers are being dropped off at far-flung ports while freight rates have soared

The conflict in the Middle East has turned the container shipping sector into a “wild west”, with carriers adding thousands of dollars in extra charges and dumping containers at far-flung ports, according to shipping customers and removal companies.

The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz following Iranian strikes and fears that Houthi rebels will resume their attacks in the Red Sea have prompted shipping lines to suspend bookings and reroute goods. Fire as a result of debris from aerial strikes on Sunday over the main hub port in Dubai, Jebel Ali, has triggered further cancellations and congestion at safer ports.

The largest shipping groups, including MSC, Maersk, CMA CGM and Hapag-Lloyd have told customers they reserve the right to invoke a 19th-century rule to allow them to leave containers at the nearest available port at their client’s expense.

Charges for shipping containers, meanwhile, have risen as much as fourfold on certain routes thanks to war-risk insurance costs and fuel surcharges.

David Ozard, general manager at the removal group John Mason International, said that containers due to go to the Middle East had been dropped at the port of Nhava Sheva in India, while others destined for Saudi Arabia had instead been left at the port of Khor Fakkan in the UAE, leaving the company to pick up additional storage costs and import charges.

“At the moment it’s a complete wild west,” Ozard said, adding that shipping customers were forced to pay the additional charges. “If we don’t, shipping lines put our accounts on hold and hold us to ransom.”

Hakan Bulgurlu, outgoing chief executive of the appliance manufacturer Beko, claimed that shipping lines were “pretty much an oligarchy” and “very opportunistic”.

Beko had been insulated from the immediate charges thanks to its long-term contracts with shipping lines. However, the disruption to international supply chains had created a “whack-a-mole situation” with effects in the Middle East rippling throughout fragile trade networks.

Philippe Binard, general delegate of Freshfel, the European fresh produce industry group, said that his sector had been hit particularly hard as March is one of the peak months for export from Europe to the Middle East.

Refrigerated containers were being taken as close as possible to the region before being transported into Gulf countries by land.

“If you go to Jeddah [in Saudi Arabia], you then need to find land transportation [and] it’s not easy, there is big competition. You then have to cross border control, which is not easy in a period of instability,” Binard said, adding that fruit often needed specific documents that had to be changed.

“It’s a huge extra cost,” he said. Companies need to negotiate how much of the cost they will pass on to the buyer, but margins in fresh produce are extremely thin, say executives.

Halal meat consumption also means that shipping companies are having to find new routes to transport live animals into the Gulf. Four livestock carriers are heading for Jeddah port, according to S&P Global. Several ships have already been routed through the Saudi port.

About 90 per cent of the world’s goods are transported by sea, with approximately 5 per cent going through the Strait of Hormuz. Around 3,200 vessels are stuck in the Gulf as a result of the strikes.

Global freight rate increases have been modest compared to the pandemic. Rates between Shanghai and northern Europe, for example, rose 11 per cent to $1,618 per 20-foot equivalent unit container (TEU) last week, “well down” from peaks of almost $8,000 per TEU during the Covid era, according to Clarksons Research, a maritime analytics firm.

However, rates for freight headed to the Gulf have soared. Craig Reilly, chief executive of Dubai Arabian Shipping Agency, said that a typical TEU moving household goods from the UK to Jebel Ali had previously cost about $1,500 but is now at almost $6,000.

On top of this, additional land transport, storage costs, port charges and import fees meant that “unplanned additional cost can readily reach the low four-figure range per container above the original quotation”.

In some cases, shipping customers have said the disruption is worse than Covid because the Gulf region is in effect shut.

Emergency fuel surcharges resulting from rocketing bunker fuel prices, driven by the squeeze on oil supplies, have also pushed up costs.

Shipping lines including Maersk, CMA CGM, Hapag-Lloyd and MSC have all added surcharges of between $160 and $400 per TEU for long-haul voyages starting later this month to compensate for higher fuel prices.

Charter rates for container ships were also at their highest level since Covid as the need to reroute vessels had boosted demand, according to Clarksons.

Lars Jensen, chief executive at the consultancy Vespucci Maritime, said that fuel surcharges are usually set on a route-by-route basis, depending on distance and vessel size, but in this case shipping lines had added blanket surcharges across all routes.

Hapag-Lloyd said that it was in “continuous exchange” with its customers to explain the charges and that they covered war risk, fuel prices and an additional “contingency surcharge” for cargoes to and from the Red Sea to cover “unexpected increase in operational costs”.

Maersk said that it was in touch with customers to “find the best possible solutions”, including temporary storage or land transport.

“The reshuffling in our fuel supply chain, rerouting of vessels and equipment shortage are contributing to additional short-term and potentially also longer-term costs,” it said.

MSC did not respond to a request for comment.

France’s CMA CGM said it had applied surcharges on rates to make up for rising insurance, fuel and security costs. The group has reopened bookings for Gulf deliveries and is managing some of the logistics itself by truck from Jeddah, for instance, or from Oman, including for pharmaceutical goods and other necessities.

“It’s not as fast obviously,” a person at the group said, adding that the length of the journey and bottlenecks at ports around the region were adding to costs and difficulties.

DAX:

MDAX:

SDAX:

The top-line scorecard is a modest disappointment on guidance, but clean at the actuals level:

FY2025 revenues of €174.7m came in exactly in line with the company's own guidance and slightly above FY2024's €169.6m, including a variable consideration recognition from the Lyme disease collaboration with Pfizer.

The miss is entirely in the forward look: 2026 total revenue guidance of €155–170m falls short of FactSet consensus of €175.6m — a midpoint shortfall of roughly €13m or ~7.5%. This is not a collapse; it is a deliberate mix shift management has signalled for several quarters.

The single biggest driver of the guidance gap is the accelerating exit from low-margin third-party distribution. Third-party product sales fell to €19.2m in 2025 from €33.2m in 2024, a 42% decline — a planned reduction — while proprietary product sales grew 9% at constant exchange rates excluding third-party items.

This is the correct read: the underlying commercial engine (IXIARO, DUKORAL, IXCHIQ) is actually accelerating. The revenue haircut in 2026 guidance is a quality-of-earnings improvement, not demand deterioration. Consensus had arguably not fully adjusted for the pace of third-party wind-down.

IXCHIQ sales in 9M 2025 were €7.6m vs. €1.8m in 9M 2024, boosted by supply to La Réunion during a chikungunya outbreak, but a U.S. license suspension significantly constrained the travelers' segment. The FDA situation remains an open item — no resolution has been announced as of today's results. This is the key near-term commercial risk that the market will interrogate on the webcast.

Everything else is noise. Management is flagging 2026 as potentially transformational, with Phase 3 VALOR data for VLA15 expected in H1 2026, followed by Pfizer targeting BLA submission to the FDA and MAA to the EMA in 2026 subject to positive results.

Context on VALOR:

Lyme disease vaccine market potential is substantial: ~476,000 annual US diagnoses and ~130,000 in Europe, with zero approved human vaccines globally. First-mover advantage with Pfizer's commercial infrastructure behind it is a genuinely differentiated asset.

Year-end cash of €109.7m following successful debt refinancing provides enhanced financial flexibility. With adj. EBITDA losses of €59.4m and management guiding for further reduction in operating cash burn in 2026, the company has runway through the VALOR readout without obvious dilution risk — a key concern that has historically weighed on the stock.

A few relevant signals for your broader coverage:

The guidance miss is real but largely mechanical (third-party wind-down, FX, IXCHIQ US headwind). The commercial franchise ex-third-party is growing. The binary is VALOR: positive data in H1 2026 is transformative; negative is devastating. The stock is a levered option on VLA15, dressed in a travel vaccine wrapper. The CFO's comment about "resilience" and "disciplined execution" is the right tone — management is not over-promising. Watch the webcast closely for any colour on VALOR data timing within H1 and any FDA IXCHIQ update.

The 66th-floor units at the Residences at Mandarin Oriental, Miami, will each have private pools

THE DEAL: In another major deal for the Miami market, two duplex penthouses at a yet-to-be-built condominium on Brickell Key are in contract for $49.9 million each, according to developer Swire Properties. If either unit closes at that price, it will set a condo record for the city of Miami, Swire said.

THE ASK: The two condo units at the Residences at Mandarin Oriental, Miami, were offered as a single residence asking $100 million, or separate homes priced at $50 million apiece, when sales at the building launched in 2024.

THE BUYER: Two different buyers signed contracts on the units within weeks of each other, according to Swire President Dave Martin, who declined to identify the purchasers. One is from California, according to a person close to the deal. Ivan Chorney of Compass, who represented one of the buyers with colleague Michael Martirena, declined to identify his client, but said the individual is from the West Coast.

THE SPECS: Each unit is roughly 8,000 square feet with five bedrooms, two kitchens and a library. They are both on the 66th floor with ocean views, terraces and private outdoor lap pools.

THE BUILDING: The new hotel and condo project will be built on the site of the old Mandarin Oriental hotel. The developer is planning to demolish the circa-2000 hotel next month, and the structure is slated to be completed in 2030.

The project comprises two towers with around 300 condos combined and amenities including 11 pools. The 33-story north tower will have a new Mandarin Oriental hotel and residences.

Swire said since sales launched, more than 50% of the condos in the south tower have gone into contract, for more than $1.3 billion in total sales. Fortune Development Sales is handling sales.

THE MARKET: Covid supercharged demand for luxury housing in Miami, a trend that has accelerated as wealthy investors and business owners relocate to Florida from other states. “There is a lot of wealth migration and tax flight,” said Chorney.

The Miami area has seen a number of big-ticket sales recently. In February, the total number of Miami home sales rose 9.6% year over year, while condo sales were up 14.7% from February 2025, according to the Miami Association of Realtors. Howard Schultz, the billionaire former chairman and chief executive of Starbucks, recently paid about $44 million for a penthouse at the Surf Club, Four Seasons Private Residences in Surfside.

The most expensive condo sale to date in the Miami area was a penthouse in Surfside that closed for $86 million last year, according to Miller Samuel.

Amazon/USPS Divorce: Read-Throughs Across Logistics March 18, 2026

Amazon is cutting its USPS volume by at least two-thirds before its contract expires in October. USPS delivered more than a billion packages for Amazon last year, representing close to 15% of all packages delivered nationally. This is not a bilateral shock — it cascades across the entire logistics ecosystem.

The Amazon divorce is actually a continuation of deliberate UPS strategy, not new news. UPS reduced its Amazon volume by 1 million packages a day in 2025 — internally called the "Amazon Glide Down" — and plans to cut by the same amount again in 2026, targeting a more than 50% reduction by mid-year. The thesis: Amazon packages are margin-dilutive, and removing them frees capacity for higher-yield B2B and healthcare shipments. The risk is volume deleverage and fixed-cost absorption in the transition. Watch Q2 guidance carefully.

FedEx walked away from Amazon ground delivery in 2019. FedEx only recently returned for a limited oversized-package deal. They are structurally best positioned: no Amazon dependency, and any volume reallocation by smaller shippers fleeing USPS/Amazon disruption lands on FedEx's network. Combined with a 5.9% GRI in effect for 2026, with real-world cost increases running 8–12% once surcharges and dimensional rule changes are factored in, FedEx pricing power is intact.

DHL's primary exposure is cross-border and international. The structural shift accelerates Amazon's push to internalize domestic last-mile, potentially redirecting third-party merchant volumes toward DHL eCommerce for non-Amazon platforms (Shopify, TikTok Shop, etc.). Net directionally positive for DHL's eCommerce division — less so for express.

The clearest loser. In fiscal 2025, USPS reported a net loss of $9 billion, and Postmaster General Steiner warned Congress the agency could run out of cash in approximately one year. Amazon's departure leaves expensive new parcel-sorting infrastructure underutilized. USPS currently handles 30–40% of Amazon deliveries in rural areas — the hardest to replace. Steiner is asking Congress to lift the $15bn debt ceiling and deregulate pricing. The political calculus in Washington is uncertain.

The broader read-through here is strongly positive for automation capex:

The USPS/Amazon disruption is a medium-term positive for AutoStore:

Risk: AutoStore's exposure to Amazon-direct is limited, but any slowdown in 3PL capex decisions (given macro uncertainty) could push out sales cycles.

The Amazon/USPS divorce is less a one-off event than an acceleration of a trend that has been running for three years: the dis-intermediation of legacy carriers, the build-out of proprietary networks, and the automation of everything upstream. The biggest winners are those supplying the picks, not those driving the trucks.