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Poll comes as US regulators review Steve Cohen-backed proposal for a 24/7 exchange

The New York Stock Exchange is polling market participants on the merits of trading stocks around the clock as regulators scrutinise an application for the first 24/7 bourse.  

The survey by the NYSE, part of Intercontinental Exchange, was put out by its data analytics team rather than its management, but it highlights the growing interest in trading the likes of Nvidia or Apple overnight between 8pm and 4am eastern time.

The issue has become a hot topic in recent years, prompted in part by the 24-seven operation of cryptocurrency trading and the rise in retail investor activity first spurred by coronavirus pandemic lockdowns. 

Stock exchanges have become something of a laggard in a world where other big markets, including US Treasuries, major currencies and leading stock index futures, can be traded around the clock from Monday to Friday. 

Several retail brokers, including Robinhood and Interactive Brokers, now offer 24-hour weekday access to US stocks with trades either matched with their internal holdings, or conducted via a “dark pool” trading venue such as Blue Ocean, where shares are often traded with Asian retail investors in their daytime. 

An overnight exchange, however, would be a step-change in how late trading is perceived because of their heavy regulatory oversight compared with dark pools. Exchanges are directly supervised by the Securities and Exchange Commission and tested for their stability and security as well as needing approval to alter any rules. 

Trades on exchanges also form part of the consolidated “tape” — the official record — of trading prices, meaning night-time activity would be more likely to set the early tone for regular hours trading. 

NYSE’s survey asked respondents whether they thought round-the-clock trading should take place at weekends as well as through a five-day week; how investors should be protected from price swings; and how respondents would staff any overnight session.

It also asked whether people agreed that “time spent thinking about overnight trading would be better spent on regular market hour trading”. 

The survey comes as start-up 24 Exchange, backed by Steve Cohen’s Point72 hedge fund, is seeking SEC approval to launch the first round-the-clock exchange. The filing is the second attempt for 24X, which withdrew a proposal last year over operational and technical issues. 

As of Friday, there were no letters raising issues with 24X’s latest proposal. The SEC has several months to scrutinise the plans.

“I have no idea how much volume they’re going to be doing in the middle of the night. But it’s really not up to the SEC to decide whether it’s commercially viable or not,” said James Angel, a finance professor at Georgetown University, who filed a letter supporting 24X’s plan.

“I’m in favour of letting the market decide. If it succeeds, we’re all better off and if it doesn’t, well, the exchange’s investors lost.”

The committee that oversees the consolidated tape has begun meeting, according to two sources, to examine the issues involved in shifting to 24-hour trading — including who should bear the costs. Clearing houses, which help settle trades, also operate within set hours.  

Institutional interest in overnight trading has been muted because of the relatively poor liquidity on offer and concerns around settlement risk, among other issues.

Current night owl offerings only allow retail traders to put in “limit” orders where they state the price at which they would buy or sell. If that is not met, the order expires, unfilled, the next morning.

“There’s demand for 24-hour trading, but it's not necessarily from the entire marketplace,” said one institutional broker, who warned that basic staffing could prove another thorny issue.

“Things already happen outside regular hours and you need to keep on top of that to some degree — but that’s very different to something happening to, say, Apple at 2am or even 4pm on a Saturday. What do you do then?”

Key events this week:

Some of the main moves in markets:

Stocks

Currencies

Cryptocurrencies

Bonds

Commodities

Proposal has angered ministers and City bosses who fear it will drive businesses out of UK

The UK’s top financial regulator is facing a fierce backlash from the government and City executives over its plan to “name and shame” companies under investigation more frequently and at a much earlier stage.

The move has caused anger in ministerial circles, fuelling fears that the Financial Conduct Authority’s approach to regulation is harming the City of London and driving business abroad.

One senior government figure said: “The FCA says it’s thinking about competitiveness, but so often they take decisions that harm the competitiveness of the UK. They have got to stop. We can’t afford to do this any more as a country.”

The FCA’s new approach, outlined in a consultation paper in February, aims to create more transparency concerning the watchdog’s enforcement work and to increase the deterrent effect such probes can have on the market.

The move has caused uproar among City lawyers who claim it could do significant damage to their clients both reputationally and financially, pointing to the fact that about 65 per cent of the agency’s investigations close without action.

Miles Celic, chief executive of TheCityUK, said: “The industry is opposed to the FCA’s proposal to name and shame financial services firms before the conclusion of enforcement investigations.

“This contradicts the fundamental legal principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ and risks undermining trust and confidence in the wider industry and the UK’s competitiveness.

“It would significantly and pointlessly damage a firm’s reputation and value, especially given that FCA investigations take four years on average and many conclude without requiring any action.”

Ministers are reluctant to criticise regulators publicly, but frustration with the FCA is running high in Whitehall circles.

The Treasury said: “This is a matter for the FCA. However, we are engaging with both the FCA and industry as the proposals are developed, in particular to ensure that any potential impacts on competitiveness are properly considered.”

Last month Kemi Badenoch, business secretary and equalities minister, wrote to FCA chief executive Nikhil Rathi to accuse the agency of “regulatory over-reach” because of the introduction of a new regime on diversity and inclusion in the financial sector.

Badenoch this week said in a speech to City leaders: “I worry about the tendency to push for well-meaning but counter-productive measures that stifle growth, productivity and innovation.”

The FCA has previously come under pressure from MPs to be more transparent about its enforcement work, including a call two years ago from the House of Commons public accounts committee as part of its investigation into the British Steel workers’ pensions mis-selling scandal.

When the proposal was announced, the FCA’s enforcement heads told the FT that the new approach would mainly apply to companies rather than individuals owing to legal constraints.

The regulator previously only disclosed details mid-investigation in “exceptional circumstances”. The agency is now looking to adopt a looser “public interest” test.

The FCA said it was looking to conduct investigations more quickly and would take a more focused approach to the number of cases it took on.

“We have been consulting on announcing our investigations, on a case-by-case basis, where it is in the public interest to do so,” the watchdog said. “We believe doing so will give all the firms we regulate and the wider public better insight, earlier, about issues we are concerned about.”

The FCA said the plans would bring it into line with several other UK regulators, including media watchdog Ofcom, energy regulator Ofgem and the Competition and Markets Authority.

It said it had given people more time to respond to the consultation, which closes at the end of April. FCA officials have said it is unlikely the regulator will announce an investigation if it is deemed likely to have an “outsize impact”.

The Haus was inaugurated with a unique series of immersive experiences that were open to the public throughout the weekend.

Unveiling the Golden Goose Haus of Dreamers in Marghera, Italy, was especially meaningful for the Italian company, which was founded in the industrial port of Venice in 2000.

“We are providing a new home for the brand’s community of dreamers, uniting creatives of multiple disciplines and backgrounds,” said Silvio Campara, chief executive officer of the brand.

Passionate about the project, in his signature energetic way Campara on Friday evening walked guests, including Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro, through the Haus, which was inaugurated with a unique series of immersive experiences that were open to the public throughout the weekend.

Husband-and-wife duo Alessandro Gallo and Francesca Rinaldo, who founded the brand, also participated in the event, which was timed to the beginning of the Venice Art Biennale.

Golden Goose in 2020 was acquired by private equity fund Permira from the Carlyle Europe Buyout fund and is said to be eyeing an initial public offering in Milan. That topic, however, was off the table as the evening was about celebrating the Haus of Dreamers, an all-encompassing cultural concept that has helped heighten global brand awareness with events in Paris and Los Angeles, for example, and was first launched last May.

Brugnaro said it was fitting that Golden Goose was located in Marghera, “historically a place of invention, innovation and inclusivity that has greatly contributed to the modern development of Venice.”

Underscoring handcrafted and artisanal traditions are key. In Marghera, the building hosts an academy that trains artisans. “It is the heart of Haus,” said Campara, who calls the artisans “the dream makers.” Classes cover crafts ranging from shoemaking and tailoring to screen printing, but also DJing and public speaking.

The brand opened the doors to the Manovia, which translates as ‘conveyor belt,’ and is dedicated to product innovation and repairing, extending the lifetime of Golden Goose items, but not only that. “Comfort and personalization is the generational trend now,” mused Campara, highlighting that the brand “sells confidence through self-expression” as it offers co-creation to its customers in its 191 stores in 62 countries.

An archive has been established in a part of the building where the company was founded and comprises around 50,000 shoes. It also includes a selection of ready-to-wear pieces that are not displayed chronologically but by style, “showing how the looks remain contemporary,” said Campara. “There is no future without a memory of the past.”

While Golden Goose is best known for its successful Superstar sneakers and intentionally distressed styles, Campara said apparel originally represented 60 percent of sales. The category now accounts for 10 percent of the total, but on revenues that last year rose 18 percent to 587 million euros, “it’s still a lot,” remarked Campara, who joined the company as commercial director in 2013 and has become a main shareholder.

Elsewhere in the Haus space, there is a library and an auditorium called Playground. A space dubbed Hangar showcased the work of Argentinian visual artist Andrés Reisinger; Italian sculptor Fabio Viale; French-Italian painter Maïa Régis, and Puerto Rican-American singer Mia Lailani. Campara was proud of the “scouting projects that help discover new talents. Execution is important, but sharing your dreams is also fundamental,” he added.

He explained that Haus is “a celebration of craftsmanship, culture and art” and that it will host a variety of immersive events, dedicated pop-up experiences, and innovative activations.

As indicated by much of the research material Apple has been publishing in recent months, the company is investing heavily in all sorts of artificial intelligence technologies. Apple will announce its AI strategy in June at WWDC, as part of iOS 18 and its other new OS versions.

In the latest Power On newsletter, Mark Gurman says to expect the new iPhone AI features to be powered entirely by an offline, on-device, large language model developed by Apple. You can expect Apple will tout the privacy and speed benefits of this approach.

9to5Mac previously found code references in iOS 17.4 that referred to an on-device model called “Ajax”. Apple is also working on server-hosted versions of Ajax too.

The downside to on-device LLMs is they can’t be as powerful as models that are running on huge server farms, with tens of billions of parameters and continually updating data behind them.

However, Apple engineers can probably take advantage of the full stack vertical integration of its platforms, with software tuned to the Apple silicon chips inside its devices, to make the most out of an on-device approach. On-device models are usually much quicker to respond than trafficking a request through a cloud service, and they also have the advantage of being able to work offline in places with no or limited connectivity.

While on-device LLMs may not have the same embedded rich database of knowledge as something like ChatGPT to answer questions about all sorts of random trivia facts, they can be tuned to be very capable at many tasks. You can imagine that an on-device LLM could generate sophisticated auto-replies to Messages, or improve the interpretation of many common Siri requests, for instance.

It also dovetails neatly into Apple’s stringent adherence to privacy. There’s no harm in churning all your downloaded emails and text messages through an on-device model, as the data stays local.

On-device models may also be able to do generative AI tasks like document or image creation, based on prompts, to a decent result. Apple still has the flexibility to partner with a company like Google to fallback to something like Gemini on the server for certain tasks, too.

We’ll know for sure what Apple plans to do when it officially announces its AI strategy at WWDC. The keynote kicks off on June 10, which will see the company unveil all the new software features coming to iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple TV, Vision Pro and more.

Le secteur de la santé aiguise l’appétit des fonds d’investissement, qui ciblent de plus en plus les cabinets médicaux et les laboratoires. Si leurs capitaux aident à moderniser et à développer l’offre de soins, leurs objectifs de rentabilité inquiètent les professionnels de santé et les pouvoirs publics.

Des tribunes dans la presse, des forums sur Internet, des tables rondes et des journaux professionnels qui consacrent des dizaines de pages au sujet. Depuis 2022, le monde de la radiologie n’a plus que ce mot à la bouche : la « financiarisation » du métier. Et les dérives qu’elle pourrait entraîner.

L’enjeu est tel qu’un collectif de radiologues, baptisé Corail (pour Collectif pour une radiologie indépendante et libre), s’est monté la même année pour inciter les jeunes diplômés à réfléchir au réseau d’imagerie dans lequel ils engageront leur vie professionnelle. « On leur dit de ne pas se lancer au hasard et de bien comprendre ce qu’impliquent les différents modèles qui s’offrent à eux : travailler au sein d’un réseau d’imagerie indépendant, contrôlé par les médecins qui y exercent, ou au sein d’un groupe piloté par des financiers », explique Paul-Gydéon Ritvo, l’un des fondateurs du collectif.

L’offensive récente des fonds d’investissement – qui multiplient les participations dans le secteur – a fait naître des craintes au sein de la radiologie libérale, relayées par son puissant syndicat, la Fédération nationale des médecins radiologues. « Le mouvement a débuté en 2016, commente son président, Jean-Philippe Masson, mais ça va vite. Aujourd’hui, 15 % à 20 % des cabinets d’imagerie sont dans les mains d’acteurs financiers, avec des professionnels qui perdent le contrôle de leur outil de travail. On doit stopper cette évolution, on ne veut pas finir comme les biologistes. » La biologie médicale privée a en effet connu entre 2010 et 2020 une transformation sans précédent, marquée par des rachats massifs de laboratoires par des groupes financiers, au point que les indépendants ne représenteraient aujourd’hui que 25 % du secteur.

Les radiologues ne sont pas les seuls à s’inquiéter. Le sujet mobilise également la médecine libérale dans son ensemble, ainsi que les politiques et les pouvoirs publics : dans son rapport « charges et produits » de juillet 2023, l’Assurance-maladie ne cache pas sa préoccupation ; le Sénat a lancé en mars une mission d’information sur la question, avec des recommandations attendues pour l’été ; et la direction générale de l’offre de soins est en train de constituer une task force pour mieux appréhender le phénomène.

Un secteur solvable et sûr

Si le sujet provoque autant d’émoi, ce n’est pas parce que de l’argent privé s’immisce dans le système de santé. Offre de soins et financements publics et privés coexistent depuis longtemps en France, et ce principe est accepté tant que le capital reste stable et que l’indépendance des professionnels de santé est garantie. « Ce qui pose question, c’est qu’il s’agit ici d’acteurs strictement financiers pour qui la santé est un produit spéculatif, qui doit nourrir des actionnaires », déplore le sénateur (groupe Socialiste, écologiste et républicain) de Paris et médecin généraliste Bernard Jomier, corapporteur de la mission au Sénat, qui y voit « une fuite de nos cotisations en dehors du système de soins ».

De quoi parle-t-on ? De groupes privés adossés à des fonds d’investissement qui rachètent laboratoires et structures de soins pour en développer l’activité et rentabiliser le capital investi. L’intérêt des investisseurs peut se comprendre : la santé est un secteur solvable et sûr, dont le financement est garanti par l’Assurance-maladie et les complémentaires, avec des perspectives de croissance importantes liées au vieillissement de la population, et une évolution technologique (intelligence artificielle, protection des données, équipements de diagnostic…) qui génère des besoins d’investissements massifs. L’association France Invest, qui fédère dans l’Hexagone plusieurs centaines de sociétés d’investissement, confirme cet attrait pour la santé : en dix ans, les investissements qui y sont consacrés ont plus que doublé et représentent près de 20 % des montants totaux investis (quand la santé ne pèse que 11 % du PIB français).

« La santé vit aussi une crise de ressources humaines majeure, qui étend les déserts médicaux et rend les successions difficiles. Faute de repreneurs, des médecins en fin de carrière peuvent se laisser séduire par les chèques proposés par ces groupes, qui valorisent souvent leur cabinet très au-dessus de sa valeur réelle », commente Yann Bourgueil, spécialiste de santé publique et coauteur d’une note de la chaire Santé de Sciences Po consacrée à la « financiarisation » de la santé, publiée en juillet 2023.

La logique des groupes privés et des fonds qui les accompagnent (auxquels se joint parfois Bpifrance, la banque publique d’investissement, dont les actionnaires sont l’Etat et la Caisse des dépôts) est de cibler une activité nécessitant un apport de capitaux massif, et susceptible de dégager des gains de productivité importants, en rationalisant l’organisation. De ce point de vue, la biologie ou l’imagerie médicale, qui exigent des équipements lourds et coûteux et disposent de marges d’efficacité, avec de possibles économies d’échelle, sont des « proies » intéressantes.

Les acteurs financiers créent ainsi de grands réseaux en rachetant des cabinets indépendants et en finançant la plupart du temps leurs opérations grâce à des montages de type LBO (rachat à effet de levier) : une société mère ou holding rembourse la dette contractée grâce aux dividendes dégagés par les structures de soins dont elle détient des participations. Les fonds n’ont pas vocation à rester durablement au capital de ces groupes. Leur but est de revendre leurs parts au bout de quelques années en réalisant une plus-value.

« L’entreprise dans laquelle ils investissent doit être rentable, c’est bien naturel, explique Arnaud Petit, président d’Edmond de Rothschild Corporate Finance, banque d’affaires qui orchestre ces opérations, mais en retour ils contribuent à améliorer l’offre de soins, au bénéfice des patients : l’immense travail que les laboratoires de biologie médicale ont pu fournir pendant la crise du Covid-19 n’aurait pas été possible sans la restructuration du secteur quelques années plus tôt. Les processus ont été optimisés, avec des plateaux techniques de grande qualité et de grande capacité, grâce à des investissements massifs que personne d’autre n’aurait pu mobiliser. »

Tous les secteurs de la santé ne sont pas concernés au même degré, ni strictement selon les mêmes logiques, mais les financiers s’intéressent à tout : la biologie, la radiologie, l’anatomopathologie, l’ophtalmologie, les soins dentaires, les soins primaires et bien sûr l’hospitalisation privée. Quatre principaux groupes (Elsan, Ramsay Santé, Vivalto Santé, Almaviva Santé) détiennent la moitié des établissements, relève la note de Sciences Po. Un mouvement de concentration soutenu par des fonds d’investissement français et étrangers.

« C’est assez sournois »

En radiologie, les groupes d’imagerie privée constitués depuis 2016 s’appellent Simago, France Imageries Territoires, Imdev ou encore Résonance Imagerie, et les fonds qui les accompagnent sont par exemple Eurazeo, Ardian, Antin ou Andera Partners. Créé en 2019, le groupe Simago, adossé au fonds Ardian, regroupe en France plus de 200 radiologues libéraux ; « ils sont tous associés au groupe, et rien ne se décide sans eux », précise son cofondateur Charles-Henry Beglin, conscient que la question de l’indépendance des médecins au sein de ces réseaux est un point sensible.

Si la loi garantit théoriquement cette indépendance et prévoit que les médecins doivent garder le contrôle de leur société d’exercice, des montages juridiques complexes et autres pactes d’associés confidentiels permettent bien souvent de contourner cette obligation. Octroyant, de fait, un large pouvoir de décision aux investisseurs.

Laurent (le prénom a été changé) a vendu une partie de ses parts à un groupe financier. Il s’en mord les doigts aujourd’hui : « J’ai reçu un gros chèque et je ne m’en plains pas, mais je vois bien que le modèle a changé. » Ce dernier comporte désormais un vrai risque ; d’après lui, « c’est assez sournois, car on ne nous impose pas directement les choses, mais on subit des contraintes indirectes ». Une pression sur le chiffre d’affaires, en particulier, qui peut conduire les médecins à modifier leurs pratiques, comme le fait de « travailler plus ou [de] délaisser des actes moins rémunérateurs. J’ai des collègues qui ne font plus d’IRM des voies biliaires, par exemple, parce que ça prend du temps et que ça rapporte peu ».

La qualité de la prise en charge passerait-elle dans certains réseaux après les considérations financières ? Biologiste médical et associé d’un grand groupe financiarisé, Cédric (le prénom a été changé) reconnaît avoir face à lui des « manageurs très rationnels, qui veulent que ça tourne et qui chassent les dépenses inutiles, mais jamais en dépit du bon sens médical ». « C’est un mauvais procès, les investisseurs dignes de ce nom n’ont aucun intérêt à préconiser une dégradation de la qualité des soins », s’insurge Gilles Bigot, coresponsable du département santé du cabinet d’avocats Winston & Strawn, regrettant que des scandales comme Orpea ou Dentexia « puissent servir à jeter le discrédit sur tout un système ».

Vice-président de l’ordre national des médecins, le docteur Jean-Marcel Mourgues reconnaît surtout éprouver une peur par anticipation : « Nous avons des témoignages qui remontent, mais nous nous inquiétons surtout des risques à venir. Dans l’intérêt du patient, nous devons veiller à l’indépendance du médecin et au respect des bonnes pratiques. »

La mutualisation s’impose

Si les montages des sociétés sont souvent d’une grande complexité et les pactes d’associés tenus secrets, l’ordre s’efforce, depuis 2022, de les examiner plus finement pour « traquer » les dispositions qui priveraient les professionnels de leur pouvoir de décision. La méthode a déjà conduit le conseil départemental de l’ordre des médecins du Rhône à radier (décision suspendue depuis par le Conseil d’Etat) un groupe d’imagerie proche de Lyon, jugeant que les statuts de la société ne garantissaient pas l’indépendance des professionnels. Une ordonnance du 8 février 2023, applicable à partir de septembre 2024, ainsi qu’une récente jurisprudence, sur le cas de groupes vétérinaires, devraient renforcer ce droit de regard et de dissolution.

Du côté des professionnels, à l’image du collectif Corail, des professionnels s’efforcent de promouvoir un modèle pleinement indépendant à financement durable. Selon Vincent Dedes, président du Syndicat national des ophtalmologistes de France, la financiarisation touche assez peu encore sa spécialité. Mais les équipements sont lourds, et la mutualisation des moyens s’impose de plus en plus. « On doit se regrouper, mais si on veut échapper aux fonds d’investissement, c’est à nous, médecins, de nous former pour devenir des entreprises médicales et d’investir nous-mêmes », explique l’ophtalmologue lillois, cogérant d’une importante structure indépendante.

Le « payeur » monte au front également. L’Assurance-maladie a exprimé pour la première fois son inquiétude à l’été 2023. Son directeur général, Thomas Fatôme, explique avoir pleinement pris la mesure du phénomène quand il a voulu baisser les tarifs des biologistes, l’année précédente. Face à lui, six groupes financiarisés détenant l’essentiel du marché, et organisés au sein de la puissante Association pour le progrès de la biologie médicale, lui ont opposé leurs objectifs de rentabilité et l’ont menacé de ne plus réaliser certains actes. « On ne peut pas accepter d’être bloqués dans la négociation tarifaire à cause d’actionnaires qui, par le biais de mécanismes de type LBO, exigent une rentabilité à court terme très élevée. Nos cotisations n’ont pas vocation à financer la rente, estime Thomas Fatôme. Le système a besoin de capitaux privés, mais de capitaux responsables et durables inscrits dans un cadre transparent. »

La régulation passera-t-elle par une nouvelle loi ? L’ordre des médecins le réclame, demandant la suppression de la possibilité pour un tiers non professionnel de santé de pouvoir rentrer au capital d’une société d’exercice libéral de médecins. De son côté, l’Assurance-maladie prône dans un premier temps la création d’un observatoire de la financiarisation et d’une mission interministérielle qui permettrait d’en contrôler les enjeux sanitaires, financiers et juridiques. La mission d’information du Sénat auditionne, elle, la plupart des parties prenantes jusqu’à fin juin. « Il était temps de poser le sujet dans toute sa complexité, commente le sénateur Bernard Jomier, le ministère de la santé attend nos conclusions. »

These climate-friendly heating-and-cooling systems are drawing support from states, cities, utilities and developers

Stephanie Farinelli and her husband never thought they would buy their first home in a subdivision. Then they found Whisper Valley, an enclave nearly 20 miles outside downtown Austin, Texas.

All of the houses in Whisper Valley have solar panels, heat pumps—and a geothermal borehole around 350 feet below ground. They are connected to a communitywide geothermal grid that pulls heat from the ground to warm buildings in cold weather and pumps heat out of buildings and back to the ground to cool them in hot weather.

Drawn to the environmental appeal and promised energy savings, the couple bought a home in the community last year. Farinelli, a 54-year-old software developer, says they pay a flat $70 a month for the geothermal system and around $60 a month on average for electricity for a roughly 2,000-square-foot home, about 50% less than what they paid for electricity at a smaller rental apartment in Austin. Another plus: There are no noisy outdoor air-conditioning condensers.

“It’s just so quiet,” she says. “You can hear the cows mooing down the street. It’s crazy.”

Whisper Valley is part of a new wave of projects linking buildings together in so-called thermal energy networks. These systems, which offer a reliable, efficient and climate-friendly alternative to fossil-fuel-based heating and cooling, haven’t been widely deployed in the U.S. yet. But as the U.S. moves toward a goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, some states, cities, utilities and developers are taking a closer look, attracted by the technology’s potential to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, cut heating bills, ease strain on the electrical grid and provide gas utilities with a new business model in a cleaner energy future.

Systems like the one in Whisper Valley harness the relatively stable temperature below ground to provide heating and cooling to buildings. On cold days, fluid flows through a closed underground pipe loop, absorbing heat from the earth and moving it to and from connected buildings, where a heat pump concentrates and converts that energy into hot air or hot water. On hot days, the system works in reverse, pulling out heat from buildings and storing it underground.

Ground-source heat pumps, which run on electricity, and are the most efficient heating and cooling option on the market. And when they are configured into networks they can become even more so, allowing buildings to share heat with each other and store it underground for future use.

Many thermal networks rely on geothermal energy, but they can be designed to exchange heat with other sources, too, such as sewer systems, data centers and bodies of water.

Thermal networks are sprinkled throughout the U.S., including on some college campuses. Now, fueled in part by federal and state incentives encouraging the expansion of low-carbon energy, gas utilities are starting to explore the feasibility of replacing some of their natural-gas infrastructure with thermal energy networks.

Proposals for utility-scale pilot projects are in the works in Massachusetts, New York and Minnesota, according to the Building Decarbonization Coalition, with one project, in Framingham, Mass., scheduled to come online in June. At the same time, around 24 gas utilities, covering more than 40% of U.S. natural-gas customers, have joined the Utility Networked Geothermal Collaborative, an informal industry group exploring how they can function as geothermal providers, the decarbonization coalition says.

The Framingham project, the first of its kind in the U.S., strings together a neighborhood of 31 residential buildings and five commercial buildings and will serve around 140 customers to start. Eversource ES 1.19%increase; green up pointing triangle, the New England utility behind it, says the project has estimated costs of $14 million after federal and state tax credits for geothermal.

In New York, meanwhile, Consolidated Edison has three projects that have been approved for full design, including one in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood that would use excess heat from a data center to provide hot water to 372 apartments, and heating and cooling for 72 apartments in four nearby multifamily housing developments. On hot days, the system would pull hot air out of the units and into the network to cool them.

Data centers make sense as an energy source because more are getting built and they usually run 24/7, supplying “very high-quality waste heat” that is dependable and at a high temperature, says Alexander Buell, Con Edison’s director, portfolio planning and analysis.

New York is among a few states that have passed legislation mandating that large utilities propose thermal-energy-network projects.

Eversource is still determining how rates would look under thermal energy networks. For now, the company plans to charge customers a flat rate of $10 a month for residential heating and cooling, says Nikki Bruno, vice president of clean technologies at Eversource. Customers also will have to pay for the electricity to power the heat pumps, which the utility installed.

Bruno says geothermal networks make business sense for gas utilities because they require similar skills for installing and managing long-lived infrastructure. The pipes, made out of plastic and metals, have 40- to 50-year lifespans, and the geothermal boreholes can last up to 100 years or more. There are currently fewer safety requirements compared with natural gas, but regulations are still being developed.

“[When] we saw the pipe for the network go in the ground, it felt very, very familiar,” she says.

Unions representing pipe fitters see the potential, too.

“Geothermal energy will not only help us reach a net-zero economy, it will create good-paying union jobs in the process,” says Wendell Hibdon, director of energy and infrastructure for the United Association of Union Plumbers and Pipefitters.

It isn’t often that you see gas utilities, unions and environmentalists on the same page, says Zeyneb Magavi, executive director at HEET, a nonprofit pushing to replace natural-gas infrastructure with geothermal networks.

When it happens, “you just get a kind of momentum we are not used to seeing,” she says.

Still, getting a geothermal network off the ground faces a number of challenges, including high upfront costs, which can vary, depending on geological conditions for drilling, how many geothermal wells are needed, the energy efficiency of the connected buildings, the climate and other considerations.

Generally, the balance of withdrawing and depositing heat might not be optimal in climates where you need the heat or cooling constantly throughout the year, says Rob Best, an associate at engineering consulting firm Arup. “It’s more of a battery—you are taking some out and putting some back,” Best says.

The networks also are better suited for more energy-efficient buildings constructed in the past 20 years, he says, because heat pumps don’t have to work as hard.

How quickly larger-scale projects will pay off in energy savings remains to be seen, but college campuses that have networked geothermal give some idea. Colorado Mesa University, which deployed a geothermal network in 2008 that it is in the process of expanding, says the system produces $1.5 million energy savings a year and paid for itself within 11 years. In addition to geothermal, the university’s system stores and withdraws heat, as needed, from an Olympic-size swimming pool.

In Whisper Valley, new homes sell for around $300,000 to $600,000, and home buyers can get a one-time tax credit of $10,000 via the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, according to Douglas Gilliland, managing director at Taurus Investment Holdings, the developer. He says there is around $25,000 to $35,000 worth of clean-energy investments per home, including for geothermal and solar.

The community, which sits on around 2,000 acres, is still in its infancy with around 500 houses currently. Within 10 years, developers plan for 5,000 single-family homes, 2,500 multifamily units and 3 million square feet of commercial space, such as grocery and convenience stores.

Taurus aims to build more geothermal communities across the U.S., including an apartment complex in Florida, according to Gilliland, who says he is talking with developers, state governments and cities nationwide who are interested in the model.

“Builders have been trying to find ways to make their homes more and more efficient,” he says. “By using geothermal, it really takes the pressure off the builder in coming up with expensive ideas.”

Several high-profile watch brands, retailers and suppliers are now for sale or looking for investors, several senior industry sources say. Good luck raising funds in the current environment. Demand for luxury watches has fallen sharply in the past six months, particularly in Europe and China, and it’s unlikely to pick up soon, asMiss Tweed reported last week from the Geneva watch fairs.

Among those for sale is Hermès-backed movement provider Vaucher Manufacture Fleurier, the independent watchmaker Parmigiani Fleurier and several otherwatch component suppliers. On the market is also a 20 percent stake in the watch retailer The 1916 Company, which used to be called WatchBox. In addition, it is widely expected that Sowind — the company that owns watch brands Girard-Perregaux and Ulysse Nardin, once Kering properties —will need more cash in 2025, even though the company’s boss denies it.

“Sowind is not looking for investors or financing in the short or medium term,” Sowind CEO and shareholder Patrick Pruniaux told Miss Tweed in an email on Thursday. That’s not what industry sources toldMiss Tweed. Pruniaux is understood to be quietly sounding out shareholders and touting interest from potential new investors for a cash injection should Sowind need more capital to finance its growth next year, industry sources have said.

Sowind shareholders include retailers Bucherer, now part of Rolex, The Hour Glass in Singapore and Ahmed Seddiqi & Sons in Dubai, who host of the biennial fair Dubai Watch Week. None of them have been willing to confirm that they have invested in Sowind but many people in the industry have been gathering evidence that they have.

“Pruniaux has been telling people he’s got enough cash for 12 months,” the CEO of a major luxury watch brand toldMiss Tweed at Watches & Wonders last weekend on condition of anonymity. This echoed similar comments by other watch executives at the watch fair. When Kering offloaded the two lossmaking watch brands through a management buy-out in 2022, the French group injected tens of millions of euros and backed their loans. Kering wanted the company to stay financially afloat for a few years.

“At the time, Kering was worried about its reputation,” a former Sowind employee said. “They did not want to sell the brands and then see them go under because they ran out of cash.”

Pruniaux has been telling industry executives that Sowind enjoyed good growth in 2023 but watch retailers are having hard time believing it. They see that the two brands’ expensive timepieces are not exactly flying off the shelves. Pruniaux, Sowind’s boss since 2018, declined to comment on the brands' turnover and profitability.

Kering took a non-recurring charge of more than€200 million on the disposal of Girard-Perregaux and Ulysse Nardin, according to the group’s 2022 annual report. Kering disbursed more than€1 billion acquiring and developing the two brands over more than a decade. That figure included the more than€700 million Kering spent on buying Ulysse Nardin in 2014. Critics say Kering’s heavy corporate structure, lack of investment and obsession with cost-cutting held back the watch brands’ growth. That transaction did not improve Kering’s M&A track record.

DOWNTURN

The luxury watch industry has been through a painful downturn in the past 12 months as consumers seek better value for money after the pandemic-led shopping euphoria. They are less inclined to invest in brands that are perceived as weaker and riskier investments than what many call the “Big Four” Swiss watch makersRolex, Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet (AP) and Richard Mille.

Earlier this month, analysts at Morgan Stanley said the Swiss watch industry overallcould suffer a double-digit decline in exports in 2024, while the Big Four are set to continue gaining market share. The investment bank forecast overall Swiss watch exports could decline by 5 percent by value in 2024 after rising 7.7 percent in 2023 and 11.3 percent in 2022.

Another asset on the market is a 20 percent stake held by Singapore investor Chong Min Lee through his CMIA fund in watch retailer The 1916 Company. The business many people still refer to as WatchBox was founded in 2017 by entrepreneurs Danny Govberg, Justin Reis and Tay Liam Wee.

Initially, WatchBox focused on second-hand watches. It is one of the few second-hand watch retailers to publish high quality editorial content about watches on its website. However, since the price of second-hand watches has fallen since their peak of April 2022, the company has moved its focus to new watches and investing in retailers specialized in that field, particularly in the United States. It now has 20 boutiques worldwide. In 2023, the company generated some $500 million in gross annual revenue, up 25 percent against 2022.

The 1916 Company is a certified pre-owned retailer of Rolex watches. It also owns a 57 percent stake in luxury watchmaker De Bethune, co-founded by the talented watchmaker Denis Flageollet. “While we won’t comment on any investor’s actions, shareholders sometimes have fund term issues and may look to sell a portion of their investment. We know that CMIA will remain a long-term investor in our company,” a spokeswoman for the company said.

Other shareholders include David Wertheimer, son of Chanel co-owner Gérard Wertheimer, as well as basketball stars Michael Jordan and Giannis Antetokounmpo. The global advisory firm BDA Partners is discreetly sounding out potential investors who might want to purchase CMIA’s 20 percent stake. BDA Partners declined to comment. The 1916 Company is estimated to be worth more than $850 million.

In February, Miss Tweed reported that the Sandoz Family Foundation had put up its watchmaking unit for sale. That includes Vaucher Manufacture and other suppliers as well as the Parmigiani watch brand. Deloitte are coordinating the bidding process, several sources have said. The Foundation already tried to find a buyer for its watchmaking hub several times, including once three years ago, but discussions failed to produce a deal.

Parmigiani Fleurier, Vaucher Manufacture Fleurier and their suppliers may be rare assets – it is not every day that such a vertically integrated watchmaking hub is put on the market – but the sale process is complex. There are many vested interests and a buyer for the entire hub is unlikely to emerge, industry sources predict. Swatch Group, Richemont or LVMH are not interested since they have their own production facilities, industry sources say.

The Parmigiani brand may attract interest from a private equity firm or a family office, but no bidder will have the means to compete against big brands such as Hermès or AP for Vaucher and the other suppliers.

Hermès has already made several offers for Vaucher but markets sources say they were not accepted. The Sandoz Family Foundation is not in a hurry to sell. It’s happy to hold out for the highest price for its assets. The most likely outcome is that Vaucher’s three most important clients aside from Parmigiani — Richard Mille, Audemars Piguet and Hermès — will end up buying Vaucher together, senior industry sources. They all declined to comment on the process.

Hermès, which started investing in Vaucher in 2006, has injected more than€120 million in the movement provider since then to keep it afloat financially and retain its 25-percent stake, industry sources say. A spokeswoman for Hermès told Miss Tweed in February: “I can confirm that we do not wish to comment on such news, but that we reaffirm our attachment to Vaucher Manufacture Fleurier and our position as a strategic shareholder with the rights that go with it.” The company’s position has since remained the same.

Vaucher is strategic for Hermès. That’s why it’s been trying to buy it for years. Until a decade ago, Hermès was known mainly for its popular watches with quartz movements and double bracelets retailing for€2,000-€3,000. In the past few years, it has been introducing more high-end pieces costing more than€12,000, paying great attention to design and innovation in terms of “poetic” complications and sophisticated movements. Vaucher gives it legitimacy and plays an important part in its watchmaking narrative. At Watches & Wonders, Hermès presented one of the most impressive and creative collections of new watches. This included a new genderless model called the Hermès Cut — with a new movement designed specifically for it and a triple-axis tourbillon coupled with a minute repeater — that experts considered one of the most impressive timepieces unveiled at the fair.Hermès is one of the watch industry’s fastest-growing brands. Last year, it made€611 million in watch sales, up 23 percent at constant exchange rates.

Parmigiani, on the other hand, is still a relatively small player. It is estimated to have generated just over 65 million Swiss francs in revenue last year, up from 26 million Swiss francs in 2019. It’s aiming for further steady growth this year.

Under the leadership of Guido Terreni since early 2021, Parmigiani has enjoyed a revival. The brand has focused its ad campaigns on its best-selling model, the Tonda PF, which has a recognizable integrated design.Steel models start at around 20,000 Swiss francs. To reduce costs and become more attractive for a potential investor, Parmigiani has laid off some of its representatives, several industry sources said. Parmigiani is distributed solely by third-party retailers anddoes not have any boutiques.

One element complicating the sale of the Parmigiani brand is the fact that it does not own the intellectual property (IP) of its movements. Those belong to Vaucher. This means that whoever buys Parmigiani is buying a brand without its movements’ IP.

Also on the market are suppliers Atokalpa, a provider of key elements such as balance wheels and springs, and Elwin, which makes hardware for mechanical movements. Patek Philippe and Chopard are shareholders in both companies but refuse to say it publicly. It’s not clear whether they would allow rivals Richard Mille, Hermès and Audemars Piguet to become shareholders – if the trio succeeded in acquiring Vaucher together.

Also part of the Sandoz Foundation’s watch hub is Quadrance & Habillage, a specialist maker of watch dials with expertise in guilloche and engraving. All these suppliers work for the world’s top watch brands. When including Vaucher, Elwin, Atokalpa and Parmigiani, the Sandoz family watchmaking hub employs more than 500 people, spread between the Vallée de Joux, La Chaux-de-Fonds andAlle in Jura canton, three of Switzerland’s most important watchmaking clusters.