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American-led effort was years in the making and hadn’t been battle-tested when Tehran launched missile and drone barrage against Israel

TEL AVIV—As hundreds of Iranian drones and missiles winged across the Middle East Saturday night, a defensive line of radars, jet fighters, warships and air-defense batteries from Israel, the U.S. and a half dozen other countries was already activated against the long-feared attack from Iran.

Almost nothing got through to Israel.

The formidable display of collective defense was the culmination of a decades-old but elusive U.S. goal to forge closer military ties between Israel and its longtime Arab adversaries in an effort to counter a growing common threat from Iran.

But the U.S.-led effort to protect Israel in the days and hours before the Iranian attack had to overcome numerous obstacles, including fears by Gulf countries at being seen as coming to Israel’s aid at a time when relations are badly strained by the war in Gaza.

Much of the cooperation Saturday night that led to the shooting down of the Iranian-directed barrage needed to be forged on the fly, and many details about the role played by Saudi Arabia and other key Arab governments are being closely held.

Israeli and the U.S. forces intercepted most of the Iranian drones and missiles. But they were able to do so in part because Arab countries quietly passed along intelligence about Tehran’s attack plans, opened their airspace to warplanes, shared radar tracking information or, in some cases, supplied their own forces to help, officials said.

The operation was the culmination of years of U.S. effort to break down political and technical barriers that thwarted military cooperation between Israel and the Sunni Arab governments, officials said. Instead of a Middle East version of the NATO alliance, the U.S. has focused on less formal regionwide air-defense cooperation to blunt Tehran’s growing arsenal of drones and missiles—the very weapons that threatened Israel Saturday.

Efforts to build an integrated air-defense system for the region date back decades. After years of false starts and minimal progress, the initiative gained momentum after the 2020 Abraham Accords brokered by the Trump administration, which established formal ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

Two years later, the Pentagon shifted Israel from its European Command to Central Command, which includes the rest of the Middle East, a move that enabled greater military cooperation with Arab governments under U.S. auspices.

“Israel’s move into Centcom was a game changer,” making it easier to share intelligence and provide early warning across countries, said Dana Stroul, who until December was the most senior civilian official at the Pentagon with responsibility for the Middle East.

In March 2022, Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, then the top U.S. commander in the region, convened a secret meeting of top military officials from Israel and Arab countries to explore how they could coordinate against Iran’s growing missile and drone capabilities. The talks, held at Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, marked the first time that such a range of ranking Israeli and Arab officers met under U.S. military auspices to discuss countering Iran.

“The Abraham Accords made the Middle East look different…because we could do things not just under the surface but above it,” a senior Israeli official said. Joining Central Command enabled even more technical cooperation with Arab governments. “That’s what created this alliance,” the official said.

Despite the progress made, the U.S. goal of having Israel and the Arab states seamlessly share tracking data on Iranian threats in real time has never been fully realized because of political concerns, officials said.

Bilal Saab, a former Pentagon official who worked on security cooperation in the Middle East, said it was premature to speak of security integration in the region. “It was always going to be gradual, and [Saturday] was an important real-world first step,” said Saab, now a fellow at the London-based Chatham House think tank.

But cooperation between Israel and Arab government on air defense with the U.S. as an intermediary has become common, even with Saudi Arabia, which still hasn’t established diplomatic relations with Israel, Israeli and U.S. officials say.

This nascent air-defense alliance had never been battle tested when on April 1, a missile strike in Damascus, Syria, killed several Iranian officers, including Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi, who according to Iranian state media and U.S. officials, managed Iranian paramilitary operations in Syria and Lebanon. Israel hasn’t claimed responsibility for the attack.

Tehran quickly vowed to respond, and senior U.S. officials began pressing Arab government to share intelligence about Iran’s plans to strike Israel and to assist with intercepting drones and missiles launched from Iran and other countries toward Israel, according to Saudi and Egyptian officials.

Israel’s multilayered aerial-defense system has shown itself capable of defending the country against individual or small volleys of incoming drones and missiles. But officials and analysts say it could potentially be overwhelmed by a sufficiently large swarm of drones or a massive missile barrage.

The initial response from several Arab governments was wary, fearing that assistance to Israel could involve them directly in the conflict and risk reprisals from Tehran. After further talks with the U.S., the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia agreed privately to share intelligence, while Jordan said it would allow use of its airspace by U.S. and other countries’ warplanes and use its own aircraft to assist in intercepting Iranian missiles and drones, the officials said.

Two days before the attack, Iranian officials briefed counterparts from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries on the outlines and timing of their plan for the large-scale strikes on Israel so that those countries could safeguard airspace, the officials said. The information was passed along to the U.S., giving Washington and Israel crucial advance warning.

With an Iranian attack all but certain, the White House ordered the Pentagon to reposition aircraft and missile-defense resources to the region and took the lead in coordinating defensive measures between Israel and Arab governments, according to the senior Israeli official.

“The challenge was to bring all those countries around Israel” at a time when Israel is isolated in the region, the official said. “It was a diplomatic issue.”

Arab countries offered help in defending against the Iranian attacks because they saw the benefits of cooperating with the U.S. and Israel, as long as it remained low profile, said Yasmine Farouk, a nonresident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington-based think tank.

“Gulf countries know they still don’t have the same level of support that Israel gets from the United States and see what they did [Saturday] as a way of getting it in the future,” she said.

The Iranian missiles and drones were tracked from the moment they launched by early warning radars in Persian Gulf countries linked to the U.S. operations center in Qatar, which transmitted the information to fighters jets from several countries in the airspace over Jordan and other countries, as well as to warships at sea and missile-defense batteries in Israel, officials said.

When the slow-moving Iranian drones came within range, they were shot down, mostly by fighters from Israel and the U.S. and in smaller numbers by British, French and Jordanian warplanes, officials said.

At one point, more than 100 ballistic Iranian missiles were in the air at one time heading toward Israel. The overwhelming majority were shot down by Israeli air-defense systems in Israeli airspace and outside it, a U.S. official said.

U.S. aircraft shot down more than 70 drones, and two U.S. guided-missile destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean intercepted as many as six missiles. A U.S. Patriot air-defense system near Erbil, Iraq, shot down an Iranian ballistic missile on its way to Israel, the official said.

Of more than 300 drones and cruise and ballistic missiles fired by Iran toward Israel, only a small number of missiles landed in Israel, causing minor damage to a military base in the southern part of the country, Israel’s military said.

An Israeli official involved in regional security cooperation efforts said that while there had been frequent sharing of intelligence on air-defense threats in the past, Iran’s attack Saturday “was the first time that we saw the alliance work at full power.”

CVC Holdings said it plans to float on Euronext Amsterdam, confirming a Wall Street Journal report on Sunday.

The global buyout firm said Monday that it plans to raise 250 million euros ($266 million) in new money as part of the initial public offering, which also includes the sale of shares by some existing shareholders, taking the offering to a minimum of EUR1.25 billion.

CVC will use the new money raised toward growth, including acquisitions, it said.

The IPO is expected to take place in the coming weeks, subject to market conditions and other relevant considerations, CVC said.

“We believe an IPO of CVC provides an enduring long-term institutional structure to support further growth; we remain completely focused on the continued success of CVC,” Chief Executive Rob Lucas said.

On Sunday, The Wall Street Journal reported that CVC, which is planning to change its name to CVC Capital Partners, was planning the Amsterdam share sale in the latest sign of a pickup in IPOs.

CVC manages about EUR186 billion in assets under management and had 1,154 employees as of Dec. 31.

The company generated revenue of EUR1.09 billion in 2023 and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of EUR650 million.

It plans to pay EUR225 million in dividends this year. Dividends will be paid twice a year.

The firm pulled a previous IPO attempt in November, as the outbreak of war in the Middle East weighed on an already jittery market. Conditions have since improved, with rallying stock markets helping fuel a rebound in new listings in Europe and the U.S., from companies such as social-media firm Reddit and Swiss skin-care specialist Galderma.

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French billionaire lays groundwork for generational change at world’s biggest luxury group

Bernard Arnault has spent four decades building the construction company he inherited from his father into luxury leader LVMH, becoming one of the world’s richest people in the process.

Meticulous, demanding and sometimes ruthless, the 75-year-old remains deeply involved in running his empire and does not like discussing succession with outsiders. But behind the scenes the billionaire, who in 2022 raised the age limit for his role as chief executive to 80, is carefully laying the groundwork for his five children to one day lead the almost €400bn company.

Two of his sons are poised to join the LVMH board at its annual meeting on Thursday, leaving only his youngest without a seat as Arnault sets up generational handovers both within his family and among the executives who work alongside them.

“Five years ago, you could have argued that if something happened to Arnault, you would have an interim, non-family member chief executive while you wait until the kids grow up and have more experience,” said Erwan Rambourg, global head of consumer research at HSBC. “Now you don’t need that intermediary person because they’re at that level.”

At stake is the future leadership of the world’s biggest luxury group, spanning fashion houses such as Dior and Louis Vuitton to hotels and jeweller Tiffany & Co, at a time when the wider sector is grappling with a slowdown following an unprecedented pandemic-era boom.

People close to the group say it is too early to say who will take the top job: although his eldest child Delphine holds the most senior position within his empire as chief executive of Dior and a member of the executive committee, analysts point to possible scenarios in which two or more of the heirs could run the company in concert.

LVMH’s size and market share also mean its next generation of leaders will need to be more inventive to maintain growth and will no longer be able to rely on China, which drove the sector’s expansion for much of the past decade, for momentum.

Arnault, whose family owns 48 per cent of LVMH’s share capital and 64 per cent of the voting rights, is seeking to avoid the fate of other French business dynasties, where poorly managed successions can sink fortunes.

In the rarefied world of France’s business elite, the fall of the Lagardères — whose missiles-to-media group fell into debt and was sold off in pieces by the son after the patriarch’s unexpected death — stands out as a cautionary tale.

Arnault had a front seat to the unravelling, first as a close friend and tennis partner of the father, then as an investor in the family holding company as the son tried and ultimately failed to ward off a takeover by corporate raider Vincent Bolloré.

Avoiding a similar fate at LVMH is paramount. All Arnault’s children work at the group, where they have been paired with mentors among his top executives, having been prepared for their roles since they were young, accompanying him as teenagers on weekend store visits or trips to overseas operations.

“For Arnault, the family unit is sacred, so everything is organised around that,” said a person close to the group.

Shareholders on Thursday will vote on the board appointments of Alexandre Arnault, a 31-year-old senior executive at Tiffany, and his 29-year-old brother Frédéric, who was recently appointed head of LVMH Watches. Delphine, the 48-year-old chief executive of Christian Dior, and Antoine, the 46-year-old head of image and communications for the group, took their seats at roughly the same age.

Arnault’s youngest son, 25-year-old Louis Vuitton watch director Jean, is expected to join his siblings on the board in due course, according to people close to LVMH.

The Arnault family and LVMH declined to comment.

In addition to changes in the family’s roles, the group’s managing director Antonio Belloni, 69, will step down after 23 years as Arnault’s right hand, to be replaced by Stéphane Bianchi, the LVMH head of watches and jewellery who is a veteran of family succession at cosmetics group Yves Rocher.

“The non-executive directors and independent directors are there to respect the rules of governance but the Arnault family also has €200bn invested in this venture,” said one person familiar with the company’s operations. “It’s a natural evolution of the family’s representation.”

Three of the five children have been appointed to new roles within the group and its holding companies since the start of 2023, including Delphine’s appointment to head Dior, the group’s second-biggest brand, in February last year.

As the next generation moves up, the patriarch’s lieutenants step aside to facilitate it. “One doesn’t deny an Arnault kid,” said the person close to the group. “In the end it is a familial group.”

For the family, managerial appointments are considered more important than administrative ones, said the person familiar with operations, who said “the fact that Delphine was appointed to Dior is much more significant than the fact that Frédéric and Alexandre will join the board”.

Under a structure Arnault set up at the family holding company in 2022 to reinforce long-term control and unity, the family members each have an equal vote and need to be unanimous on important decisions regarding LVMH such as changes in their shareholding or the group’s strategic direction. Arnault views operational experience as a training ground for this, and holds regular lunches with all five children to discuss the business.

“His belief is that [the children] would be better shareholders if they know the business inside and out,” said another person close to the group. “When it comes to who will take over from him, and how it will work, it’s early to be able to say that. But my hope is that merit will prevail over emotion.”

The Lagardère case is not the only one on which Arnault has ruminated on as he works to secure a lasting empire. The decline and break-up of US conglomerate General Electric is another, while many of the assets he bought to build his realm — including Christian Dior — were procured from family dynasties that had fallen on hard times.

“Bernard Arnault is obviously eternal but he also isn’t getting any younger, so it’s important to have a new team of people with a longer time horizon in front of them,” said the second person close to the group. “The more gradually this can be done, the better.”

For investors, the handover was expected as top LVMH managers such as Belloni, Sidney Toledano, 72, and Michael Burke, 67, advance in years. LVMH’s record on selecting leaders is strong and Arnault is known for being ruthless in removing those not up to the task, but that dynamic is shifting as the next generation of the family steps up.

“These are big boots to fill. You’ve had a generation of Burke, Belloni, and Toledano who are extraordinary managers,” said Flavio Cereda, luxury portfolio manager at fund manager GAM.

“The risk now is he could be blinded by family . . . perhaps giving too much responsibility to your kids as opposed to an outside manager who might do a better job,” Cereda said. “To be clear we have no evidence of that, but this wasn’t a risk before because, with the exception of the [two eldest] kids from the first marriage, the others were too young.”

While much of the focus has been on the family transition, Bianchi’s elevation to group managing director is geared to LVMH’s new phase.

The 59-year-old joined in 2018, making him a relative newcomer by the standards of LVMH, where most top managers’ time at Arnault’s side can be counted in decades. He is credited with helping family-owned Yves Rocher weather a difficult generational transition after the death of the founder, shaping scion Bris Rocher — just 19 when Bianchi became chief executive in 1998 — to take over the business.

Bianchi’s promotion is “a huge sign of preparing a next generation”, HSBC’s Rambourg said. “He’s got a phenomenal reputation in France for having salvaged the Yves Rocher group and preparing the next generation there. That’s why you want someone like that.”

He was hired as one potential candidate for future leadership, exemplifying LVMH’s practice of fielding several options. “There are people that are more dedicated to being in the trenches . . . [Bianchi] is one of the executive community and more senior group that is able to be a leader of leaders and a good coach,” said the second person familiar with the group.

LVMH’s emerging leaders will also need to be even savvier in order to continue growing in a more mature global luxury market where the group already dominates, and without the same kind of boost from China.

Cereda estimates LVMH has gone from having 14 per cent share of the global market for personal luxury goods in 2018 to 24 per cent today — and could rise to 30 per cent in the coming years.

“You want innovators, smart management that is clearly aligned . . . but whereas before it was mostly external people that have worked with Arnault for a long time, now you have people who haven’t been there quite so long and you have the kids, so he has to get that balance right,” he said.

After all, if “an external manager doesn’t work — if you don’t get along with the family, disagree with Arnault, or don’t deliver — you will not last long”.

Shah Capital wants change in US biotech’s strategy as its shares have tumbled since their pandemic peak

A top-five shareholder in struggling Covid-19 vaccine maker Novavax is calling for an “urgent shake-up” of the board and an overhaul of its sales strategy, as the stock is down 99 per cent from its pandemic peak.

US-based hedge fund Shah Capital wrote to the Novavax board on Monday to push for the instalment of two new independent board directors. It also wants a pivot in the biotech’s sales strategy for its Covid-19 shot, which is based on traditional vaccine technology, to target older people unnerved by rare side effects associated with mRNA jabs from Pfizer and Moderna.

Valued at more than $40bn at the height of the pandemic in early 2021, Novavax made a series of mis-steps with the launch of its Covid vaccine. The jab was late to market and suffered from collapsing demand as governments withdrew from procurement deals. The group had a market value of $600mn, as of market close on Friday.

Himanshu Shah, managing partner of Shah Capital, said Novavax’s failure to compete for market share among Covid-19 jabs as the disease has become endemic was “self-inflicted” and resulted from “reactive leadership and outdated and old-fashioned marketing”.

“Therefore, we are calling for an urgent shake up of the board,” added Shah in a letter seen by the Financial Times.

Shah Capital’s decision to launch an activist campaign against Novavax comes as the shares of more successful Covid-19 vaccine makers such as Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna have fallen as pandemic demand has faded. Shah Capital now owns 6.7 per cent of Novavax, having first bought into the company in the last quarter of 2022.

The leading Covid-19 jabs from BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna are projected to generate nearly $12bn in revenues between them this year, down from around $22bn from a year earlier, according to Bloomberg data. Shah criticised Novavax in his letter for only generating around $25mn in net commercial US sales from its Covid-19 jab during the winter season, despite spending $300mn on a sales and marketing push.

With the majority of US citizens yet to take a booster and around 30 per cent saying they are averse to mRNA jabs according to survey data, Shah said he could not understand why Novavax has “not capitalised” on seven peer-reviewed studies about mRNA side effects to encourage uptake of its protein-based shot.

Shah also wants Novavax to strike royalties partnerships to access outside funding to restart clinical studies into other vaccines targeting influenza, respiratory syncytial virus and H5N1 bird flu. Novavax is this year rolling out its second product: a malaria vaccine approved by the World Health Organization, which will help to grow its revenues from $531.4mn last year to a projected $854.2mn this year.

Shah called for Suresh Katta and Venkat Peri, both of whom are chief executives of other biotechs, to be nominated for the independent board roles. “The two new independent board candidates which Shah Capital has recommended should be nominated immediately for their wealth of relevant knowledge, experience and a proven track record,” the hedge fund said in the letter.

Novavax has undertaken successive lay-off rounds as part of a $1.1bn cost cutting drive to stave off bankruptcy after it warned investors last year about its future. In January, the company announced it was sacking 12 per cent of its workforce, after cutting a quarter of jobs in an earlier lay-off round.

Novavax refused to comment on whether it would concede to Shah’s push for board seats. But the biotech said it was “confident” in its long-term strategy and that it welcomed “the perspectives of our shareholders and value their input on our strategy”.

Shah Capital does not have an issue with the leadership of Novavax chief executive John Jacobs and was pleased with his negotiation of a $349.6mn settlement with the Canadian government over the forfeiting of certain Covid-19 doses scheduled for delivery, according to two people familiar with the matter.

In the letter, Shah complained about how competitor Moderna’s market value is trading at 10 times 2024 sales, while Novavax’s market capitalisation is below its 2024 sales.

“This low valuation has been mainly due to lack of confidence in future commercial sales success and massive dilutive share issuance at a low price sending a ‘desperation’ message,” said Shah.