FT : AI risks drag on $5bn Thoma Bravo-backed software refinancing Cybersecurity

AI risks drag on $5bn Thoma Bravo-backed software refinancing
Cybersecurity firm Proofpoint faces higher borrowing costs and tighter covenants in latest debt deal

Thoma Bravo is struggling to drum up interest to refinance one of its marquee software buyouts in a sign of lacklustre Wall Street demand for indebted businesses facing AI disruption.

Proofpoint, a cyber security company Thoma Bravo bought for more than $12bn in 2021, was attempting to draw in last-minute orders from investors on Tuesday as it looked to extend debt by two years to 2030 with a new $5bn loan facility.

Investors balked at the so-called amend-and-extend deal, which was led by Goldman Sachs, demanding higher yields and tighter lender protections to offset the growing risks in the software sector, according to people familiar with the matter.

“The fear is that AI will drive more competition into the cyber security industry and eventually erode Proofpoint’s margins,” said a leveraged loan investor who passed on the deal. 

Thoma had secured enough investor demand to proceed with the debt extension just ahead of a 5pm ET deadline on Tuesday, the people said. The financing package is expected to be finalised on Wednesday.

The new debt offers a yield of almost 9.3 per cent at maturity, or 4.5 percentage points above the secured overnight financing rate, compared with 3 percentage points on its existing debt, the people added.

Its current debt maturing in 2028 was trading at about 98.6 cents on the dollar on Tuesday.

Goldman Sachs and Thoma Bravo both declined to comment.

S&P upgraded Proofpoint’s credit rating by one notch to B earlier this month, citing bullish revenue forecasts and sustained deleveraging efforts.

“Cybersecurity is considered a safe haven in the software sector because the entry barrier is higher,” said a second investor. “If Proofpoint is struggling to attract lenders, the rest of the market doesn’t stand a chance.”

Private equity-backed software companies have been under intense scrutiny this year, with lenders looking for signs that the businesses are being threatened by AI companies able to replicate their products. That has vastly reduced deal activity in the sector, which was among the most active dealmaking areas in private equity over the past five years.

Investor reluctance to finance these businesses has piled pressure on private equity firms such as Thoma Bravo, which specialise in technology buyouts, as well as private credit funds and structured loan vehicles that have lent to these companies.

In June a Blackstone-led consortium took control of software group Medallia from Thoma Bravo in one of the largest wipeouts in the history of the $4tn private-equity industry.

Loans issued by junk-rated software companies have slid roughly 7 per cent in value this year, reflecting investor unease, according to Morningstar. How those businesses ultimately refinance their debts remains a key question, as a glut of Covid-era debt with low interest rates is set to mature in the next two years.

FT : Private equity group pays discount price for Yorkshire Water stake EQT boug

Private equity group pays discount price for Yorkshire Water stake
EQT bought joint control of UK utility in deal worth less than the value of its regulated assets

Private equity group EQT snapped up a stake in strained utility Yorkshire Water last month at a steep discount, underlining the trials facing UK water companies at a time when Thames Water is fighting off renationalisation.

EQT paid less than the value of Yorkshire’s regulated assets when it bought shared control of the water company from Deutsche Bank’s asset manager, according to three people familiar with the matter, far less than the sector’s historical average.

EQT’s purchase valued Yorkshire Water’s parent company Kelda Holdings at £9.4bn, equivalent to 90 per cent of the company’s regulatory capital value, according to the people.

The previously undisclosed price demonstrates how the crisis at Thames Water, the industry’s high debt levels and political backlash against sewage pollution have hit valuations across the sector.

Yorkshire Water, which has 5.7mn customers in northern England, is under close watch by regulator Ofwat, which warned last year that it was “lagging behind” on pollution.

Ofwat demanded the company repay a £600mn loan amid concern about its finances and EQT agreed to contribute to the loan’s repayment as part of the deal.

Tim Whittaker, who directs infrastructure and private assets research at Edhec Business School, said EQT had achieved a “significant discount” with the deal. “[The sector] has a stink around it, so people are not investing as much,” he said.

In the 30 years to 2024, Ofwat data show that listed water companies were valued on average 10 per cent higher than their regulatory capital value — the asset base on which they are allowed to earn a set return through customer bills.

Between 2017 and 2024, stakes in UK water companies sold at a 36 per cent premium to their regulatory capital values, according to a court filing in a Thames Water case. 

But EQT’s deal for a 42 per cent stake in Yorkshire also demonstrates continuing interest in the sector despite big shareholders in Thames Water previously declaring the largest water utility “uninvestable”. Lenders to Thames Water have been trying for more than a year to agree a deal with the regulator to avoid renationalisation.

“It’s a sector where the Thames Water backdrop has been challenging for a number of investors to get their heads round,” said a person familiar with the Yorkshire deal.

The private equity group had sought “a price that reflects the challenges” facing the sector after years of under-investment. A decision to allow some water companies to raise bills by more than half between 2025 and 2030 was a key factor in EQT’s decision to buy into the sector, the person added.

EQT, Deutsche Bank and Yorkshire Water declined to comment.

FT : Google DeepMind dismantles Nobel-winning AlphaFold team in strategy shift L

Google DeepMind dismantles Nobel-winning AlphaFold team in strategy shift
Landmark project that solved protein folding gives way to a wider race to build AI systems for scientific discovery

Google DeepMind has dismantled the team behind AlphaFold, its Nobel Prize-winning AI system for predicting protein structures, as the company overhauls the research strategy that made it one of the world’s leading AI laboratories.

The majority of the original authors of the AlphaFold papers have been reassigned over the past year, according to an FT analysis of recent job moves and people familiar with the matter.

DeepMind confirmed the staffers have moved internally to projects built around Google’s Gemini large language model, as well as areas including enzyme design, nuclear fusion and genomics.

Others have relocated to Alphabet’s drug-discovery company Isomorphic Labs. Nearly a quarter of the full-time Google DeepMind authors of the original AlphaFold papers have left the company altogether.

The reshuffle reflects a significant change in DeepMind’s scientific strategy since the rise of large language models.

“Our strategy over the last nine years has been to focus on grand challenges . . . a concrete goal every project is focused on,” said Pushmeet Kohli, vice-president of research at Google DeepMind, where he founded and leads the AI for Science team. “The strategy has evolved.”

He said rather than simply organising researchers around single scientific problems such as protein folding, the AI lab is now also focused on building Gemini-powered systems that can assist scientists — and eventually automate parts of the scientific process — while competing with OpenAI and Anthropic to develop frontier AI agents.

AlphaFold, which DeepMind began developing in 2018, transformed biological research by using AI to predict the three-dimensional structure of proteins, a breakthrough that earned John Jumper, vice-president, engineering fellow, and DeepMind chief executive Demis Hassabis, a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2024.

The project became the defining example of DeepMind’s strategy of pursuing long-term scientific breakthroughs through dedicated research teams.

Earlier this year, Jumper and fellow AlphaFold researcher Jonas Adler moved to Google’s internal “Code Strike” team, a group assembled to improve the company’s AI coding capabilities as it seeks to catch Anthropic and OpenAI.

Last month, Jumper announced he was leaving for Anthropic, where he will be joined by Adler and AlphaFold colleague Alexander Pritzel.

A DeepMind employee, who asked not to be named, said all three had been “instrumental, important, core members” of the company and that their departures had sparked surprise internally.

DeepMind said the movement of researchers reflected its evolving scientific priorities.

“We are incredibly proud of our scientific heritage and the global impact of AlphaFold, which inspired the launch of Isomorphic Labs with the mission to reimagine drug discovery,” the company said.

Isomorphic Labs was spun out of DeepMind in 2021 to commercialise AlphaFold’s scientific breakthroughs. It has since struck partnerships with pharmaceutical companies including Novartis and Eli Lilly as it seeks to use AI to speed drug discovery.

The reorganisation also reflects a broader shift across the AI industry, as frontier labs increasingly view large language models not simply as chatbots but as tools capable of accelerating scientific research. Anthropic this year launched Claude Science, a version of its AI assistant designed to support research in biology and drug discovery.

Competition for the small pool of researchers capable of building frontier AI systems has intensified alongside that strategic shift, with companies aggressively recruiting top scientists and engineers.

“[AI researchers] want to work for a lab that is at the frontier and [not] have to play a catch-up game,” Mark Chen, OpenAI’s head of research, told the FT earlier this year.

“It’s much more exciting for a researcher to just be at the frontier, trying to push the next paradigm, rather than all this pressure to replicate some model that is close to the frontier,” he added.

FT : Transport for London demands £1bn from carmakers over allegedly unpaid Ulez

Transport for London demands £1bn from carmakers over allegedly unpaid Ulez charges
London transport authority claims leading manufacturers misled authorities over diesel emissions

Transport for London has demanded about £1bn from several of the world’s biggest carmakers, claiming they rigged emissions data in a scheme that allowed motorists to slip into the UK capital’s clean air zone without paying.

The High Court in London this week heard that the transport authority has made allegations of “fraud and negligence” against groups including Stellantis, BMW, Jaguar Land Rover and Nissan.

The legal battle is being fought over the Ultra Low Emission Zone, which levies a charge of £12.50 per day on cars that fail to meet air quality standards.

The scheme was introduced in 2019 and, to the chagrin of some drivers in outer boroughs, expanded to cover all of Greater London in 2023 as part of efforts by London Mayor Sadiq Khan to improve the capital’s air quality.

Details of TfL’s case have yet to be disclosed, but the court heard an outline of the claim at a preliminary hearing this week.

Lawyers for TfL said vehicles eligible for the levy entered the zone without being charged, starving the authority of revenue and undermining efforts to curb pollution.

However, TfL could face an uphill battle in bringing a successful case.

Its claim is related to a separate lawsuit brought on behalf of 1.6mn motorists over claims that carmakers installed “defeat devices” — essentially software — to manipulate tests for nitrogen oxide emissions.

The judge in that case this month ruled largely in favour of the carmakers, though she did not shut the door entirely on all the claims. Lawyers for the claimants are planning to appeal the first-stage judgment.

In the TfL case, the court was told that the body relies on Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency records, based on data provided by the manufacturers, to determine whether a particular vehicle should be subject to the charge.

The carmakers “expressly or impliedly represented” that certain diesel vehicles complied with the required standard, said Laurence Page, barrister for TfL.

“The representations were false, made dishonestly or recklessly, alternatively negligently, and caused TfL loss,” he said, adding that TfL was seeking a combined total of £1bn.

“The effect has also been to undermine TfL’s efforts to reduce levels of pollution in London.”

Carmakers have yet to file defences in the TfL claim, but in the parallel lawsuit they denied they misled regulators or consumers. They said vehicle software was entirely lawful and the emissions control systems were needed to prevent problems such as stalling or overheating in particular driving conditions.

James Cutress KC, for Stellantis, said TfL was making “very serious” allegations “with potentially far-reaching consequences” but had provided “no proper details or particulars whatsoever”.

He said the defendants were “entitled to know whether the allegations of fraud and negligence are being maintained, and if so on what basis” given the judge’s ruling in the other case.

TfL sought additional time to serve the necessary documents, but the court denied its request and said it needed to serve its claim form by October.

FT : Bags or baubles? How AI wealth divides luxury stocks Richemont looks better

Bags or baubles? How AI wealth divides luxury stocks
Richemont looks better placed than LVMH if the technology creates a K-shaped economy

AI is creating enormous wealth — but who gets more, and who gets less? It’s an important question not just for governments, but for luxury goods companies too, and investors trying to work out which sellers of high-priced trinkets will perform best. Some are geared to the super-wealthy while others — because of their size or the types of goods they sell — need a lot of affluent people to be buying their products.

Think, for instance, of LVMH. The French parent of Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior appears, based on the second-quarter results it reported on Monday, to be benefiting from the raft of newly enriched tech folk. Chief financial officer Cécile Cabanis called out the positive impact of wealth creation in the US and Korea in particular. That helped LVMH’s fashion and leather goods division, which accounted for three-quarters of operating profit last year, to finally return to revenue growth excluding currency impacts and any acquisitions or disposals.

Jewellery, though, is having more of a moment. While LVMH’s clothing and bags business grew by just 1 per cent year-on-year, the division that sells watches and other shiny baubles rose 11 per cent. Things are even better at Richemont, where US and Asian consumers helped drive an outlandishly strong performance in the three months to the end of June: the main jewellery business grew by almost a quarter, excluding currency impacts.

Consumer tastes and fashions play a part. But jewellery ought to do well in a world where the rich get much, much richer. After all, prices of gems can reach astronomical levels. The most expensive product at Richemont’s Van Cleef & Arpels brand costs not far off a million euros, or 1,200 times as much as its cheapest trinket, analysts at Bernstein note. Even the highest-end bags seem affordable in contrast: Louis Vuitton’s exquisite Capucines are a relative snip at €6,500.

Richemont, then, looks better placed than LVMH if AI ends up creating a K-shaped economy, that much-debated model that sees the wealthy account for an ever-greater proportion of spending.

But in the alternative scenario, where the wealth generated by new technologies swells the coffers of the middle classes too, the French luxury conglomerate could be the better investment. Somewhere between the two are companies like Brunello Cucinelli, whose high-end cashmere is priced far beyond the reach of the average consumer, and which has been reporting strong revenue growth.

While LVMH’s own top-line momentum remains meagre by comparison, the company has used recent lean times to spruce up its offerings. Christian Dior is outperforming the rest of the group’s fashion brands under new creative director Jonathan Anderson. Its scale also gives it prime access to the most desirable shopping locations.

LVMH’s stock is, at least relatively, cheap. Its shares are priced at 20 times forward earnings, according to S&P Capital IQ, despite starting the year at roughly 27 times earnings — where Richemont still trades. That suggests investors think global wealth creation will favour the already-rich — and that LVMH is a good bet for anyone who thinks that assumption is wrong.

FT : Nuclear revival needs $250bn a year, industry says Banks urged to unlock pr

Nuclear revival needs $250bn a year, industry says
Banks urged to unlock private capital as governments eye more atomic energy projects

Global annual investment in nuclear power needs to triple to around $250bn if governments want to meet their stated energy goals, the industry’s main lobby group said, as it urged banks to channel more private capital into the sector. 

Nuclear power has recently enjoyed a revival as countries around the world seek reliable low-carbon electricity to meet rapidly rising demand. 

Countries that had previously shut down nuclear stations, such as Japan and Taiwan, are now bringing them back online while German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has said the country’s decision to shut down its plants in 2013 was a “serious strategic error”.

But the industry continues to struggle to attract investment because new plants are expensive, take years to build and carry significant construction and political risks. 

“We are seeing an enormous appetite,” said Sama Bilbao y León, the director-general of the World Nuclear Association (WNA). “We have 50 countries that have actual plans, in black and white, that include nuclear. This is going to require a lot of money, much more than we are investing right now.” 

But Bilbao y León argued that the sums were not excessive when set against spending elsewhere in the energy system. The International Energy Agency (IEA) expects about $665bn to be invested in renewable power globally this year, while spending on oil, gas and coal is forecast to reach $1.2tn.

The WNA calculated the required nuclear investment by examining countries’ targets and estimating the cost of delivering them in each region. 

In 2025 prices, it expects spending to peak between 2041 and 2045. About $1tn would be directed towards large nuclear plants during that period, with a further $450bn allocated to small modular reactors (SMRs). Another $84bn would be spent extending the lives of existing reactors. 

Currently, countries around the world collectively spend some $75bn a year on nuclear projects. Roughly 80 reactors are under construction, the vast majority in China, India, South Korea and Russia. 

“When we talk to the finance community they tell us the capital is there,” said Bilbao y León. “We are seeing capital flowing to other parts of the energy ecosystem.”


Luba Kotzeva, the former European co-head of infrastructure at Deutsche Bank who now runs energy consultancy Etara, said countries had to think in terms of building nuclear fleets, rather than individual projects, to bring costs down and draw in private finance.

“To date, for more than a decade, everything has been state-funded. Now we are seeing fleet orders come through, in the US and with the Rolls-Royce SMRs in the UK, Sweden and the Czech Republic. And a number of nuclear developers are emerging,” she said.

Two years ago, some of the world’s largest banks and financiers, including Bank of America, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citi, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley pledged to increase their support for nuclear power and help reduce financing costs, which can account for a large share of the total cost of a new plant.

Banks have traditionally been wary of the sector because of the complexity of financing projects, the risks of delays and cost overruns, and uncertainty over whether nuclear power meets environmental, social and governance criteria. In the UK, the start-up of Hinkley Point C has been pushed back again to 2030, five years after it was initially due to come online, and its cost estimate has nearly doubled.

Last year, the World Bank ended its decades-long ban on financing nuclear energy, offering to support efforts to extend the life of existing nuclear reactors and to upgrade grids and infrastructure. 

Bilbao y León said the industry had been meeting financiers every few months to improve their understanding of nuclear projects. Other multilateral development banks were also considering how they could support the sector, for example by financing reactor construction or supporting the creation of regulators, she added.

Bilbao y León compared the nuclear revival with the early development of the liquefied natural gas and offshore wind industries.

“There were moments of uncertainty when financiers were not really sure how this was going to work,” she said. “Once you go through the process and understand how it works, you can become comfortable and standardise the projects.’’

“Right now, for nuclear, we often need to put together a first-of-a-kind financial framework every time.”

Although developers are pursuing a large number of competing small modular reactor technologies, there are relatively few large reactor designs. Bilbao y León said that should make it easier to standardise the financing and construction of conventional nuclear plants.

She cited the UK’s Sizewell C project as a model for combining public and private investment and said Sweden, Canada, the Netherlands and Romania had also developed financing structures that could be replicated elsewhere.

FT : Rio Tinto buoyant on AI demand for metals as earnings soar Miner hails outc

Rio Tinto buoyant on AI demand for metals as earnings soar
Miner hails outcome of cost cuts and says data centre investments will raise need for commodities

Miner Rio Tinto reported a 43 per cent rise in first-half underlying earnings and said it was evidence that its cost-cutting and divestment programme launched last year had started to pay off.

Rising commodity prices and $870mn of “productivity benefits” drove underlying earnings to $6.9bn and free cash flow up 75 per cent year on year to $3.8bn in the six months to the end of June.

Simon Trott, who was promoted to chief executive last year, said the “really strong” first-half performance reflected a pledge made in December to overhaul the Anglo-Australian miner’s cost base and deliver a “sharper” operational performance.

“Seven months on, this is the evidence,” he said on Wednesday.

Rio expected the savings to reach $1.8bn by the end of the year and Trott pointed to more over the longer term. “There’s substantially more to come,” he said.

Trott told the FT that the company’s executive committee had travelled to mine sites to extol the need for “an ongoing culture of continuous improvement”.

But he said his team remained “mindful” of the impact of cutting too deeply into the cost base, citing previous programmes such as the swingeing cuts to capital expenditure under chief executive Sam Walsh a decade ago.

Rio is one of the world’s biggest mining groups with assets across a wide range of commodities. Its earnings were driven for years by iron ore sales to China, but industrial metals such as copper have grown in importance because of their role in fields such as AI and renewable energy.

Copper, aluminium and lithium operations accounted for 57 per cent of its first-half earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation, while earnings from iron ore dropped 2 per cent due to issues at its Canadian business, which Trott said would take time to turn around.

The group has put smaller businesses such as borates and titanium up for sale while cutting costs at core operations. Trott said this ranged from better use of data and AI in developing its underground copper mine in Mongolia to improving reliability at its Australian iron ore operations.

The results contrast with Rio’s interim performance last year when first-half underlying earnings sank to a five-year low of $4.8bn due to weak iron ore prices and cyclones disrupting production.

Rio will raise its interim dividend by 43 per cent, paying out $3.4bn to shareholders. Its shares in Australia rose nearly 5 per cent on Wednesday.

James Redfern, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets, said free cash flow was “substantially stronger” than the $2.2bn expected by the market. Net debt of $14bn was 8 per cent lower than market forecasts.

Trott added that Rio was well exposed to booming demand for commodities from AI-related energy and data centre investments, with the miner saying so-called hyperscalers such as Meta and Alphabet were collectively forecast to spend $1tn building data centres next year.

“That’s a lot of copper, steel, lithium and aluminium,” he said.

Iron ore remained resilient even as China’s economy had matured and demand had slowed, said the chief executive. The company would continue to engage with the Beijing-backed China Mineral Resources, which acts as a central buyer for China’s state-owned steel mills, as a “normal course of business”.

Rio held weeks of talks over a potential combination with rival Glencore earlier this year but could not strike a deal.

Asked about potential consolidation of the industry, Trott said he remained “fully focused on his own business”.

FT : US says it intercepted ‘surprise’ Iranian missile attack Incident ends a da

US says it intercepted ‘surprise’ Iranian missile attack
Incident ends a days-long pause in direct air strikes

Iran launched a “surprise” ballistic missile strike on US forces, according to the Pentagon, ending a days-long pause in direct attacks between the two warring countries.

US Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East, said its forces intercepted all the missiles in what it called an “attempted surprise attack”.

Iran’s strike, which the US blamed on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, could put Washington and Tehran back on a path of escalating military action after a break in the hostilities that had calmed global energy markets.

The US paused strikes beginning on Friday after 13 consecutive nights of attacks, with American officials saying President Donald Trump was allowing “space” for talks with Tehran. Iran last launched an assault on American military installations in the Middle East on Friday.

Oil prices eased during the pause in the conflict, but Brent crude, the global benchmark, jumped 4 per cent to $87.43 a barrel following news of the intercepted strike.

Centcom on Tuesday said IRGC “forces launched multiple ballistic missiles from Iran in an attempted surprise attack on US forces based in the Middle East. All Iranian missiles were successfully intercepted”.

The US and Saudi Arabian forces also conducted separate strikes in Iraq on Tuesday against “Iran-aligned terrorists” that Centcom said the IRGC had ordered to attack American military targets and the kingdom’s energy infrastructure with drones over the past three days.

“US and Saudi fighter aircraft struck multiple terrorist logistics and weapons sites across eastern Iraq in a strong response to over 30 IRGC-directed aerial drone attacks in the last 72 hours,” Centcom said, adding that the attacks on American forces were unsuccessful.

The military actions from Iran, the US and Saudi Arabia, along with those of militant groups, risk a wider war in the region. 

The Iranian missile attack was launched as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington, where he met Trump earlier on Tuesday to try to convince him to expand US military operations against Iran.

The US and Israel’s interests in the Middle East have diverged in recent months. In April, Trump announced an initial ceasefire with Tehran before Israel had achieved any of its war goals. Trump on Monday acknowledged “a little difference” in his and Netanyahu’s military objectives.

Ahead of their meeting on Tuesday, Trump said Netanyahu “wants me to stay involved” and hinted at tension between them.

Trump last week threatened to strike an Iranian nuclear facility deeply buried under Kolang Gazla known as Pickaxe Mountain. But the US has held off striking the site, which is an important target for Israel’s campaign to end Iran’s nuclear programme.

“I don’t need Bibi to tell me” about Pickaxe Mountain, Trump said before the Oval Office session with Netanyahu.

After they met, Trump wrote on social media that they “had a very good meeting! Obviously, many important subjects were discussed”.

Netanyahu said the meeting was “excellent” and “one of the best” the two have had. He stressed the “full partnership and mutual support” between the two countries and their “common goal” to ensure Iran never gets a nuclear weapon.

“I always hate to disappoint would-be critics who are trying to find cracks in our alliance, and what they find, like today, is a wall of granite,” Netanyahu told Fox News on Tuesday night. “We have a common goal and it’s going to be achieved either through diplomatic means or other means.”

As the Strait of Hormuz has become the centre point of the conflict, Israel has pushed on the nuclear issue.

American forces focused their 17 rounds of strikes earlier this month on degrading the Iranian military’s capability to threaten commercial vessels trying to transit the critical waterway, through which a fifth of oil shipments passed before the conflict.

An Omani delegation was in Tehran on Friday and Saturday to try to reach a provisional arrangement with Iran to manage shipping through the strait.

Trump earlier on Tuesday said Washington and Tehran were in “very good” talks. But he also repeated his threat to attack civilian infrastructure in Iran should the Islamic republic not reach an agreement with the US.

“If they don’t make a deal, the bridges are going to be gone,” the president told Fox News. “If I can avoid doing that, I’d like to do that.”

>>> US After Hours Summary: TER +13.5%, BE +10.8%, MANH +10.6%, NOV +7%, STX +5.

After Hours Summary: TER +13.5%, BE +10.8%, MANH +10.6%, NOV +7%, STX +5.3%, F +5.1%, CAKE +3.7% higher on earnings;

After Hours Gainers:

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: RCKY +17.6%, TER +13.5%, BE +10.8%, MANH +10.6%, NOV +7%, SB +5.6%, STX +5.3%, F +5.1%, MIR +4.6%, CAKE +3.7%, ENPH +2.8%, NEO +2.6%, SLDE +2.6%, EXE +1.7% (also increases share repurchase authorization by $1 bln), MDLZ +1.1% (also increases dividend), STAG +0.8%, EXR +0.5%, APAM +0.3%

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: VRRM +24.5% (reaches framework agreement with Avis Budget on new contract), FORM +3.7% (expands Keystone Microtech partnership), AVEX +2.2% (wins $88.1 mln in production orders), VSTM +1.4% (doses first patient in Phase 2 trial for VS-7375), WES +1.4% (unit offering by selling shareholders), MCK +1.2% (Trump admin plans to end subsidy program for Medicare drug plans, according to WSJ), SKYT +1.2% (IONQ gets final regulatory clearance for SKYT acquisition), SATL +0.8% (CFO to step down), HLLY +0.4% (sells several brands), COUR +0.3% (to invest $100 mln in AI learning startup LearnVector), T +0.1% (AT&T (T) closes $23 bln spectrum license acquisition from EchoStar)

After Hours Losers:

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: OI -13.7%, CSGP -12.4%, CAR -11.3%, SWKS -10.5% (also new $2 bln repurchase program, suspends dividend program), ORN -8.1%, KLAC -7.5%, RBBN -6.2%, NXPI -4.8%, RNST -4.3%, LSTR -4.2% (also increases dividend), PPG -4.1%, QRVO -3%, WM -3%, EXLS -2.6%, ROG -2%, VRNS -0.9%, V -0.8%, WPC -0.5%, CZR -0.3%, OMC -0.3%, FCF -0.1% (also increases share repurchase authorization by $75 mln)

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: NPCE -13.2% (receives FDA guidance on PMA supplement), FEIM -9.7% (launches $100 mln stock offering), CNC -2.2% (Trump admin plans to end subsidy program for Medicare drug plans, according to WSJ), UNH -0.8% (Trump admin plans to end subsidy program for Medicare drug plans, according to WSJ), ECHO -0.3% (AT&T (T) closes $23 bln spectrum license acquisition from EchoStar), HUM -0.2% (Trump admin plans to end subsidy program for Medicare drug plans, according to WSJ), IONQ -0.1% (IONQ gets final regulatory clearance for SKYT acquisition)