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If you read the news, you might have noticed a trend this past week. In addition to splashy features in Fortune and Bloomberg, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino talked with Reuters, He also talked with TechCrunch. Why did the man behind the stablecoin that everyone loves to hate launch a full-scale media blitz?

The timing isn’t arbitrary. This week, Tether launched USAT, a U.S.-regulated stablecoin issued through Anchorage Digital Bank — its first product designed to comply with new federal rules and compete directly with Circle’s USDC. Fidelity Investments also just launched a competing stablecoin on Wednesday, joining JPMorgan Chase and PayPal in a broadening race.

It’s a big shift from one extreme to the other. For years, Ardoino avoided the United States, watching from offshore as regulators circled and prosecutors investigated. His company was portrayed as opaque, possibly fraudulent, and, according to a piece by The Economist last summer, a “money launderer’s dream.”

But when Ardoino and I chatted by video call this week, it was clear those days are over. Tether is meeting with White House officials, collaborating with the FBI and Secret Service, and betting USAT can break Circle’s grip on the U.S. market. (USAT is separate from Tether’s flagship USDT, which has $187 billion in circulation globally but doesn’t meet new U.S. regulatory requirements.) Speaking from Lugano, Switzerland, where Tether maintains an office, the 41-year-old – who joined the company just two months after its 2014 launch – spent over an hour describing Tether’s transformation from a crypto play to mainstream acceptance.

Its momentum is undeniable, certainly. Tether’s USDT — essentially a digital dollar that uses blockchain technology to move across borders without being tied to any single institution — has a market capitalization larger than all of its stablecoin competitors combined. It also has some 536 million users, growing at 30 million per quarter. “It’s growing at a pace more like Facebook rather than any other fintech application,” Ardoino tells me.

Tether’s first-mover advantage goes beyond market dominance, says Ardoino, describing it as transformative for people in countries with weak currencies. “In Argentina, the peso lost 94.5% of its value against the U.S. dollar in the last five years,” he observes. “In Haiti, the average salary is $1.34 per day. These people were never part of the financial system.”

“What Tether created is the biggest financial inclusion success story in the history of humanity,” he continues.

Ardoino knows he has a lot of work to do to convert more people into believers. It didn’t help when, last summer, The Economist detailed how Russian money launderer Ekaterina Zhdanova allegedly used Tether to connect British drug gangs, Moscow hackers, sanctioned oligarchs, and Russian intelligence operatives.

When I bring up that reporting, Ardoino brushes it off, calling the amounts highlighted in the piece “truly a drop in the ocean.” The “infinite, vast majority of the usage of USDT is by good people,” he says, adding that the company now works with almost 300 law enforcement agencies across more than 60 countries. “iPhones are sometimes used by bad people, Toyotas are used by bad people.”

But he goes even further, arguing that his company’s technology makes it superior to cash when it comes to monitoring illicit activity. “If there are cash pallets of hundreds of billions of dollars roaming around the world, U.S. law enforcement can hardly do anything about it,” he says. “But with USDT, we demonstrated that working with the DOJ, FBI, Secret Service and hundreds of other law enforcement agencies, we could quickly freeze the funds.”

In fact, according to Ardoino, Tether has frozen $3.5 billion in tokens, the vast majority of which belonged to “people who have been scammed or hacked.” In 2023, he says, for example, Tether proactively identified $225 million in a “pig-butchering scam” in the “blink of an eye” after traditional financial systems failed to catch it. (Pig-butchering scams involve scammers who befriend victims or even romance them over time before luring them into fake investments.)

“We have onboarded the FBI and the Secret Service. We follow OFAC [the office that enforces U.S. sanctions],” he tells me.

Whether critics are satisfied isn’t yet clear, but Tether has survived every attempt to bring it down. It’s an ongoing battle. Just three months ago, the S&P Global Ratings called USDT’s stability weak.

When I raise this point, Ardoino is dismissive. “If that is the same S&P that completely missed the subprimes, I’m proud they’re considering us weak.”

He then points to spring 2022, when another major stablecoin called TerraLuna abruptly collapsed, wiping out $40 billion in value virtually overnight. Panic spread across the stablecoin market, and hedge funds bet Tether would be next to fail. Customers rushed to pull their money out. “We redeemed $7 billion in 48 hours – 10% of our reserves. In 20 days, $20 billion – 25% of our reserves. There is no bank in the world that can survive that level of redemptions. We did it with flying colors.”

Ardoino also references a rival that didn’t fare as well during a separate bank run, though he stops short of naming it. The implication is clear — he means Circle. When Silicon Valley Bank collapsed in 2023, Circle’s USDC briefly lost its peg after revealing $3 billion in exposure. When I ask Ardoino directly about Circle — often portrayed as the cleaner alternative — his PR team quickly interjects. He manages only: “Sometimes you are painted in a different light if you don’t bend the knee to Wall Street.”

Ardoino emphasizes that Tether now has $30 billion in excess reserves beyond what’s needed to redeem all outstanding tokens. What’s more, those reserves are held at Cantor Fitzgerald — the Wall Street firm that Howard Lutnick led for over three decades before becoming U.S. Commerce Secretary a year ago. Lutnick has publicly vouched for Tether’s legitimacy; meanwhile the firm earns fees from managing Tether’s massive Treasury holdings, creating a financial interest that now exists alongside Lutnick’s role shaping America’s commerce policy.

Tether is now safer than traditional banks, is Ardoino’s point. “The banking system is doing fractional reserve at the length of 90%,” Ardoino says. “So if you deposit $1 million in a bank account, $100,000 is there, and $900,000 is lent out.” By contrast, he argued, “even if Bitcoin would go to zero, Tether would have more money than all the USDT tokens issued.”

All those reserves generate enormous profits. According to Fortune, Tether reported more than $15 billion in profit for 2025 derived largely from yield on reserves that — unlike with savings or checking accounts — it doesn’t share with USDT holders. When I ask whether Tether would reconsider sharing interest with its customers, Ardoino says that while interest makes sense for Americans who’ve come to expect it, it’s not top of mind for Tether’s core users, who are primarily trying to preserve value.

“The Turkish Lira lost 81% of its value against the U.S. dollar in the last five years. The Argentina peso lost 94.5%,” he says. For someone whose currency loses 3% daily, a 4% annual interest rate is meaningless. “While for the rest of the world, U.S. dollar stablecoins are the savings account, you cannot think about stablecoins for U.S. people as the savings account, but more like a checking account.”

There may be another reason Tether isn’t eager to share yields: pending legislation could make it illegal anyway. The CLARITY Act, currently moving through Congress, would prohibit stablecoin issuers from paying interest to holders, a move that banking groups support to prevent deposits from fleeing traditional banks. For Tether, its passage would simply codify its existing business model. For competitors like Circle, which have experimented with reward programs, it could eliminate a competitive tool.

Beyond stablecoins

Ardoino’s ambitions extend far beyond USDT. Tether Gold, a token backed by physical gold that launched in 2020, now has $2.6 billion in circulation, meaning customers hold tokens representing that much gold. But Tether’s total gold strategy is far more ambitious. According to Ardoino’s Bloomberg interview, the company holds around 140 tons of gold worth roughly $24 billion, making it one of the largest private gold holders in the world.

When I ask why Tether launched products like Tether Gold, he frames it as offering alternatives in an uncertain world. “Gold has been the first big, almost ubiquitous form of currency in humanity,” he says. “For the first time, with blockchain technology, we could actually make gold again a currency used not only as a store of value, but also a way to exchange value.”

When the gold product launched, “we were almost called crazy,” he recalls. Since then, Tether has been buying a whopping one to two tons per week, positioning itself as what Ardoino calls “one of the biggest gold central banks in the world.”

But it’s the company’s push into AI that hints at Ardoino’s even grander plans. Roughly nine months ago, Tether rolled out Qvac, Tether’s decentralized AI platform. The name comes from Isaac Asimov’s short story “The Last Question,” which Ardoino sees as the “most magnificent sci-fi piece of literature ever written.”

His pitch for Qvac echoes his pitch for USDT, which is to serve the underserved. “USDT never meant to go after people that had an account in JPMorgan,” he explains. “We went to all the people left behind by the traditional financial system.” Similarly, centralized AI platforms will miss billions of people who can’t afford subscriptions, he says.

“If they don’t have enough money for paying $150 per year for a bank account, they don’t have enough money to be onboarded on powerful AI platforms,” Ardoino says. Instead, Qvac will run locally on smartphones, as he believes within three to five years, today’s most powerful smartphones will be commonplace in Africa and South America, enabling up to 80% of AI use cases. “So USDT will empower the biggest decentralized AI platform in the world.”

It’s quite a vision, yet even Qvac is just another prong of a bigger strategy. According to Fortune, Tether has committed more than $1 billion to German AI robotics firm Neura, $775 million to social media platform Rumble, and hundreds of millions more to satellites, data centers, and agriculture. The magazine described Tether’s transformation into something resembling a sovereign wealth fund.

When I note that from the outside, these investments — including a stake in the Juventus soccer club — seem disconnected, Ardoino insists they are not. “The motto of Tether is to be the stable company,” he says. “The reason why we invest in land, cattle, agriculture, modern tech, in gold – the common denominator is ensuring that Tether can remain a cornerstone of the world that is our user.”

He describes it as an interlocking system where agriculture can be digitalized, gold markets revolutionized, telecommunications made peer-to-peer. “Our story is about building a company that can [stand] the test of time,” he says. “It’s becoming a social impact company that is changing the lives of hundreds of millions of people and providing them something they never had before – stability.”

And when I bring up political risks — what happens is the next U.S. administration views Tether as a threat, as did the last — Ardoino is ready for it.

“I hope that financial inclusion and bringing 536 million people on board onto the dollar is something that both Republicans and Democrats care about,” he says. “It’s a matter of education.”

New chief must prove pharma group can offset patent expiries and hit ambitious growth targets

When Luke Miels took charge at pharmaceutical group GSK in January, it seemed like a natural next step.

The 51-year-old Australian had wide industry experience and since 2017 had served as chief commercial officer, becoming a trusted lieutenant to his predecessor, Dame Emma Walmsley.

But while the transition was smooth, he has inherited a demanding agenda. Miels must prove the business can deliver commercially successful new drugs to offset looming patent expiries, hit ambitious growth targets that some in the market doubt are achievable and win over sceptical investors.

“It’s such an important year for commercial execution,” said Sean Conroy, an analyst at Shore Capital. “[Miels] doesn’t need to do anything different in a big way. They delivered five new drug approvals in 2025 with billion- dollar potential, they just need to show they can deliver and execute commercially.”

One of the new drugs was Exdensur, an asthma drug with peak annual sales potential of £3bn. Penmenvy, a meningitis vaccine with an estimated $1.1bn in peak sales by 2030, was approved in the EU and America, while the US also reapproved blood cancer drug Blenrep, which had previously been withdrawn from sale. GSK has forecast Blenrep could generate at least £3bn in its peak year.

In January this year, GSK reported positive late-stage trial results for bepirovirsen, a treatment for chronic hepatitis B, which affects 250mn people around the world. Analysts have forecast it could reach peak annual sales of $2bn.

GSK needs drugs in the pipeline to offset some significant patent expiries in the next few years, in particular branded versions of its HIV medicine dolutegravir, which lose US and European exclusivity between 2028 and 2030. The group’s four dolutegravir medicines accounted for 18 per cent of its 2024 sales.

Despite the pipeline worries, GSK’s share price has risen more than 40 per cent from lows in April last year thanks to a combination of upbeat results and regulatory approvals.

It now has a market capitalisation of about £74bn but remains much smaller than its UK rival AstraZeneca, London’s most valuable listed company, to which it is often compared.

Under Walmsley, GSK raised its 2031 revenue target from £38bn to £40bn. The consensus analyst estimate for that year is £35bn and its most recent full-year figures were £31bn in 2024. One analyst said raising the target had made “an unbelievable number even more unbelievable, giving the bears the stick to beat them over the head with”. Miels has previously said he stands by the target.

Although he has not publicly laid out detailed plans for GSK yet, people with knowledge of the company’s thinking say his strategy is starting to take shape.

A top goal is to buy up overlooked reasonably priced drug and biotech assets, allowing it to grow without being drawn into costly bidding wars with richer rivals.

The target price range for deals is $2bn-$4bn, although GSK is willing to pay more if it finds something it considers exceptional, according to one of the people.

In January, GSK agreed a $2.2bn deal to buy Rapt Therapeutics, a US biotech developing a drug to treat food allergies. This follows last year’s acquisition of liver drug efimosfermin from Boston Pharmaceuticals for up to $2bn and an agreement to develop up to 12 drugs with China’s Hengrui Pharma.

At the annual JPMorgan healthcare conference in January, GSK’s chief scientific officer Tony Wood cited the $1.2bn acquisition of cancer biotech IDRx last year and the Boston Pharmaceuticals deal as the company’s “sweet spot” for dealmaking.

However, the group is planning to steer clear of the crowded weight-loss market unless it can find a niche that justifies entering a field dominated by much larger rivals.

In addition to patent expiries, GSK must contend with falling sales in its vaccines business as well as the US government’s hostile policies on science and public health.

After the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cut the list of routinely recommended childhood vaccinations by a third at the start of the year, the American Academy of Pediatrics called the decision “dangerous and unnecessary” and said it would continue to recommend all of the original vaccines.

GSK’s vaccine business accounted for 29 per cent of revenues in its most recent full year, with shingles jab Shingrix and RSV vaccine Arexvy among its biggest sellers. One of the people close to the company said GSK was confident that the effectiveness of its vaccines meant doctors would continue to recommend them.

Another said Miels was well placed to continue where his predecessor left off, adding they thought Walmsley had not been given enough credit either for delivering consecutive quarters of growth after the coronavirus pandemic or important strategic decisions, such as spinning off the consumer health division Haleon and returning to oncology after her predecessor dropped the lucrative treatment area.

“When Emma arrived, GSK only had a past,” the person said. “Now it has a present and a future.”

Michael Leuchten, head of European pharmaceutical research at Jefferies, said Miels would need to keep running a “much tighter ship” and add assets through acquisitions or licensing deals if GSK was to reach its £40bn revenue target.

“I think they can do it but it’s not going to be a walk in the park.”

Europe’s oil majors prepare to cut billions in shareholder payouts

Shell, BP and peers widely expected to rein in buybacks to protect balance sheets in face of lower oil prices

Europe’s biggest oil companies are poised to rein in billions of dollars of shareholder payouts in the coming weeks, signalling a turn to austerity as they brace for lower oil prices and move to protect their balance sheets. 

Shell, BP, TotalEnergies, Eni and Equinor are expected by analysts to collectively slow their shareholder distributions by 10-25 per cent when they report full-year results this month, all through reductions in stock buybacks.

The European majors have in recent years ploughed more than half their cash flow into repurchasing shares, shrinking the number in circulation and supporting their prices. The industry has reduced its share count by about a fifth since 2021, according to UBS.

But the strategy is coming under heavy strain. Oil prices fell by about a fifth last year and are forecast to weaken further in the first half of 2026, as rising supplies of crude create a surplus. Analysts said companies were likely to cut their buybacks rather than fund them through debt. 

“We are forecasting an average 25 per cent cut to the buybacks,” said Lydia Rainforth at Barclays. “Overall that is seen as a much better option than paying them out of debt.”

“There was a very strong argument to prioritise buybacks when valuations were cheap, balance sheets healthy and the perceived risks around peak oil were growing,” said Josh Stone, an analyst at UBS, who expects the sector to reduce its shareholder distributions by 21 per cent. “That is not the case today.”

The pressure on European companies contrasts with the strength of their US rivals.

ExxonMobil and Chevron on Friday reported their lowest annual profits in four years, despite record levels of oil and gas production. But neither company signalled a pullback from their shareholder payouts this year and both have emphasised the strength of their balance sheets to ride out the downturn. 

Some European majors have already begun to reset expectations. Total has said it will reduce quarterly share repurchases by between $500mn and $1.25bn this year, assuming oil prices average $60-$70 a barrel.

Brent crude was trading close to $71 a barrel on Friday amid heightened geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.

Equinor, Norway’s state-controlled oil company, is expected to cut annual buybacks from $5bn in 2025 to $2bn in 2026, according to HSBC.

Shell, which has described spending 40-50 per cent of cash flow on dividends and buybacks as “sacrosanct”, is widely expected to trim its quarterly repurchases from $3.5bn to $3bn, a move that would keep it within that range, when it reports results on Thursday.

Boards will decide on the level of distributions shortly before companies report their results, and some analysts cautioned that a positive start to this year could yet persuade some to hold them at their current level.  

Nevertheless, Stone believes improved market valuations of European oil majors have weakened the case for aggressive buybacks. “The logic becomes less obvious when you are buying back your shares at a higher multiple,” he said.

He added that while some European majors had highlighted consistent shareholder returns as a way to narrow the valuation gap with US peers, they faced structural disadvantages given the deeper reserves and stronger growth prospects of their American rivals.

Christopher Kuplent, an analyst at Bank of America, said Europe’s oil companies were able to sustain payouts last year largely by leaning on their balance sheets or selling assets.

“I don’t think a company like Eni, having sold $8bn of assets last year, can do it again this year,” he said. “You can’t run away from the fundamentals.”

Expectations for fourth-quarter results have already been tempered by cautious trading statements, after which consensus profit forecasts fell by 12 per cent. Kuplent said the industry was heading into a difficult 2026 after spending much of last year cutting costs and trying to lift production.

“We hope for a soft landing,” he said, “but a lot of the cushions you were leaning on have either been deflated or didn’t exist in the first place.”

Watchdog restricts customer numbers at Markerstudy, a personal insurance group backed by Bain and Pollen Street

A private equity-backed UK insurance group has had its expansion plans thrown into disarray, after the Financial Conduct Authority restricted activities across its licensed businesses due to concerns about governance and financial controls.

Markerstudy, whose owners include private equity groups Pollen Street and Bain Capital, has had restrictions put on customer numbers and capital across its sprawling operations until it resolves concerns raised by the FCA. 

Many of these stem from its rapid acquisition-fuelled growth, including weaknesses in its leadership, governance and financial controls, according to people familiar with the measures. Markerstudy’s businesses provide home, car and pet insurance products and other related services to more than 8mn customers across the UK.

“A cap has been agreed with the FCA that both parties consider appropriate and consistent with our strategy and customer-focused growth ambitions,” Markerstudy told the FT. “We continue to operate at mandatory solvency margins and carry a buffer in line with regulatory requirements.”

The restrictions could disrupt Markerstudy’s path to a potential IPO that was expected to value it at about £3bn, according to a Bloomberg report in November. However, a person familiar with the insurance group said it had no plans to float. The FCA declined to comment.

One of the more than a dozen Markerstudy businesses hit by the restrictions is Brightside, which was co-founded by Arron Banks, a senior figure in Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party. Banks was ousted from the business in 2012.

Another is Atlanta Group, which owns the Swinton, Marmalade and Healthy Pets brands and was acquired by Markerstudy in a £1.2bn deal in 2024.

The businesses have agreed so-called voluntary restrictions, which the FCA often uses as an alternative to enforcement action. The watchdog does not announce voluntary restrictions, but it records them on its register, making them a more discreet tool.

Markerstudy’s regulated businesses have had a notice added in the FCA register saying they must not “take any steps” without consent to exceed a limit on the number of customer policies and they must “maintain an agreed sum of funds”.

Markerstudy was created in 2001 by former Lloyd’s underwriters Kevin Spencer and Gary Humphreys. Backed by Pollen Street Capital since 2021, it has grown rapidly via a string of acquisitions.

The group is chaired by Benny Higgins, the former chief executive of Tesco Bank who was part of the Royal Bank of Scotland team including former disgraced boss Fred Goodwin that took over NatWest in 2000. He joined rival bank HBOS to head its retail business in 2006, but left shortly before its collapse in 2008 to run Tesco Bank.

Markerstudy made a post-tax loss of £141.7mn on revenue of £694mn in 2024, according to its latest published accounts. Much of this loss came from £136mn of interest it paid on its almost £1.4bn of debt. 

Excluding interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, the group made a profit of £60mn in 2024, up from a £12.9mn loss the previous year. 

“Markerstudy has grown strongly in recent years and we maintain a close and collaborative dialogue with the regulators, part of which is agreeing appropriate levels of growth,” it said.

The FCA restrictions also apply to BISL, which owns the Budget, Bennetts and Dial Direct insurance brands, as well as Hughes Insurance Services, a Northern Ireland broker bought by Markerstudy in 2024, and Insurance Factory, which owns the Purely Pets brand.

The insurance sector has come under greater scrutiny by the watchdog since consumer group Which? last year used its power to launch a super-complaint about systemic failures and poor customer service in the travel and home insurance markets.

‘Bullish believer’ proposes acquisition as part of plan to create European metals group

Turnaround investor Michael Flacks is interested in acquiring British Steel and combining it with another ailing steelworks in Italy to create one of the largest metals groups in Europe.

The Manchester-born businessman, whose Flacks Group is focused on buying distressed companies, said he was “very” interested in acquiring British Steel and investing to electrify its production.

“Somebody has to take control of British Steel. It’s a plant of national importance,” he told the FT last week. “I see an amazing opportunity where most people have overlooked this sector. I’m a big, bullish believer.”

Flacks said he was working with investment bankers to prepare a bid. There have been several failed attempts over the past decade to turn the Scunthorpe steelworks into a viable business.

Private equity group Greybull Capital bought the business from India’s Tata Steel in 2016 for just £1, only for the company to collapse in 2019. In March 2020 Chinese steelmaker Jingye saved the plant from closure by buying British Steel from the UK’s official receiver for about £50mn.

But the government seized control of the management of British Steel last year amid fears that Jingye planned to walk away from the business, which was losing £700,000 a day.

The takeover preserved the jobs of 3,500 workers but has left the taxpayer footing the bill for the lossmaking company, with the government paying hundreds of millions of pounds to keep it running.

Flacks’ interest comes after the FT reported in November that the UK government was sounding out bankers about a possible sale of the steelworks.

The process remains at an early stage. Any acquisition of British Steel would be complex and require government backing, while Jingye would be expected to demand compensation that could top £1bn, the FT previously reported.

Europe’s struggling steel industry has been hit by US President Donald Trump’s tariffs, high energy costs and a global glut of the metal that has driven down prices.

Flacks, whose net worth is about £1.7bn, according to the Sunday Times Rich List, is also closing in on a deal for the Italian steelworks previously known as Ilva.

He wants to combine the Italian steelworks with British Steel to capitalise on what he sees as a shift in the market, with European governments and companies placing more emphasis on local suppliers.

“My vision is we’re going to do a roll-up of European steel operations,” Flacks said. “There’s going to be an infrastructure growth. People are going to be more receptive to working with British Steel because it won’t be in Chinese hands.”

Flacks said he was working to line up €5bn of public and bank financing for cleaning up and turning around the Italian steelworks, which has long been blighted by severe environmental problems.

Miami-based Flacks Group owns industrial businesses including Pleuger, a supplier to the water industry, and Aldrich, which makes pumps used in steel production.

But Flacks is perhaps best known in the UK for his failed £20mn approach for home furnishings business Laura Ashley in 2019. He had also explored a takeover of discount chain Poundworld, but a deal never materialised. Both retailers subsequently filed for administration. 

Flacks has explored deals for other British assets such as a stake in north-east England’s Teesside International airport. While that deal has not proceeded, Flacks has acquired a 500-acre site next to the airport with a goal of developing it for renewable energy production and other uses.

Any deal for British Steel would require government support, Flacks said, and that he would be a long-term owner of the assets.

“Every deal I do is complicated,” he said. “We’re not private equity, we’re not a listed company, we don’t have shareholders to answer to. We’re in it for the long game.”

Representatives for British Steel and the UK government declined to comment.