- Qiagen (QIA TH) +5.7%
- Qiagen Said to Weigh Strategic Options Amid Fresh Interest
- Fresnillo (FNL TH) +4.3%
- D’Ieteren (DJDA TH) +2.1%
- D’Ieteren Investment Case Compelling, Raised to Buy at Jefferies
- Renault (RNL TH) +1.3%
- Rolls-Royce (RRU TH) +1.2%
- Safran (SEJ1 TH) +1%
- ASM Intl (AVS TH) +1%
- Elisa (EIA TH) -1.1%
- Elisa Rated New Sell at Rothschild & Co Redburn; PT 33 euros
- Kion (KGX TH) -1.2%
- LVMH (MOH TH) -1.2%
- BAT (BMT TH) -1.2%
- Amrize (J0J TH) -1.3%
- Abivax (2X1 TH) -1.3%
- Novonesis (NZM2 TH) -1.4%
- Moncler (MOV TH) -1.5%
- Mowi (PND TH) -1.8%
- Mowi Prelim 4Q Ebit About EU213M, Est. EU233.2M
- Nordea Bank (04Q TH) -1.9%
- Nordea Bank Cut to Hold at ABG; PT 17.12 euros
DAX:
- Qiagen (QIA TH) +5.4%
- Qiagen Said to Weigh Strategic Options Amid Fresh Interest
- Siemens Energy (ENR TH) -1.2%
MDAX:
- Aixtron (AIXA TH) +4.7%
- Aixtron Raised at JPMorgan With ‘Stars Aligning,’ 2026 De-Risked
- Wacker Chemie (WCH TH) +1.7%
- Wacker Chemie Raised to Neutral at BNP Paribas; PT 70 euros
- TeamViewer (TMV TH) +1%
- Evonik (EVK TH) -1%
- Evonik Cut to Neutral at BNP Paribas; PT 14 euros
- Kion (KGX TH) -1%
- FlatexDEGIRO (FTK TH) -1.7%
SDAX:
- Heidelberger Druck (HDD TH) +1.4%
- Salzgitter (SZG TH) +1%
- Douglas AG (DOU TH) -1.3%
- Borussia Dortmund (BVB TH) -1.4%
- SMA Solar (S92 TH) -1.5%
- Indus Holding (INH TH) -1.9%
Europe struggles to end reliance on Russian uranium
Western fuel companies say cheap supplies and lack of political will risk locking the continent into strategic dependency
Top nuclear fuel executives are pushing Europe to phase out Russian imports of enriched uranium, warning Moscow is using its role as a key supplier to exert geopolitical influence.
Nearly four years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Europe has reduced its dependence on Russian enriched uranium but the country still supplies almost a quarter of the continent’s needs, with the low price making it attractive to buyers.
Urenco and Orano, the leading western producers of uranium, are developing new enrichment capacity, as demand for low carbon energy drives a nuclear power renaissance in North America and Europe.
But much of the planned new supply has already been bought up by American companies ahead of a full US ban on Russian uranium in 2028, said Orano chief executive Nicolas Maes.
Without a plan to end imports, Europe risks relying on the fuel for decades to come, the heads of Orano and Urenco have warned, exposing the continent to a key strategic dependency on Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Russia had been using its enrichment business “as a geopolitical instrument,” Urenco chief executive Boris Schucht told the FT.
“You can make a strong parallel with rare earths,” said Maes, referring to Europe’s dependence on Chinese supply for vital elements used in technology from wind turbines to electric cars. “It’s up to the politicians to decide what level they want or can tolerate.”
Enriched uranium is produced by refining mined uranium, converting it into a gas and processing it to increase the concentration of a specific isotope used for nuclear fuel.
Russia has long been a leading supplier of enriched uranium, with the state-owned nuclear company Rosatom accounting for around 44 per cent of annual enrichment capacity, according to the World Nuclear Association.
The administration of president Joe Biden banned Russian uranium imports in 2024, with exemption waivers available until 2028. But in Europe, “this framework doesn’t really exist”, said Maes.
Schucht said Urenco needed clarity from politicians about what “societies want from us”. Urenco’s “ageing fleet” required investment and the company needed to know what capacity to plan for, he said, adding: “We need clear guidance from the market.”
The European Commission said in May that it would propose a ban on Russian nuclear fuels and technology as part of a broader effort to reduce EU dependency on Russian energy.
Officials said the documents are ready, but the ban has been delayed by internal politics. Some fear it could further antagonise Hungary and Slovakia, which both opposed a recent ban on Russian gas and are against a similar ban on oil that Brussels is currently preparing.
Others say there is hesitation to move forward with the proposals, given the possibility of a peace deal with Ukraine.
The lack of a clear policy has led countries with nuclear fleets to take different approaches. Sweden has cut itself off entirely from Russian fuel, while several other member states continue imports at near prewar levels. Hungary, for example, is building new nuclear plants designed by Rosatom.
At the same time, countries including Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic have stockpiled Russian uranium fuel rods in recent years to ensure supplies for their Soviet-designed reactors, which predominantly use Russian fuel.
In 2024, Europe imported 23 per cent of its enriched uranium from Russia — equivalent to 2.5mn standard work units (SWU), the industry measure of enrichment.
“There is a dependence on Russia and these are quite chunky trade flows,” said Ben McWilliams, an analyst at Brussels-based think-tank Bruegel. “You can’t just go on the market to find another supplier, because it takes a bit of time to build out [capacity].”
As demand for uranium grows, both Urenco and Orano are adding enrichment capacity in Europe. At its Tricastin site in Drôme in southern France, Orano is investing €1.7bn to increase capacity by about 30 per cent, partly funded by €400mn in financing from the European Investment Bank.
On a visit to the facility, the company explained how uranium hexafluoride gas is fed into centrifuges that spin at very high speed, separating the heavier uranium 238 isotopes from lighter U-235 isotopes, which is needed in higher proportion for nuclear fuel.
Urenco is expanding its site in the Netherlands and says that with planned increases elsewhere, Europe and the US could manage without Russian imports. “Under current capacity, committed expansions and inventories, enrichment can be covered adequately in Europe and America,” said Schucht.
Orano in January also received €900mn in funding from the US department of energy to help fund a €5bn enrichment facility in Tennessee that is due to be operational in 2032.
But the expansions will take time, with plans by Orano and Urenco to add around 5mn SWU of capacity not likely to be realised until after 2032. “If, in the meantime, new nuclear reactor projects were to materialise in Europe or North America, then the numbers will not add up,” said Teva Meyer, associate research fellow at the Institution of International and Strategic Relations.
THOMA BRAVO: EUROPE & US SOFTWARE TARGETS
Verified Facts | January 2026
RECENT COMPLETED DEALS
DAYFORCE (USA - HCM Software)
- Announcement: August 21, 2025
- Enterprise Value: $12.3 billion
- Status: Shareholder approved Nov 12, 2025 (88.4% vote)
- Expected Close: Early 2026
- Premium: 32%
- Co-Investor: Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA)
VERINT SYSTEMS (USA - Customer Experience)
- Announcement: June 25, 2025
- Enterprise Value: $2.0 billion
- Status: CLOSED November 26, 2025
- Premium: 18%
- Strategy: Merged with portfolio company Calabrio
THOMA BRAVO AUM
- Current: $181 billion (as of Sept 30, 2025)
- Recent Fund: $24.3 billion for software deals
- Track Record: ~535 companies acquired over 20+ years
ORLANDO BRAVO'S THESIS (From FT Article)
"Software is not about the code - it's about domain knowledge"
- Only 3-5 global competitors in specialized software verticals
- Domain expertise = protection from AI disruption
- Market is overreacting to AI threat
- Specialization insulates from disruption (payroll, cyber, compliance cannot be easily replaced)
EUROPE-US TARGETS TO MONITOR
TIER 1: Confirmed Activity
1. TEMENOS AG (Switzerland - Banking Software)
Status: Past talks (2021-2022); stock down, potentially revisiting interest
| Metric | Value |
| Headquarters | Geneva, Switzerland |
| Listing | SIX Swiss Exchange (TEMN) |
| Business | Core banking, payments, wealth management software |
| Market Cap | CHF 5.35B (~$5.8B USD, Jan 2026) |
| Current Stock | CHF 77.60 (down from highs) |
| 52-Week Range | CHF 55.50 - 81.10 |
| P/E Ratio | 22.59 (trailing) |
| EV/EBITDA | 25.84 |
| Revenue | CHF 873M (2024-2025) |
Previous TB Interest:
- Thoma Bravo approached Temenos 2021-2022 (Bloomberg reports)
- Also EQT was bidding
- Talks described as "challenging" due to valuation
Why Temenos for TB:
- Perfect domain expertise fit (core banking vertical)
- Recurring SaaS revenues
- Global financial institution customer base
- Mission-critical software (high switching costs)
- European base (regulatory advantage: Swiss compliance, EU market access)
Current Opportunity:
- Stock down significantly from 2021 highs
- Market cap at attractive level vs. 2021-2022 approach
- J.P. Morgan flags Temenos in 2026 European software upside potential
- Recent Q4 2025 results better than expected
Thoma Bravo Probability: 25-35% (if approached now at lower valuation)
2. IRESS LIMITED (Australia but EU operations)
Status: CONFIRMED EARLY-STAGE TALKS (Oct 2025) with Thoma Bravo + Blackstone
| Metric | Value |
| Market Cap | ~A$1.6B (~$1.1B USD) |
| Business | Trading, market data, wealth management software |
| Status | Multiple unsolicited acquisition approaches |
| Timeline | Decision likely Q1-Q2 2026 |
TIER 2: Plausible US Targets
3. CLEARWATER ANALYTICS (USA - Investment Software)
Status: Active bidding (Nov 2025) - Thoma Bravo confirmed bidder
| Metric | Value |
| Business | Investment performance monitoring for asset managers |
| Deal Status | Early-stage competitive auction |
| Expected EV | $1.5-2.5B |
| TB Probability | 55% |
| Timeline | Q1-Q2 2026 decision |
| Competitors | Blackstone (rumored co-bidder) |
TIER 3: Plausible Europe Targets
4. SOFTWARE AG (Germany - iPaaS & Data Integration)
| Metric | Value |
| Listing | Frankfurt DAX |
| Business | Integration platform-as-a-service, middleware, data integration |
| Market Cap | €2.0-2.5B |
| Status | Actively acquiring (StreamSets, Built.io, TrendMiner) |
| TB Probability | 30% |
| Fit | Vertical software; recurring revenues; consolidation play |
5. TIETO/TIETOEVRY (Finland - Vertical SaaS)
| Metric | Value |
| Business | Banktech, Caretech, Indtech (banking, healthcare, industrial) |
| Status | Listed; recently expanding in Iberia |
| Market Cap | €2.5-3B |
| TB Probability | 35% (likely carve-out vs. full acquisition) |
| Fit | Mission-critical regulated industry software |
EUROPEAN PRIVATE EQUITY OUTLOOK 2026
From Roland Berger PE Survey:
- 75% of PE firms expect MORE M&A activity in 2026
- Tech/Software sector: 69% of PE respondents targeting this sector
- Strongest regions: CEE, DACH (Germany/Austria/Switzerland), Nordics
- Deal sizes: Small-to-mid-cap recording strongest growth expectations
Favorable Conditions:
- Improved debt availability (ECB rate cuts)
- Valuation dislocations (AI repricing)
- Strong exit pipeline (3-4 year holds maturing)
- European software 15-25% undervalued vs. US peers
SOFTWARE SECTOR PERFORMANCE
From FT Article (Late Jan 2025):
- Software index down ~7% over 3 weeks
- Microsoft: -4.2%, Meta: -7%, Oracle: -7.4%
- Salesforce: -12%, Adobe: -12%
Driver: AI fear; market overreacting per Bravo
Valuation Opportunity: Specialized vertical software = buying opportunity
THOMA BRAVO DEAL STRUCTURE (Recent Pattern)
- Enterprise Value Range: $800M - $2.5B
- Co-Investors: Sovereign wealth funds (ADIA model)
- All-Cash: Yes, with financing secured upfront
- Premium: 25-35% typical
- Leverage: 3.5-4.5x EBITDA
- Operating Approach: Operational partners integrate management; 100-day plans
NEXT 6 MONTHS TO WATCH (2026)
Q1-Q2:
- Iress deal decision
- Clearwater Analytics auction completion
- Any Temenos revisit (if valuation drops further)
- Dayforce close completion
Q3-Q4:
- German/Nordic consolidation targets
- Next major European announcement likely
- Software AG take-private discussions (possible)
KEY METRICS TO VERIFY
For any US/EU software target:
- Domain Expertise: Only 3-5 global competitors? YES = Good fit
- Recurring Revenue: 70%+? YES = Good fit
- Regulatory/Compliance Moat: GDPR, NIS2, PSD2, banking regs? YES = TB likes
- Mission-Critical: High switching costs? YES = Defensible
- Valuation: Sub-sector average multiples? YES = Attractive entry
- Enterprise Value: $800M-$2.5B? YES = TB size preference
Bottom Line: Temenos + Iress + Clearwater = 3 highest probability targets. European market favorable for 2026 M&A. Domain expertise + regulatory moats = Thoma Bravo's investment thesis.
-
Highest vol dispersion:
- Adyen (YTD: +0.5%; RSI: 48); IV 54.8 vs RV 23.8 with vol dispersion of 26.4; IV in the 89th percentile
- Santander (YTD: +2.6%; RSI: 60); IV 31.7 vs RV 15.2 with vol dispersion of 11.9; IV in the 80th percentile
- UniCredit (YTD: +0.4%; RSI: 59); IV 30.8 vs RV 14.3 with vol dispersion of 11.8; IV in the 68th percentile
- Siemens Energy (YTD: +10.2%; RSI: 62); IV 55.3 vs RV 40.2 with vol dispersion of 10.5; IV in the 67th percentile
- BBVA (YTD: +3.6%; RSI: 64); IV 32.6 vs RV 17.6 with vol dispersion of 10.5; IV in the 77th percentile
-
Lowest vol dispersion:
- Eni (YTD: +1.5%; RSI: 54); IV 20.1 vs RV 25.9 with vol dispersion of -10.4; IV in the 75th percentile
- Bayer (YTD: +16%; RSI: 70); IV 36.6 vs RV 42.2 with vol dispersion of -10.2; IV in the 33rd percentile
- Enel (YTD: +3.2%; RSI: 46); IV 18.6 vs RV 20.5 with vol dispersion of -6.5; IV in the 87th percentile
- ASML (YTD: +23.7%; RSI: 68); IV 50.6 vs RV 51.5 with vol dispersion of -5.6; IV in the 97th percentile
- Vinci (YTD: -4.4%; RSI: 37); IV 24.2 vs RV 24.6 with vol dispersion of -5; IV in the 86th percentile
Anthropic’s CEO stuns Davos with Nvidia criticism
- Bold partnership critique: Anthropic CEO publicly attacked Nvidia over China chip exports despite Nvidia being a $10B investor and essential partner.
- Existential stakes override diplomacy: AI leaders now prioritize national security concerns over traditional business relationships and investor relations.
- Nvidia's difficult position: Major supplier and investor finds itself publicly compared to an arms dealer by a key client.
Last week, after reversing an earlier ban, the U.S. administration officially approved the sale of Nvidia’s H200 chips, along with a chip line by AMD, to approved Chinese customers. Maybe they aren’t these chipmakers’ shiniest, most advanced chips, but they’re high-performance processors used for AI, making the export controversial. And at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei unloaded on both the administration and the chip companies over the decision.
The criticism was particularly notable because one of those chipmakers, Nvidia, is a major partner and investor in Anthropic.
“The CEOs of these companies say, ‘It’s the embargo on chips that’s holding us back,’” Amodei said, incredulous, in response to a question about the new rules. The decision is going to come back to bite the U.S., he warned.
“We are many years ahead of China in terms of our ability to make chips,” he told Bloomberg’s editor-in-chief, who was interviewing him. “So I think it would be a big mistake to ship these chips.” Amodei then painted an alarming picture of what’s at stake. He talked about the “incredible national security implications” of AI models that represent “essentially cognition, that are essentially intelligence.” He likened future AI to a “country of geniuses in a data center,” saying to imagine “100 million people smarter than any Nobel Prize winner,” all under the control of one country or another.
The image underscored why he thinks chip exports matter so much. But then came the biggest blow. “I think this is crazy,” Amodei said of the administration’s latest move. “It’s a bit like selling nuclear weapons to North Korea and [bragging that] Boeing made the casings.”
That sound you hear? The team at Nvidia, screaming into their phones.
Nvidia isn’t just another chip company. While Anthropic runs on the servers of Microsoft and Amazon and Google, Nvidia alone supplies the GPUs that power Anthropic’s AI models (every cloud provider needs Nvidia’s GPUs). Not only does Nvidia sit at the center of everything, but it also recently announced it was investing in Anthropic to the tune of up to $10 billion.
Just two months ago, the companies announced that financial relationship, along with a “deep technology partnership” with cheery promises to optimize each other’s technology. Fast-forward to Davos, and Amodei is comparing his partner to an arms dealer.
Maybe it was just an unguarded moment — it’s possible he got swept up in his own rhetoric and blurted out the analogy. But given Anthropic’s strong position in the AI market, it seems more likely he felt comfortable speaking with confidence. The company has raised billions, is valued in the hundreds of billions, and its Claude coding assistant has developed a reputation as a highly beloved and top-tier AI coding tool, particularly among developers working on complex, real-world projects.
It’s also entirely possible that Anthropic genuinely fears Chinese AI labs and wants Washington to act. If you want to get someone’s attention, nuclear proliferation comparisons are probably a pretty effective way to do it.
But what’s perhaps most remarkable is that Amodei could sit onstage at Davos, drop a bomb like that, and walk away to some other gathering without fear that he just adversely impacted his business. News cycles move on, sure. Anthropic is also on solid footing right now. But it does feel that the AI race has grown so existential in the minds of its leaders that the usual constraints — investor relations, strategic partnerships, diplomatic niceties — don’t apply anymore. Amodei isn’t concerned about what he can and can’t say. More than anything else he said on that stage, that fearlessness is worth paying attention to.
Trump's $200B MBS Buyback: Impact & Actionable Trade
2-Minute Impact Summary
The Setup Trump ordered Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac to buy $200B in MBS, announced Jan 8. Surface benefit: mortgage rate relief. Reality: creates a structural problem.
The Paradox
- MBS spreads tightened to 4-year lows ✓ (positive signal)
- BUT larger GSE balance sheets = they'll need to hedge their negative convexity
- This hedging demand = surge in swaption volatility (rate vol will spike)
- Meanwhile, massive debt supply + geopolitical risks are keeping long-term rates elevated anyway—so the promised mortgage rate cuts may not materialize
The Real Dynamic When GSEs hold larger MBS portfolios (negative convexity), they buy rate volatility to protect themselves. This was a major driver of vol in the pre-2010s. After shrinking their books, that vol demand disappeared. Now it's coming back.
Actionable Trade Thesis
LONG Swaption Volatility (specifically short-dated implied vol on 5-10yr swap rates)
Entry Signals:
-
Buy ATM or slightly OTM payer swaptions (5yr payer, 10yr payer strikes) with 3-6 month expiration
- Current environment: vol is still cheap relative to realized vol once hedging resumes
- Timing: Before market fully prices in the GSE hedging demand cycle
-
Pair trade: Long swaptions + Short MBS (or MBS TBA)
- Captures the mean reversion: spreads tight now, but will widen as vol-selling pressure builds
- MBS outperformance exhausted once hedging demand kicks in
Why It Works:
- Fannie/Freddie must hedge ~$200B of negative convexity
- Historical precedent: GSE balance sheet expansion = 200-300 bps in swaption vol expansion
- Market currently pricing vol as stable; will be caught flat-footed when hedging resumes
Timeline: 2-4 weeks for initial moves as market realizes GSE hedging implications; 2-3 months for full effect.
Risk: If Trump pivots away from the policy or if rates actually DO fall sharply (reducing hedging need), vol stays suppressed.
Chinese EVs Blow Past Tesla and Tariffs En Route to Global Reign
U.S., European Union and Mexico try to quash accelerating demand for China’s hottest electric vehicles
Julian Scot-Smith was window shopping at a Porsche dealership with his wife in London’s fancy Mayfair district before Christmas, sizing up the SUVs.
Then the couple peeked into another dealership around the corner.
“We were thinking of treating ourselves to one of the German brands, but these Chinese cars look fantastic,” said Scot-Smith, eyeing the $60,000 BYD Sealion 7.
Not long ago, few would buy the idea that a Chinese electric-vehicle maker such as BYD could sweep European buyers off their feet, competing against Volkswagen, Toyota and even such luxury brands as BMW and Porsche.
Yet BYD is leading a pack of Chinese automakers whose global export onslaught has surpassed even bullish expectations. The Shenzhen-based automaker delivered more than a million vehicles outside China in 2025, the company said, more than double the previous year’s total.
China surpassed Japan in 2023 as the world’s No. 1 auto exporter. Last year, it shipped 7.1 million vehicles from its pool of domestic automakers, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, up from 5.9 million the previous year. BYD, which replaced Tesla as the world’s biggest EV seller, is one of Beijing’s national champions.
“BYD wants to become one of the most relevant players in Europe, and in a very short period,” said Alfredo Altavilla, a veteran industry executive advising the company.
Chinese brands hold a roughly 7% share of Western Europe’s total auto market, selling more than 500,000 units in the first three quarters of 2025, according to data provider Schmidt Automotive Research.
European market leader Volkswagen, which owns Porsche and Audi, has already had its lunch eaten by local brands in China, which was once estimated to account for more than half of the German company’s global profit. Now, China is coming for VW on its home turf.
In a statement, VW said it had “confidence in our products and our ability to innovate.”
Politics, not market forces, has been the biggest obstacle to China’s automakers.
In the U.S., tariffs and restrictions on Chinese software have effectively barred EV imports from China, reflecting fears about jobs and national security. Yet Chinese vehicles could be on the way. Geely, China’s second-largest automaker after BYD, hinted this month it might expand production of its Chinese brands to the U.S., possibly at the South Carolina factory of its subsidiary Volvo Cars.
“The big question for us is where and when,” said Ash Sutcliffe, Geely’s global communications chief.
In a speech last week at the Detroit Economic Club in Michigan, President Trump said Chinese automakers were welcome as long as they used U.S. factories and workers. “Let China come in,” he said.
Canada said Friday it would cut tariffs on Chinese EVs, following a meeting between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Chinese leader Xi Jinping: 49,000 vehicles will qualify for Canada’s most-favored-nation rate of 6.1%. The agreement was cast as part of a new strategic partnership that also foresees Chinese investment in Canadian auto production.
Trump’s second-term tariff policy and his threats of territorial expansion have prompted Canada to take a more balanced stance in the U.S.-China rivalry. Canada’s current tariff is 100%, in line with U.S. policy.
Mexico has gone in the other direction, increasing tariffs to 50% this year on vehicles made in China and other countries that don’t share mutual free-trade agreements. Only firms operating car plants in Mexico, which include U.S. companies, can import their made-in-China models tariff-free. To cushion price increases, Chinese automakers boosted exports to Mexico late last year, stocking up ahead of the tariff hike, industry executives said.
Chinese vehicles also face steep tariffs in the European Union, including 27% on BYD EVs.
Yet, Beijing can’t afford to let up.
Overcapacity
China has factories capable of manufacturing more than 46 million vehicles a year, but annual sales are likely to fall short of 30 million in coming years, according to S&P Global.
Exports have the potential to close the gap for companies that can afford it.
“You need to go global. Toyota did it. Ford did it. GM did it,” said Klaus Zyciora, a former Volkswagen designer who is head of design at state-owned automaker Changan. “If you are not a manufacturer that is able to bring five million units annually to the market, you will have a hard time.”
BYD hopes to have 2,000 dealers in Europe by the end of 2026, up from 284 at the end of 2024. It raised $5.6 billion from shareholders last March, in part to fund the expansion.
In October, Adrian Blackburn and Kirsty Blackburn from Yorkshire, England, sold their BMW and Fiat and bought two BYDs: the Sealion 7 and the smaller Atto 2. They were looking for EVs and liked the advanced technology BYD offered at a competitive price.
“I see it as a very credible brand,” said Blackburn, an account manager for a food company. He even bought $2,500 worth of BYD stock, believing the company is the next Tesla.
The Blackburns drove their son and a friend in the Sealion 7 to a French campsite, a roughly 850-mile round trip. Recharging the battery en route cost the equivalent of around $155.
Chinese carmakers lined the halls at the Munich auto show in September, outnumbering local automakers. Geely said later it wanted to ship 200,000 vehicles from its core Chinese brands to Europe in 2027. In the first three-quarters of last year, it exported around 11,000, according to Schmidt Automotive Research.
Upmarket brands worry about the prospect of premium Chinese vehicles. “They will learn to upgrade, and then they will come in there as well,” Volvo Cars CEO Håkan Samuelsson said.
To get around protectionist measures, BYD has opened factories in Thailand and Brazil. This year, the company plans to start building cars in Hungary, Turkey and Indonesia. A third European plant is in the works, likely in Western Europe.
Rapid growth overseas, where margins are higher, has helped cushion the impact of intense competition in China. BYD sold 4.6 million cars globally last year, short of the 5.5 million it had expected. The company reported two consecutive quarters of falling profit.
The highly competitive Chinese market was likely among the reasons Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett, an early BYD backer, sold his company’s stake in the carmaker in recent years, according to analysts. Berkshire declined to comment.
‘Forbidden fruit’
Mexico is one of China’s top foreign auto markets, making up about a quarter of the estimated 1.6 million units sold in Mexico in 2025, according to industry executives. That figure includes low-cost models manufactured in China for U.S. automakers.
BYD sold its first car in Mexico almost three years ago and now ranks eighth in sales with almost 100 dealerships nationwide. Mexican buyers say the company’s vehicles are affordable and look cool. One top seller is the $22,000 BYD Dolphin Mini, which features racing-style seats, wireless phone charger and large dashboard screen.
Enrique Estévez, an Uber driver from Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl, a working-class suburb of Mexico City, sold his Toyota Yaris and bought a Dolphin Mini. Estévez said a $15 battery charge, which costs about a third of the price of a full tank of gasoline, lasts almost two days. “I’m now thinking about installing solar panels at home,” he said, looking to further trim his energy costs.
BYD doesn’t disclose vehicle sales data for Mexico, but industry executives estimate that the company sold between 75,000 and 80,000 units in 2025—more than Ford or Honda, and nearly catching Stellantis, which sells popular models from Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram.
“They are creating a market for affordable EVs that didn’t exist,” said Justin Fischer, automotive analyst at CarEdge, a U.S.-based consumer platform.
Mexico, a major automaking hub, thwarted BYD’s plans to open a local factory, fearing that a Chinese auto plant would anger Trump ahead of a review this year of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada free-trade agreement.
On the higher end of BYD’s Mexico lineup is a model that might hit a sweet spot among American buyers—if it were available for sale in the U.S.
Nearly three million people have watched YouTube videos featuring a BYD Shark plug-in hybrid pickup from Mexico during road tests in Texas. “There’s a huge interest,” said André Smirnov of TFL Studios. TFL runs social-media channels reviewing SUVs and pickups and has highlighted BYD’s “forbidden fruit” in videos with titles such as “The Truck the U.S. Government DOESN’T Want You to Buy.”
The starting price of the BYD Shark in Mexico is around the equivalent of $51,000. It has a plug-in hybrid system, combining a turbocharged engine with dual electric motors for a range of more than 500 miles. It has specific driving modes for mud, sand and snow, as well as a 360-degree camera system to help drivers navigate tight off-road spaces.
“I can’t imagine what people would say in a blind testing with BYD models,” said Ramón Solís of Grupo Surman, which runs dealerships for BYD and other carmakers in Mexico. “U.S. consumers will soon start seeing what they are missing.”
One Mexico City showroom displays BYD models in a space once reserved for Fords.
Slow start
BYD, originally a battery maker, arrived in Europe more than a quarter-century ago with three employees, $30,000 and a container of batteries, according to founder Wang Chuanfu, who became one of China’s richest men. EVs didn’t show up until 2021.
When the vehicles arrived, BYD surprised rivals by emphasizing technology and features rather than price. Some EVs carried sticker prices north of $80,000, and early sales were disappointing. Stella Li, BYD’s international boss, removed the Europe chief. “We don’t wait for one quarter, six months, one year to adjust our strategy,” she said in an interview.
She recruited Altavilla, who had led the European operations of what was then called Fiat Chrysler. “I told Stella what was my experience in running a car business in Europe—that European consumers are very different from Chinese ones,” he recalled.
Local hires helped. Altavilla estimated that some 90% of BYD’s European staff were now Europeans. At least a dozen senior sales and marketing executives joined the Chinese company from Fiat Chrysler’s successor Stellantis, according to LinkedIn records.
BYD’s lineup added smaller cars, which Europeans typically buy, as well as plug-in hybrids for consumers leery of going fully electric. The hybrids, which are charged lower tariffs, account for nearly half of BYD’s sales in Western Europe.
“If we focus our strategy on EVs only, we will become another Tesla, with all the bumps, the ups and downs,” Altavilla said, “selling a lot in Norway, Denmark and Sweden and selling nothing in Southern Europe.”
Rather than hobbling BYD, the EU’s tariffs gave the company and its dealers a push, said Bernstein analyst Eunice Lee.
Cracking Germany’s market became a priority. In November, buyers there were offered Black Friday discounts worth the equivalent of nearly $19,000 on some models.
BYD is currently positioned in Europe as “the least Chinese of all the Chinese brands,” Altavilla said. “This concept needs to evolve into BYD becoming a real European automaker.”
The Messy Human Drama That Dealt a Blow to One of AI’s Hottest Startups
After a relationship with a colleague, a Thinking Machines co-founder had his role changed. Months later, he was fired after a contentious meeting.
- Thinking Machines Lab CEO Mira Murati fired co-founder Barret Zoph after he and two others expressed discontent and sought more authority for Zoph.
- Zoph, along with two colleagues, rejoined OpenAI, the company they had left a year prior to co-found Thinking Machines Lab.
- Murati learned last summer of Zoph’s relationship with a colleague. Later, she reduced his executive responsibilities.
Mira Murati’s meeting with her co-founders was going off the rails.
Murati, the chief executive of AI startup Thinking Machines Lab, had shown up for work on Monday last week expecting to have a one-on-one with Barret Zoph, her chief technology officer, according to people familiar with the matter. Last summer, she had learned that Zoph was in a relationship with a colleague; in the months since, she had expressed repeated concerns about his lack of productivity, according to the people.
She was invited instead to an impromptu meeting with Zoph, another co-founder and a third employee. The three told her they disagreed with the direction of the company and that they were considering leaving.
They asked for Zoph to be given charge of all technical decision-making, according to the people. Murati responded that Zoph was already CTO and asked why he hadn’t been doing his job for months, they said.
Two days later, Zoph was fired.
Within hours, all three had signed offers to rejoin OpenAI, the AI lab they had ditched a year ago to join Murati’s fledgling startup.
The departures are a sign of how the heated AI race that is consuming hundreds of billions of dollars and transforming the economy is as much a battle for talent as technology. For all the high-tech advancements AI startups are sprinting to develop, they are ultimately at the mercy of the humans powering them.
Zoph’s firing and decision to rejoin OpenAI with colleagues also marks a pendulum swing for a company that Murati, that startup’s former technology chief, had founded with 20 former OpenAI employees.
Addressing Zoph’s departure to Thinking Machines employees, Murati said there had been multiple issues with his performance, trust and conduct, according to an internal message viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Zoph said she fired him after he expressed an intent to take a job elsewhere.
“Thinking Machines Lab terminated my employment only after it learned I would be leaving the company. Full stop. At no time did TML cite to me any performance reasons or any unethical conduct on my part as the reason for my termination and any suggestion otherwise is false and defamatory,” Zoph said in a statement to the Journal.
The exits, coupled with fellow co-founder Andrew Tulloch’s decampment to Meta Platforms last fall, leave Thinking Machines with just three of its original six founders.
Murati spent six years at OpenAI, where she earned a reputation for emotional intelligence and lack of ego, and was named interim CEO during the brief period when CEO Sam Altman was deposed. She helped launch its first product and ran almost every aspect of the company before starting Thinking Machines last February.
Many of the early researchers—including Zoph—that she hired came from OpenAI’s post-training team. That division built ChatGPT and was tasked with teaching AI models how to communicate with humans. News Corp, owner of the Journal, has a content-licensing partnership with OpenAI.
Murati’s issues with Zoph started over the summer when she began to suspect that he was having a relationship with a colleague whom he had lobbied to bring over from OpenAI, according to people familiar with the situation. In responses to questions from the Journal, Zoph said many people at Thinking Machines wanted to hire the woman, including Murati.
At the time, Murati was in the process of raising one of the largest seed rounds in Silicon Valley history. The company ultimately raised $2 billion at a $12 billion valuation.
When she confronted Zoph about the possibility of an undisclosed relationship with a female employee who was junior to him at the company but did not report to him, he initially denied it, according to people familiar with the situation. By June, however, both Zoph and the woman had told Murati about the relationship, which had begun when they were colleagues at OpenAI, people with knowledge of those discussions said. The woman then left the company and returned to OpenAI.
Zoph told his boss that he had been manipulated by the woman into a relationship, according to people familiar with the matter. Shortly after that conversation, he took a break from work. When he returned in late July, Murati put him in a new technical contributor role with reduced executive and managerial responsibilities.
In his responses to the Journal, Zoph said it is common for technical managers to cycle back to doing technical individual contributor work to make sure they actually understand what is going on.
Over the next several months, executives at Thinking Machines witnessed a drop-off in Zoph’s job performance, according to people familiar with the situation. For instance, his usage of Slack—the main arena where the company did its work—declined precipitously in the following months.
In his responses, Zoph said he worked as an individual contributor for two months and also worked on projects that included recruiting and retention of talent, road-map planning and the release of the company’s model-training product, Tinker. He said he was also out of the office for parts of November and December due to illness and a death in the family, in addition to the holidays.
In October, shortly after Tulloch left for Meta, where he had worked previously, Zoph reached out to Altman to talk about coming back to OpenAI, he said.
By the time of their meeting with Murati last week, Zoph, co-founder Luke Metz, and the third employee, Sam Schoenholz, had been unhappy with the direction of the company for months, and had been holding talks with both OpenAI and Meta in recent weeks about joining either company as a trio, according to people familiar with the discussions.
In the meeting, the three voiced their disagreements with the direction of the company. They proposed that Murati, who held final say over technical decisions, assign that power to Zoph, including having one of the company’s most senior executives report to him instead of Murati, according to people familiar with the details of the meeting. Murati expressed unhappiness with Zoph’s productivity over the previous six months, some of the people said.
She asked whether they had already committed to jobs elsewhere. Metz and Schoenholz said they hadn’t; Zoph didn’t answer, some of the people said.
The day after the meeting, Zoph had dinner at a pizzeria with Meta executives Alexandr Wang and Nat Friedman, he confirmed.
On Wednesday, he was fired. Murati posted on X that Thinking Machines had “parted ways” with Zoph.
Less than an hour later, OpenAI’s CEO for applications, Fidji Simo, posted that Zoph, Metz and Schoenholz were returning to the company and that negotiations had been under way for “several weeks.” She said Zoph would report to her, while the other two would report to him.
China Vanke Wins Reprieve on Overdue Bond Payments
The developer is one of the few major Chinese players yet to default on its debt
- China Vanke secured 92% bondholder approval to delay payments on a yuan-denominated bond, allowing 40% of the 1.1 billion yuan principal to be paid on January 30, with the remainder deferred for one year.
- Vanke’s shares rose 2.0% to 3.55 Hong Kong dollars, outperforming the Hang Seng Index, despite ongoing concerns about its liquidity and the broader real-estate slump.
- Analysts suggest Vanke’s liquidity will remain subdued due to declining sales and lack of government support, potentially leading to a holistic debt restructuring if its financial health worsens.
China Vanke 000002 2.30%increase; green up pointing triangle, one of the country’s largest real-estate companies, received a small reprieve as its bondholders approved a delay of payments on an overdue bond.
The embattled home builder has been battered by the prolonged crisis in the Chinese property sector but is viewed as one of China’s more financially resilient developers and one of the few major players yet to default on its debt.
Vanke, in a filing to the Hong Kong and Shenzhen stock exchanges Wednesday, said that a bondholders’ vote showed 92% approval for one of Vanke’s proposed extensions for payments on a yuan-denominated bond.
Vanke can now pay back 40% of the principal of a bond worth 1.1 billion yuan, equivalent to $158 million, on Jan. 30 and delay payments on the remainder for a year.
Bondholders had previously rejected proposals to restructure payment on the bond, which was due Dec. 15 last year.
“We think the sweetened offer of paying 40% of principal immediately was favored by most creditors, and Vanke will likely propose similar terms for the 5.7 billion yuan of bonds that are in the grace period,” Morningstar equity analyst Jeff Zhang said.
Many of China’s other large developers have defaulted on their debt and investors continue to speculate over how policymakers plan to address the real-estate slump as it drags on into a sixth year.
Given the heavy weighting on household balance sheets, letting the crisis continue unabated will keep consumer sentiment weak and weigh on consumption.
Vanke’s shares rose 2.0% to 3.55 Hong Kong dollars by midday Wednesday, equivalent to 46 U.S. cents, outperforming the benchmark Hang Seng Index, which slipped 0.15%.
Morningstar’s Zhang added that Vanke’s liquidity is likely to remain subdued due to the slump in its contracted sales and the absence of government support.
There is some uncertainty over whether Vanke can even repay the 40% of the principal due, he said.
“The company may still seek a holistic debt restructuring if its balance sheet quality further deteriorates,” Zhang said.