Gapping down
In reaction to earnings/guidance:
- ANGO -9.6%, SHEL -5.4% (guidance update), ITGR -2.8%, BKE -2.5% (Sep comps), RGP -2%, DEO -1.1% (guidance update)
Other news:
- SMTC -6% (proposes private offering of $250 mln of convertible senior notes due 2027)
- SPLK -3.1% (files lawsuit against Cribl alleging patent infringement)
- HROW -3% (sells its non-ophthalmic compounding business)
- ANTX -2.6% (Provides Update on Epetraborole Ex-U.S. Development Plan in Treatment-Refractory MAC Lung Disease)
- AIR -2.3% (expands with Unison; to become global exclusive distributor for multiple product offerings)
- TWTR -1.9% (APO no longer in talks with Mr. Musk re financing deal according to Reuters)
- TSLA -1.2% (APO no longer in talks with Mr. Musk re financing deal according to Reuters) .
Analyst comments:
- MT -5% (downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS )
- RS -2.6% (downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman)
- AN -2% (downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan)
- GMRE -2% (downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at BMO Capital Markets)
- FCX -2% (downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Exane BNP Paribas)
- EQR -1.5% (downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at BMO Capital Markets)
Gapping up
In reaction to earnings/guidance:
- RELL +5.9%, PERI +4.1%, CAG +3.1%, STZ +2.1%
Other news:
- COUR +3.3% (names new COO)
- IGT +2.8% (signs new 10-yr scratch ticket printing and services contract with Texas)
- ALDX +2.3% (Achieves Primary Endpoint in Part 1 of Phase 3 GUARD Trial of ADX-2191)
- GOL +1.5% (reports September air traffic data)
Analyst comments:
- PINS +5% (upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman)
- VZ +4.1% (upgraded to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer)
- TTWO +3.2% (upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman)
- CS +2.8% (upgraded to Neutral from Underweight at JP Morgan)
- SAH +2.5% (upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan)
- GPI +2.2% (upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan)
- RIG +2% (upgraded to Overweight from Underweight at Barclays)
- STLD +1.3% (upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman)
Early premarket gappers
- Gapping up:
- RELL +8.5%, HROW +5%, COUR +3.3%, PERI +3.1%, IGT +2.8%, GOL +0.5%
- Gapping down:
- SHEL -5.4%, SPLK -3.8%, ITGR -2.2%, TSLA -1.2%, TWTR -1.2%, F -0.9%, AIR -0.8%, QQQ -0.8%, SPY -0.7%, IWM -0.7%, DIA -0.6%, DEO -0.5%
>>> Up
* Credit Suisse Raised to Neutral at JPMorgan; PT 6 Swiss francs
* Datagroup Raised to Buy at Baader Helvea; PT 81 euros
* Petra Diamonds Raised to Buy at Berenberg; PT 200 pence
>>> Down
* Accor Cut to Underweight at Barclays; PT 21 euros
* ArcelorMittal Cut to Neutral at UBS; PT 23 euros
* Atlas Copco Cut to Hold at Pareto Securities; PT 125 kronor
* Deutsche Bank PT Cut to 7.70 euros at Bankhaus Metzler (+)
* Gem Diamonds Cut to Hold at Berenberg; PT 40 pence
* Kloeckner Cut to Sell at Bankhaus Metzler; PT 7.20 euros
* Metso Outotec Cut to Neutral at JPMorgan; PT 9.70 euros
* Scatec Cut to Neutral at SpareBank; PT 80 kroner(Earlier) (+)
* Synthomer Cut to Hold at Numis; PT 120 pence
>>> Initiiation
* Entegris Rated New Outperform at Credit Suisse; PT $108
* Mediobanca Rated New Hold at Jefferies; PT 9.40 euros
* Technicolor Creative Studios Rated New Buy at Goldman
>>> Call
* ArcelorMittal Downgraded at UBS on Production Cuts, Weaker 2H
* Berenberg Sees ‘Material Headwinds’ For Miners, Downgrades Anglo
* Citi Cuts S&P 500 Target Citing Risk of More Severe US Recession
* *CITI STRATEGISTS RAISE GLOBAL IT TO OVERWEIGHT FROM NEUTRAL
* CS Gets an Upgrade, SocGen in China: EMEA Financials Pre-Market
* Credit Suisse Upgraded at JPMorgan; Sees $15b Minimum Value (+)
* Diageo’s Good Start to Year is ‘Reassuring’: Morgan Stanley (+)
* Goldman Says UK’s Unresolved Volatility May Rattle Gilts Again
* Imperial Brands Share Buyback Is a ‘Big Deal,’ RBC Says (+)
* Kloeckner Double-Downgraded at Metzler on Profit Warning Risk
* RS Group Shows Continued Confidence in Update, Says RBC (+)
* Segro Upgraded at RBC on Ability to Capitalize on Opportunities
* Shell’s Trading Update ‘Weak’ on Lower Margins, Jefferies Says (+)
* Verbund, CEZ Raised at Citi on Power Price Cap Visibility
* Volution FY Robust, Early 2023 Trading Encouraging: Berenberg (+)
After Hours Summary: Quiet AFter Hours session; ABBV -0.2% trims EPS guidance; RELL +7.2%, RGP +0.8% higher on earnings; APO no longer in talks with Mr. Musk re financing deal, according to ReutersAfter Hours Gainers:
Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: RELL +7.2%, RGP +0.8%
Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: COUR +3.2% (names new COO), UAA +1.9% (names new President of the Americas), CBOE +0.1% (provides trading volume data for Sept)
After Hours Losers:
Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: ITGR -2.3%, ABBV -0.2% (trims EPS guidance by $0.02 to account for IPR&D and milestone expenses)
Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: IGT -3.9% (signs new 10-yr scratch ticket printing and services contract with Texas), XME -1.8% (LME to restrict new deliveries of copper and zinc from Russia's UMMC, according to Bloomberg), SPLK -1.4% (files lawsuit against Cribl, alleging patent infringement), TSLA -0.7% (APO no longer in talks with Mr. Musk re financing deal, according to Reuters), HROW -0.6% (sells its non-ophthalmic compounding business), F -0.4% (to increase prices on F-150 Lightning Pro, according to Reuters), TWTR -0.1% (APO no longer in talks with Mr. Musk re financing deal, according to Reuters)
Former Rusal chief launches London’s first mining Spac
Artem Volynets’ venture will seek to invest in critical metals such as cobalt and copper
One of the most prominent Anglo-Russian executives in the metals industry is seeking to raise $125mn for a new mining venture through a London-listed special purpose acquisition company.
Artem Volynets, former chief executive of EN+ Group, believes now is a good time for mining deals, particularly for critical metals such as copper and cobalt, despite difficult market conditions.
“This is a great time. The valuations are depressed,” Volynets told the Financial Times. “The next 12 months is a terrific time to negotiate a transaction . . . It has been placed into our hands.”
The new blank-cheque fund, ACG, is seeking to raise up to $125mn in its initial public offering on Thursday and will identify a target mine producing copper, nickel, cobalt or another metal.
Prices of these metals have all fallen in recent months owing to fears of economic recession, but demand is expected to rise over the next decade because of demand for clean energy products and electric vehicles.
The Spac structure allows executives to raise money through an IPO then merge with another company, effectively taking the target public.
Volynets, who led the listing of the Russian aluminium giant Rusal in Hong Kong in 2010, said Spacs are well-suited for mining ventures because they offer a relatively quick path to going public.
“I have done IPOs with mining companies. It is very difficult . . . and you don’t know whether it is going to happen, until the last moment,” he said.
Last year the London listing of Russian miner Nordgold was pulled at the last moment owing to commodity price fluctuations.
Volynets was deputy chief executive at Rusal until 2010 and worked for billionaire mining magnate Oleg Deripaska until 2013.
The mining sector has been largely unaffected by the Spac craze, with only a handful of significant deals materialising so far
The most prominent of these was Metals Acquisition Corp; it listed in New York in 2021 and agreed to buy Glencore’s CSA copper mine in Australia for $1.1bn earlier this year.
Vision Blue Resources, a fund founded by former Xstrata chief executive Mick Davis, backed a Spac that raised $300mn in New York last year.
One of the downsides of the Spac format comes in the event of shareholders choosing to exercise their redemption rights, in which case the company would have to repurchase their shares, potentially presenting a liquidity challenge.
Volynets say ACG can avoid that by exercising a $100mn forward-purchase agreement it has inked with IXM, a subsidiary of China Molybdenum.
The company will look for a target mine that is already producing ore or very close to production. Copper, nickel and cobalt are “at the top of our list” for a target which could be anywhere in the world outside Russia, Volynets said.
Eight ways Elon Musk could still get out of buying Twitter
Likelihood: ⚪⚪⚪⚪⚪
Option 4. Musk ignores all the repercussions and bails anyway
It’s a risk, sure. He’s undeniably a cheeky, unpredictable scamp who prioritises his own amusement over regulatory obligations, etc. For Musk to convince Twitter to drop its lawsuit then ghost all of its calls would be in character — but it’d only result in a replay of the lawsuit with the addition of a very irritated judge. Also, Twitter seems alive to the possibility of horseplay, tomfoolery and monkeyshine and has reportedly already requested court protection.
Likelihood of an attempt: ⚫⚫⚫⚫⚪
Likelihood of success: ⚪⚪⚪⚪⚪
Option 5. Filibuster
What if Musk’s request to adjourn the trial is approved? Deal financing commitments expire in April 25, 2023. So, if Musk can agree a pause then somehow stall proceedings for six months, he can walk away — maybe.
Though if we're realistic, probably not. Courts can grant specific performance even after funding’s been pulled. Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick famously ordered Kohlberg & Co to close its purchase of cake decorations maker DecoPac, having found that the PE firm contrived to blow up its financing with unrealistic demands and exaggeratedly bad projections. That’s a useful precedent for the Twitter case judge, one Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick, who’s had no time for Musk’s previous stalling tactics.
Likelihood: ⚫⚫⚪⚪⚪
Option 6. Add someone unacceptable to the ticket
This . . . might work? Musk can syndicate the $33.5bn of his own funding however he likes. In May, before the scuppering efforts began, Musk snagged commitments totalling $7.1bn from investors including Larry Ellison, Sequoia Capital, Qatar Holding, Fidelity Management and crypto firm Binance.
What if some politically charged names were added to that roster? It wouldn’t be entirely out of left field. Musk’s idea to turn Twitter into an “everything app” has an unmistakable echo of WeChat, China’s pre-eminent messaging and surveillance system, whose influence remains under investigation by US authorities. And his unprompted peacemaking efforts have won praise from the Kremlin.
The right wrong co-investor might force an investigation by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, whose due process timeline would likely crash through that April 2023 funding deadline. National security concerns would also add a layer of complication to the court’s view on specific performance. It’s an outlandish idea but, given everything, not entirely implausible.
Likelihood: ⚫⚫⚪⚪⚪
Option 7. Fake death
In 2013 Jose Lantigua, owner and CEO of Circle K Furniture in Florida, reportedly died in Venezuela of mad cow disease. In 2017 he was sentenced to 14 years in prison. Lantigua’s is a tragic story of snowballing debts and attempted insurance fraud, so the comparison with Musk, who appears to be doing it for the lulz, isn’t perfect. It does emphasise that pseudocide (while hypothetically possible) is very difficult, even for normal people who don’t seem to have social-media addictions. Any lawyer advising this course of action is probably not a good lawyer. At the same time, if Musk were to pull it off, he would no longer be required to buy Twitter.
Likelihood: ⚫⚪⚪⚪⚪
Option 8. Actually die
A better strategy, but still not fail-safe. It’s a general principle of law that the contracts of the dead survive to haunt the living. Musk’s estate could be required to fulfil his obligations, including those made to the three Delaware holding companies named in the Twitter deal. Whether a court would apply this principle, and how much Musk would care about its judgment given his untimely passing, are significant unknowns.
Likelihood: ⚪⚪⚪⚪ ⚪
TL; DR they’re all quite stupid
Let’s start with the obvious. Elon Musk’s written proposal to Twitter promises to close the $44bn deal “pending receipt of the proceeds of the debt financing”. The wording sounds a bit sus given recent history, but can it really offer an escape route?
Option 1. The banks pull out
Musk is on the hook for $33.5bn of financing for the Twitter purchase. An additional $13bn of funding will be underwritten by a Morgan Stanley-led syndicate of seven banks. The banks, having capped the maximum rate on the unsecured LBO debt at 11.75 per cent, will be taking a bath when they try to sell it on.
Their options to bail can be found in Exhibit E, towards the bottom of the commitment letter posted in April. Probably the only available option at this point would be to claim a material adverse event at Twitter, perhaps by taking up Musk’s now-abandoned argument that it’s a great big fraud made of bots.
This has some advantages for Musk. Having the banks lead the attack might reduce the risk of having his cringy texts read to the court.
Even so, as many commentators have pointed out, the bots thing is transparent nonsense. And it's doubtful that the biggest business problem for Twitter — its purchaser’s fickleness about whether he actually wants to buy it — is a watertight reason for the banks to pull financing.
Likelihood: ⚫⚫⚪⚪⚪
Option 2. Musk sabotages his agreement with the banks
Unlikely. The ultimate counterparty here isn’t Musk, it’s Twitter, whose shareholders have voted by 98.6 per cent to take the money. And though Musk was expected to sell his vision to potential second-lien debt investors, his participation was never a contractual obligation. There’s no useful means of self-sabotage available, as demonstrated by Musk's sustained public shitbagging of a company he’s now being forced to buy. Underwriting losses have to be weighed against the M&A advisory fees due on completion.
The underwriters and advisers aren’t the same group, with Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan notably absent from the debt deal, but Morgan Stanley is on both sides of the transaction. And if lenders had the option to quit based on Musk’s eccentricities, that probably would’ve happened already.
Likelihood: ⚫⚪⚪⚪⚪
Option 3. Musk collapses his equity financing
He can’t without a material pretext. That’s where we were in July, remember?
Twitter is entitled to obtain specific performance or other equitable relief to enforce Parent’s and Acquisition Sub’s obligations to cause Mr. Musk to fund the equity financing, or to enforce Mr. Musk’s obligation to fund the equity financing directly, and to consummate the closing of the merger, if certain conditions are satisfied, including the funding or availability of the debt financing.
Meaning . . .
Option 1. The banks pull out
Musk is on the hook for $33.5bn of financing for the Twitter purchase. An additional $13bn of funding will be underwritten by a Morgan Stanley-led syndicate of seven banks. The banks, having capped the maximum rate on the unsecured LBO debt at 11.75 per cent, will be taking a bath when they try to sell it on.
Their options to bail can be found in Exhibit E, towards the bottom of the commitment letter posted in April. Probably the only available option at this point would be to claim a material adverse event at Twitter, perhaps by taking up Musk’s now-abandoned argument that it’s a great big fraud made of bots.
This has some advantages for Musk. Having the banks lead the attack might reduce the risk of having his cringy texts read to the court.
Even so, as many commentators have pointed out, the bots thing is transparent nonsense. And it's doubtful that the biggest business problem for Twitter — its purchaser’s fickleness about whether he actually wants to buy it — is a watertight reason for the banks to pull financing.
Likelihood: ⚫⚫⚪⚪⚪
Option 2. Musk sabotages his agreement with the banks
Unlikely. The ultimate counterparty here isn’t Musk, it’s Twitter, whose shareholders have voted by 98.6 per cent to take the money. And though Musk was expected to sell his vision to potential second-lien debt investors, his participation was never a contractual obligation. There’s no useful means of self-sabotage available, as demonstrated by Musk's sustained public shitbagging of a company he’s now being forced to buy. Underwriting losses have to be weighed against the M&A advisory fees due on completion.
The underwriters and advisers aren’t the same group, with Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan notably absent from the debt deal, but Morgan Stanley is on both sides of the transaction. And if lenders had the option to quit based on Musk’s eccentricities, that probably would’ve happened already.
Likelihood: ⚫⚪⚪⚪⚪
Option 3. Musk collapses his equity financing
He can’t without a material pretext. That’s where we were in July, remember?
Twitter is entitled to obtain specific performance or other equitable relief to enforce Parent’s and Acquisition Sub’s obligations to cause Mr. Musk to fund the equity financing, or to enforce Mr. Musk’s obligation to fund the equity financing directly, and to consummate the closing of the merger, if certain conditions are satisfied, including the funding or availability of the debt financing.
Meaning . . .
Likelihood: ⚪⚪⚪⚪⚪
Option 4. Musk ignores all the repercussions and bails anyway
It’s a risk, sure. He’s undeniably a cheeky, unpredictable scamp who prioritises his own amusement over regulatory obligations, etc. For Musk to convince Twitter to drop its lawsuit then ghost all of its calls would be in character — but it’d only result in a replay of the lawsuit with the addition of a very irritated judge. Also, Twitter seems alive to the possibility of horseplay, tomfoolery and monkeyshine and has reportedly already requested court protection.
Likelihood of an attempt: ⚫⚫⚫⚫⚪
Likelihood of success: ⚪⚪⚪⚪⚪
Option 5. Filibuster
What if Musk’s request to adjourn the trial is approved? Deal financing commitments expire in April 25, 2023. So, if Musk can agree a pause then somehow stall proceedings for six months, he can walk away — maybe.
Though if we're realistic, probably not. Courts can grant specific performance even after funding’s been pulled. Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick famously ordered Kohlberg & Co to close its purchase of cake decorations maker DecoPac, having found that the PE firm contrived to blow up its financing with unrealistic demands and exaggeratedly bad projections. That’s a useful precedent for the Twitter case judge, one Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick, who’s had no time for Musk’s previous stalling tactics.
Likelihood: ⚫⚫⚪⚪⚪
Option 6. Add someone unacceptable to the ticket
This . . . might work? Musk can syndicate the $33.5bn of his own funding however he likes. In May, before the scuppering efforts began, Musk snagged commitments totalling $7.1bn from investors including Larry Ellison, Sequoia Capital, Qatar Holding, Fidelity Management and crypto firm Binance.
What if some politically charged names were added to that roster? It wouldn’t be entirely out of left field. Musk’s idea to turn Twitter into an “everything app” has an unmistakable echo of WeChat, China’s pre-eminent messaging and surveillance system, whose influence remains under investigation by US authorities. And his unprompted peacemaking efforts have won praise from the Kremlin.
The right wrong co-investor might force an investigation by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, whose due process timeline would likely crash through that April 2023 funding deadline. National security concerns would also add a layer of complication to the court’s view on specific performance. It’s an outlandish idea but, given everything, not entirely implausible.
Likelihood: ⚫⚫⚪⚪⚪
Option 7. Fake death
In 2013 Jose Lantigua, owner and CEO of Circle K Furniture in Florida, reportedly died in Venezuela of mad cow disease. In 2017 he was sentenced to 14 years in prison. Lantigua’s is a tragic story of snowballing debts and attempted insurance fraud, so the comparison with Musk, who appears to be doing it for the lulz, isn’t perfect. It does emphasise that pseudocide (while hypothetically possible) is very difficult, even for normal people who don’t seem to have social-media addictions. Any lawyer advising this course of action is probably not a good lawyer. At the same time, if Musk were to pull it off, he would no longer be required to buy Twitter.
Likelihood: ⚫⚪⚪⚪⚪
Option 8. Actually die
A better strategy, but still not fail-safe. It’s a general principle of law that the contracts of the dead survive to haunt the living. Musk’s estate could be required to fulfil his obligations, including those made to the three Delaware holding companies named in the Twitter deal. Whether a court would apply this principle, and how much Musk would care about its judgment given his untimely passing, are significant unknowns.
Likelihood: ⚪⚪⚪⚪ ⚪
Saudi Sovereign-Wealth Fund Joins 100-Year Bond Club
The Public Investment Fund raised $3 billion from three-part bond sale
Saudi Arabia braved turbulent markets to join the small club of issuers that have borrowed for 100 years from investors, with its sovereign-wealth fund selling the ultralong debt as part of a $3 billion bond-market debut.
The three-part sale of green bonds tapped global investors for funds that will help support projects at the heart of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s national economic transformation.
The Public Investment Fund sold dollar bonds with maturities of five, 10 and 100 years. They were priced with yields of 125 basis points and 165 basis points above U.S. Treasurys for five years and 10 years, respectively, and at 6.7% for the 100-year bond, according to a term sheet issued late Wednesday. Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. were among the banks involved.
“The GCC has been the best place to hide and weather the storm since the beginning of the year,” said Zeina Rizk, executive director of fixed income asset management at Dubai-based Arqaam Capital. “Especially with oil prices where they are now.” She said the issue was good value and placed orders for five-year and 100-year bonds.
The bond market has come under pressure as central banks around the world raise interest rates to fight inflation, leading to a 19% negative total return for the Bloomberg Global Aggregate bond index this year.
In the past, so-called century bonds have typically been issued in more benign market conditions but investors said the pricing and the kingdom’s strong fiscal position made it attractive. Some compared it to debt issued by Saudi Arabia itself and by national oil producer Saudi Arabian Oil Co., or Aramco.
The bond has a similar sensitivity to interest rates, or duration, as the longest-dated debt from Saudi Arabia or Aramco, but pays a higher interest rate, said Nick Eisinger, head of active fixed income at Vanguard.
“People are able to take a 10-year view but let’s face it, we have no idea what’s going to happen in 10 years. If you can do that, you should be able to take a view on 100 years—it’s certainly not 10 times worse,” Mr. Eisinger said. He also sought to buy the 100-year bond, which made up $500 million of the total sale. The modern kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932, less than a century ago.
Century-bond issuance by governments began in the 1990s when China raised $100 million in 1996, followed by the central bank of the Philippines the year after. More recent issuers have included Argentina, Mexico and Austria in the 2010s, locking in ultralow interest rates, according to data from Dealogic.
While Saudi Arabia is the world’s biggest oil exporter, the bonds’ proceeds are slated to go to sustainable projects. Green bonds raise capital for environmentally friendly initiatives. The Saudi fund has said it plans to invest more than $10 billion in such deals by 2026.
The bond’s prospectus offered a first look at the finances of Saudi Arabia’s $600 billion wealth fund. In that document, the PIF highlighted its plans to develop a tract of land the size of Massachusetts for a futuristic mega-development called Neom and its investment in electric-car maker Lucid Group Inc. as examples of sustainable initiatives. It is also tasked with developing dozens of gigawatts of renewable-energy capacity in the kingdom.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, helmed by Saudi Arabia, and its Russia-led allies on Wednesday announced an oil production cut that is likely to increase prices. The OPEC+ move could benefit Russia by maintaining its revenues and boosting its war effort in Ukraine. Energy costs are already high as a result of the conflict, contributing to rising inflation globally, and pushing counties to more available dirty fuels in the near term. Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, is trading at roughly $93 a barrel.
Issuers of green bonds with large operations in carbon-intensive industries have come under scrutiny in the past. In 2017, Spanish oil major Repsol SA drew criticism after issuing a green debt to finance efficiency upgrades of refineries, with the bonds excluded from some green-bond indexes. The PIF itself largely doesn’t operate in the oil-and-gas industry.
Since then, the sustainable-bond market has broadened to include new categories such as debt that finances a company’s transition to cleaner operations and bonds with coupons linked to sustainability goals. Issuing green bonds helps broaden PIF’s investor base, analysts and investors said, to include buyers focused on environmental, sustainable and governance-related investments.
“It helps bring in ESG funds, who otherwise wouldn’t be able to buy them,” said Uday Patnaik, head of emerging-market fixed income at Legal & General Investment Management. “There are a lot of issuers coming out with green bonds; even India’s talking about potentially doing one.”
U.S. Believes Ukraine Was Behind Assassination of Putin Ally’s Daughter
The Kyiv government is responsible for killing Daria Dugina, American spy agencies concluded
WASHINGTON—U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Ukraine was responsible for the August assassination outside Moscow of the daughter of a prominent far-right wing Russian ideologue, a U.S. official said.
The United States was not aware beforehand of the operation that killed Daria Dugina, the official said, and Washington has formally complained about it to Ukraine’s government.
The administration of President Joe Biden has backed Ukraine with billions in military aid since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of the country, but has long urged Kyiv not to take steps that could risk a direct U.S.-Russia confrontation. The United States, for example, shares intelligence to help the Ukrainian war effort, but not information that could lead to the targeting of senior Russian officials.
Ms. Dugina was killed in August when the vehicle she was driving exploded outside Moscow as a result of what the Russian government said was a bomb placed inside. She was the daughter of Aleksandr Dugin, who for years has called on Russia to re-establish its empire by seizing Ukraine.
The U.S. intelligence assessment was first reported by the New York Times.
Ukraine’s Embassy in Washington, the CIA and the White House’s National Security Council declined to comment.
Ukraine has previously denied involvement in Ms. Dugina’s death. If it was the work of Ukrainian agents as the U.S. intelligence assessment concludes, it would demonstrate Kyiv’s ability to conduct covert operations inside Russia.
Shortly after the incident, Russia’s Federal Security Service blamed Ukraine for Ms. Dugina’s killing, saying investigators had established “the crime was prepared and committed by the Ukrainian special services,” and identified the perpetrator as a Ukrainian woman.
It couldn’t be determined whether U.S. intelligence agencies believe Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a close Washington ally, was aware of the plans to kill Ms. Dugina, or which parts of Ukraine’s government U.S. spy agencies have concluded were responsible.
Sabotage and covert operations have become a part of the Ukraine conflict. Ukraine has reportedly carried out such operations in Russian-controlled Crimea, while NATO has said that a series of leaks in the Nord Stream pipelines between Russia and Europe were the result of sabotage, without naming a suspect.