TheChek News Flow

This opening marks the German footwear company’s 15th company-owned retail store in the U.S.

Birkenstock is continuing to grow its retail footprint in the U.S. with the opening of its last location in Boston.

Located at 27 Boylston Street just outside of the city in Chestnut Hill, the new location marks the German footwear company’s 15th company-owned retail store in the United States and joins Birkenstock’s other owned store in Boston on Newbury Street.

Designed through the lens of Birkenstock heritage, the space features signature materials such as cork, felt and leather, and offers products for women, men, and kids.

Aside from the label’s signature sandals and clogs, the store also features a range of sneakers, shoes, boots, socks and more. Guests can also explore the Birkenstock Care Essentials collection, focused on foot and body care products.

David Kahan, president and managing director of Birkenstock Americas, said in a statement that the company’s new Chestnut Hill store is a “natural next step” for the brand in the Boston area.

“This new space allows us to bring Birkenstock to both our loyal fans and those just discovering the brand, furthering our connection to an area that has embraced us for generations,” Kahan noted.

The Chestnut Hill store joins Birkenstock’s expanding U.S. retail footprint, which includes locations in New York City, Brooklyn, Venice Beach, Miami, Marin County, Austin, Houston, Naperville and Nashville.

In September, Birkenstock also gave an early glimpse at its fourth quarter earnings ahead of a meeting with analysts and investors at its Munich headquarters.

Birkenstock reported that it expects fourth quarter revenues to total at least 520 million euros, growth of at least 14 percent on a reported basis and 18 percent in constant currency.

This would result in full year revenue of at least 2.09 billion euros, growth of 15.9 percent on a reported basis and 17.5 percent in constant currency, above guidance by 15 percent to 17 percent.

Birkenstock will release its full fiscal fourth quarter and full year 2025 results on Dec. 18.

Beijing threatens to block BlackRock-led deal to buy ports unless state-owned Cosco gets a majority stake

President Trump’s push to loosen China’s influence in the Panama Canal has hit a wall now that Beijing is demanding that China’s largest shipping company get a controlling stake in a deal to sell dozens of ports to a BlackRock BLK -1.17%decrease; red down pointing triangle-led group.

The proposed sale includes two ports at the Panama Canal and more than 40 others around the world, all controlled by Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison 1 -2.10%decrease; red down pointing triangle. BlackRock and containership operator Mediterranean Shipping Co. reached a $22.8 billion agreement in March to buy them after Trump raised security concerns about Hutchison’s—and the ports’—connection to China.

That deal angered Beijing and, after initially pushing for China’s Cosco to be brought in as an equal partner, it has now upped its demands, according to people familiar with the talks. China is threatening to block the deal unless Cosco gets a majority stake, they say.

BlackRock and MSC had been open to offering Cosco an equal stake, but the demand for majority control and veto rights in running the ports is unacceptable, those people say. The White House signaled Monday that it, too, wouldn’t accept such conditions.

“The President has made clear that Chinese control of the Panama Canal is unacceptable, violates the U.S.-Panama Treaty, and jeopardizes our national and economic security,” a White House official said.

The deal is now at an intractable impasse, people involved in the talks say. A senior Chinese official said that Beijing aims to make control of the ports a negotiating point in the U.S. and China’s broader talks over trade and tariffs.

Meanwhile, Hutchison continues to own and operate the Panama ports. The Trump administration had originally threatened to take control of the canal, saying China had too much influence because Hutchison is a Hong Kong-based company and that could threaten U.S. access to the waterway.

Hutchison and Cosco didn’t respond to requests for comment on the latest demands from Beijing, and MSC and BlackRock declined to comment. In August, Hutchison’s co-managing director Frank Sixt told analysts and investors that “a deal of this size and complexity” wouldn’t be completed until 2026. Though it was taking longer than expected, he wasn’t troubled, he said.

“The ports group are having a very good year,” he said at the time.

Hutchison’s ports revenue rose 9% from a year earlier in the first half of 2025, buoyed by higher shipping volumes around the world as customers stocked up on goods before U.S. tariffs kicked in. The conglomerate’s shares have climbed more than 30% in Hong Kong this year.

Millions of U.S.-destined containers are unloaded and reloaded every year at Hutchison’s Balboa and Cristóbal ports on the Canal. Overall, more than 40% of all U.S. container traffic uses the waterway to ship goods between Asia and the Americas, according to the Panama Canal Authority.

Chinese officials have told BlackRock, MSC and Hutchison that if Cosco is left out of the deal, Beijing would take steps to block Hutchison’s proposed sale, according to people familiar with the deal talks.

In past global mergers, China’s Commerce Ministry has asserted rights to review a deal, sometimes insisting on changes that can appear politically motivated. China also has significant leverage over the parties involved in the Panama Canal ports deal. BlackRock and Hutchison have business interests in China, and MSC is one of the biggest movers of Chinese exports around the world.

In 2014, Beijing blocked three Western companies from forming a shipping alliance that could have hurt its trade interests. In that case, China scuttled a deal between MSC, Denmark’s A.P. Moller-Maersk and France’s CMA CGM in which the companies would have shared vessels and port calls worldwide.

The Panama Canal Authority, meanwhile, is proceeding with plans to sell two plots of land on either side of the waterway to be developed into container ports. The head of the authority, Ricaurte Vásquez Morales, said he expected the bidding to be completed by January and for bids to come in from some of the world’s biggest shipping operators.

APM Terminals, the port unit of A.P. Moller-Maersk, and CMA CGM will both make offers, according to people familiar with the process. In April, Maersk bought the Panama Canal Railway Co., which operates a 47-mile line along the waterway and moves containers between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

Vásquez said he estimated the new concessions would add around $500 million to the Panama Canal’s roughly $5 billion in annual revenue. Cosco, which operates terminals in a number of ports, including in Hamburg, Athens, Rotterdam and Genoa, is barred from bidding for the new Panama ports because it is a government entity, he said.

French and German companies warned their access to the American market could be disrupted

The Trump administration has threatened European companies with punitive measures to retaliate against the bloc’s treatment of US technology giants.

In a post on X, US trade representative Jamieson Greer accused the EU and member states of a “continuing course of discriminatory and harassing lawsuits, taxes, fines and directives against US service providers”.

In an unusual step, he named several European companies that could see their access to the US market disrupted if Washington decides to take action against the EU, including Germany’s DHL, SAP and Siemens and software companies Mistral and Capgemini of France.

“If the EU and EU member states insist on continuing to restrict, limit and deter the competitiveness of US service providers through discriminatory means, the United States will have no choice but to begin using every tool at its disposal to counter these unreasonable measures,” Greer wrote.

He added that the Trump administration would consider imposing fees or restrictions on foreign services, among other actions.

The threat is the latest escalation of trade tensions between Washington and Brussels, and follows a recent warning from Greer that trade between the EU and the US remained a “flashpoint” in Washington, despite a deal reached in July that alleviated the worst of President Donald Trump’s levies on crucial European exports to the US. 

“They have many regulations and non-tariff barriers that block our exports and reduce our effective market access over there, while we historically have had very broad access for them . . . It’s quite unbalanced,” Greer told the Financial Times last month. 

Trump has previously threatened tariffs and export controls on countries whose taxes, rules or laws on tech companies “discriminate” against the US.

US officials have also expressed unhappiness over the EU’s Digital Services Act, which forces big tech companies to police their platforms more aggressively. 

Trump was outraged by a €120mn fine imposed earlier this month on Elon Musk’s X for breaking the bloc’s digital transparency rules. Brussels has also opened investigations into Google and Meta for breaches of its digital regulations.

However, the US runs a surplus in services with the EU, worth €109bn in 2023, partly offsetting its €157bn deficit in goods.

EU trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič told the FT on Monday that July’s deal had managed “to de-escalate and to a great extent stabilise the relationship with the US”.

However, he acknowledged issues could blow up unexpectedly, saying it required a “permanent effort in relationship management”.

Šefčovič said ongoing discussions had helped the US understand the EU’s perspective on regulation. But he added: “There is still a long way to go. But I always prefer talking, engaging, explaining because I think we have good stories to tell and we are the closest of allies.”

Betting on prediction markets has exploded over past two years

Value of bets soars from $100mn to $13bn a month

Prediction markets have ballooned 130 times in size over the past two years, as users have flocked online to make wagers on events in sports, politics and popular culture.

Bets placed on online platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi have soared from less than $100mn a month in early 2024 to more than $13bn in November this year, according to a report from crypto firms Dune and Keyrock.

Prediction markets allow punters to place bets in the form of “event contracts” on the outcome of any public event, such as the release of inflation data, professional football play-offs or a US Senate election. Polymarket and Kalshi, the biggest businesses in the sector, have received multibillion-dollar valuations in recent months.

Kalshi raised $1bn at an $11bn valuation this month from investors including crypto investment firm Paradigm, Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz and CapitalG. In October, Intercontinental Exchange, owner of the New York Stock Exchange, said it would invest up to $2bn in Polymarket, valuing the company at about $8bn.

Sports betting is outlawed in many US states but prediction markets have argued that they offer access to financial contracts, overseen nationwide by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Prediction markets rose to prominence in the run-up to the 2024 US presidential election when bets placed on Polymarket predicted a decisive win for Donald Trump, whereas opinion polls predicted a much tighter contest.

While Polymarket previously dominated trading volumes, Kalshi’s presence has accelerated in recent months and the two companies now have roughly equal market shares, according to the report. About $9bn worth of bets were placed on the two platforms last month.

Competition between the two has heated up. Polymarket, which was previously banned in the US, received approval last month from the CFTC to offer its services through brokerages and directly to customers.

Both companies have announced a string of new partnerships with major sports leagues and others, and embarked on marketing blitzes. Google Finance displays probabilities based on betting data from both platforms, while Kalshi is teaming up with media outlets CNN and CNBC.

Sports bets far outstrip other categories on Kalshi, while Polymarket tends to have a more even distribution across sports and politics, the report found.

Betting on economic events is a fast-growing business for both companies. Users of Kalshi currently predict an 80 per cent chance that the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates unchanged in January.

Kalshi users are also betting on the Rotten Tomatoes rating for the latest Avatar film and the amount of snow that will fall in New York City this month. On Polymarket, users can bet on the winner of the latest season of reality TV show Survivor and on the number of times Elon Musk will post on his X platform during the week.

Former UK chancellor to lead start-up’s effort to spread ‘democratic’ AI across the world

OpenAI has hired former UK chancellor George Osborne to lead the start-up’s work building “democratic” artificial intelligence for the world.

The architect of the former Conservative government’s austerity programme is set to play a central role within the high-spending company as the head of OpenAI for Countries, an overseas expansion of the $500bn “Stargate” initiative to build data centres in the US.

The ChatGPT maker has billed Stargate as a way to ensure American companies and values are at the foundation of the international build-out of AI, providing a bulwark against Chinese alternatives.

“I asked myself the question: what’s the most exciting and promising company in the world right now? The answer I believe is OpenAI,” said Osborne, adding his work would help “societies around the world share the opportunity this powerful technology brings.”

Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer, likened OpenAI for Countries to the creation of the modern monetary system.

“We are in a Bretton Woods moment,” said Lehane. “In 1944, democratic nations came together to create a financial system based on democratic values. We’re now at a similar moment with the laying of the AI rails.”

OpenAI’s move for Osborne follows rival AI start-up Anthropic’s appointment of Rishi Sunak, another former Conservative chancellor and prime minister, as an adviser in October.

Osborne’s role will be to lead all of OpenAI’s work deploying AI with overseas governments, spanning from developing infrastructure to using the technology for education and training.

Stargate was announced at the start of this year by OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and partners including SoftBank chief Masayoshi Son and Oracle’s Larry Ellison at a White House event.

The initiative was lauded by President Donald Trump as “a resounding declaration of confidence in America’s potential under a new president”.

The Financial Times reported that OpenAI was considering expanding Stargate beyond the US in April, with OpenAI for Countries launched a month later.

OpenAI has since struck deals in the UK and the United Arab Emirates and the company said it was in conversation with 50 countries about helping them develop “sovereign AI”.

The company has said those deals would help to ensure that “democratic principles” including free speech, free markets and the prevention of mass government data collection are built into the technology.

Stargate is also at the centre of OpenAI’s efforts to create AI infrastructure that can power its future growth.

But lossmaking OpenAI and its partners must raise enormous sums to fund the sites, fuelling concerns of a financial bubble inflating around the rapid build-out of data centres.

Osborne will start his new job in January and be based in London. The role adds to an expansive portfolio of positions held by Osborne since he stepped down as a Conservative member of parliament in 2017.

The 54-year-old edited the Evening Standard newspaper from 2017 to 2020 and was an adviser to investment group BlackRock until 2021.

That same year he took a role as a partner at boutique investment bank Robey Warshaw, which was acquired by Evercore earlier this year. Osborne pocketed little of the windfall from the takeover, the FT previously reported, and is now leaving his role at Evercore.

“George has made a significant contribution to the life and business of Robey Warshaw, and I am confident he will bring the same impact to OpenAI,” said Sir Simon Robey, a founding partner of Robey Warshaw.

Osborne recently lost out in the selection process to become HSBC’s new chair, with the bank’s board instead choosing its interim chair Brendan Nelson this month.

Osborne is the chair of the British Museum, co-presenter of the Political Currency podcast with former Labour party shadow chancellor Ed Balls and a visiting fellow and lecturer in management at Stanford University. He is an adviser to the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, where Lehane also serves on the board.

British sports streaming company, eyeing U.S. growth, would take a majority stake in the broadcast partner for big league teams

British sports streaming giant DAZN is in advanced talks to acquire a majority stake in Main Street Sports Group, the big regional sports broadcaster in the U.S., according to people familiar with the matter.

A deal could be announced as soon as January, if the talks don’t hit any snags, the people said.

DAZN is discussing making a sizable cash investment in Main Street Sports, with plans to integrate their two live-sports platforms, the people said. The exact terms of the deal couldn’t immediately be learned.

Last year, Main Street Sports’ revenue was roughly $1.3 billion, the people said.

DAZN holds key broadcast rights for several marquee sports overseas and its big markets include Germany, Italy, Japan and Spain. It has a smaller but growing presence in the U.S., where it has become a home for boxing and MMA. Over the summer, DAZN was the exclusive global partner for the FIFA Club World Cup in the U.S.

Main Street Sports was formerly known as Diamond Sports Group, which emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January. Diamond fell into bankruptcy as more consumers opted to cut the cord, leaving the business unable to service its debt and keep paying for the broadcast rights agreements it had with professional sports teams.

The bankruptcy stung some franchises, like the San Diego Padres, leaving them without expected broadcasting money they had used to sign big free agents. And it left teams scrambling for local broadcasts for fans.

Coming out of bankruptcy with a much lighter debt load, Main Street Sports has struck partnerships with companies such as Amazon and FanDuel, including taking over FanDuel Sports Network which has a direct-to-consumer offering.

Today, Main Street Sports has the local rights to 29 major league teams in the U.S., across the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League and Major League Baseball.

Billionaire Len Blavatnik owns DAZN through his holding company Access Industries and has poured billions of dollars into the business in recent years to help propel global growth and strike more deals.

In April, DAZN closed a deal for Australian pay TV platform Foxtel for over $2 billion. (Foxtel’s majority shareholder News Corp, which also owns The Wall Street Journal, became a minority shareholder in DAZN through the deal.)

The company’s CEO Shay Segev has recently said it is thinking about a potential IPO and it expects to be profitable in 2026.

Any deal would allow DAZN to integrate Main Street Sports’ direct-to-consumer offering into its existing app and streaming product, and the two could collaborate on programming, people familiar with the matter said.

In recent years, growth in the iPhone business stalled as people held on to their devices longer. During its most recent fiscal year, which ended Sept. 27, Apple got a welcome boost when annual iPhone sales rose 4% to over $209 billion from the prior year. The increase was in part due to the release of the new iPhone 17 models, which had more major design changes compared with the previous year’s.

Below is a broad overview of Apple’s plans for the iPhone product line over the next two years. Some of the details are reported here for the first time and others reflect The Information’s previous reporting on new iPhones. Industry analysts, other media outlets and anonymous social media accounts previously disclosed other details, all of which The Information has independently confirmed with people directly working on the projects.

Internal code name: V159

Expected release date: Spring 2026

This device represents an incremental upgrade to Apple’s cheapest iPhone, the 16e, which debuted in spring 2025 as its new budget device. The iPhone 17e will feature a glass back so it can support wireless charging, one of the features consumers missed most on the iPhone 16e. The phone will include the company’s latest in-house modem, the C1X.

Internal code name: V63 and V64

Expected release date: Fall 2026

Apple plans to put the FaceID sensor under the display of this pair of models, using materials from the Canadian company OTI Lumionics. This will help eliminate the unsightly black oval that has appeared at the top of iPhone displays since 2022. The design will also relocate the selfie camera to the top left of the display. (OTI Lumionics declined to comment.)

Apple is also adding a mechanical aperture or iris to at least one camera on the back that can control the amount of light entering the lens. This will allow inclusion of a new camera image sensor that can capture more light at night while preventing washed-out photos during the day. The device’s cosmetic appearance will be similar to that of the iPhone 17 Pro models.

Apple also plans to adopt a new chip-assembly technology from its chipmaking partner, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., that puts the memory chips closer to the iPhone’s core processor. The technology, known as Wafer-Level Multi-Chip Module packaging, could allow the device to support advanced AI features that respond more quickly to user commands without having to rely on servers in the cloud. AI that runs in the cloud is generally slower for users and more costly for Apple to operate.

Internal code name: V68

Expected release date: Fall 2026

Apple’s first foldable device is on schedule for delivery next year, though it’s one of the company’s most complex phones to date. To meet that deadline, Apple earlier this year delayed the release of a foldable iPad planned for around the same time, reassigning its engineers to the foldable iPhone (Bloomberg earlier reported that move). The company is being particularly secretive about the device by, for example, employing code names for its display, hinge and other components that help keep Apple employees and suppliers in the dark about all the device’s features.

Unlike other foldable phones made by Samsung and Google, Apple’s product will have an aspect ratio similar to that of Apple’s largest iPads when viewed in landscape mode, meaning it will be more wide than tall when unfolded. When closed, the phone will have a display that measures around 5.3 inches. When unfolded, it will sport a larger, 7.7-inch display. As on the iPhone 18 Pro models, a single selfie camera will be embedded in the top-left corner of the device, along with light, proximity and other sensors.

The materials used for the foldable display are complex. Some of them come from specialty glass and materials companies like Corning and Germany’s Schott, which already supplies materials for Samsung’s foldable smartphones. Apple suppliers including Lens Technology and Biel Crystal are working on different parts of the foldable display, which has multiple layers. People working directly on the device say Apple is encountering a high level of defects in the display’s production, but that’s to be expected at this stage in its development.

Several factors could limit sales of the device. Apple is likely to charge a premium for it, as Samsung and Google have done for their folding models compared to their nonfoldable ones. The small size of the outward-facing screen, which is smaller than the iPhone Mini’s 5.4-inch screen, could limit the Fold’s appeal. However, one person involved in the project cautioned that the size of the displays could change. Apple’s longtime assembly partner, Foxconn, is leading trial production of the device at its factory in Guanlan, China.

Internal code name: V67

Expected release date: Spring 2027

Some of the most novel aspects of this new base iPhone model have nothing to do with its features. For the first time, Apple will announce and release a new base model in the spring, at least a half-year after the Pro models from the same generation come out. Apple will also attempt to manufacture the product at scale with Foxconn at its factory complex in Bangalore, India, before doing so in China, as it seeks to reduce its dependence on the latter country for manufacturing.

What we know of this model’s features suggests it will be another incremental update or perhaps even a step back. For example, Apple plans to remove haptic feedback and touch sensing from the capture button—which allows users to take photos and videos without having to touch the screen—on the bottom-right edge of the device. That could give the company some cost savings compared to previous models.

iPhone 18e (tentative name)

Internal code name: V69

Expected release date: Spring 2027

We don’t know much about changes to this new budget iPhone model, except that it will have wireless charging as its predecessor did. As with the iPhone 18, Apple will attempt to produce it at scale in Bangalore first with Foxconn, before replicating production in China.

Internal code name: V62

Expected release date: Spring 2027

Apple began working on the second-generation iPhone Air with manufacturers this past summer with the aim of releasing the product in fall 2026 alongside its Pro and new foldable model. However, it abruptly canceled trial production last month, according to seven people working directly on the device at Apple and its suppliers.

Instead, Apple is going back to the drawing board and redesigning the iPhone Air because of the first model’s poor sales. It’s considering adding a second camera and cutting the retail price to make the device more attractive to consumers. China’s Luxshare is leading trial production, slated to restart as early as March, at its factory in Kunshan, China.

Internal code name: V72

Expected release date: Fall 2027

This device is timed for the 20-year anniversary of the iPhone’s introduction in 2007. The curved glass enclosure on the front and back and along all four edges will enable a screen without the black frame that typically appears along the edges of smartphone displays. It couldn’t be learned if the display itself will curve around the edges. Instead of a full metal frame, there’s only a narrow metal band running around the midpoint of the device’s edge, where the buttons sit. Apple plans to place the phone’s selfie camera under the display, making it the first iPhone with a full edge-to-edge display and no cutouts.