>>> El Niño 2026 — 82% likely, strength still undecided



From: Laurent Chekroun (MAKOR CAPITAL MARKET) At: 05/16/26 19:28:46 UTC+2:00
Subject: >>> El Niño 2026 — 82% likely, strength still undecided
El Niño 2026 — 82% likely, strength still undecided

The May 14 NOAA CPC discussion put El Niño at 82% for May–July and 96% through winter 2026-27. Less commented on, but the part that actually drives cross-asset magnitude — verbatim from the same discussion: "no strength categorization exceeds a 37% chance."

The headline probability is one trade. The strength tail is a different one entirely. We sized the portfolio overlay accordingly — basket-rotation, not directional macro.

Three deliverables attached:

• 17-page field guide — probability, the science, regional impact map, commodity transmission matrix, Ukraine grain and Middle East / Hormuz cross-references, asset allocation, seven trade ideas ranked by Sharpe conviction
• Single-page bust dashboard — five 2014-killer signals with pre-defined position triggers, for weekly use
• 2014 drawdown reference xlsx — the historical analogue for sizing conversations

Next NOAA CPC update: 11 June. We are not deploying conviction ahead of that data point.

Happy to discuss any segment.

LC

—
Graham Advisors Sàrl
Institutional Research · Cross-Asset Strategy

WSJ : Google and Blackstone to Create New AI Cloud Company

Google and Blackstone to Create New AI Cloud Company
Investment firm to put $5 billion toward venture using Google’s chips

Alphabet’s GOOGL 0.04%increase; green up pointing triangle Google and Blackstone BX -0.72%decrease; red down pointing triangle plan to create an artificial-intelligence cloud company to rival the likes of CoreWeave CRWV -3.29%decrease; red down pointing triangle using Google’s specialized chips.

The duo said Monday they plan to launch the unnamed U.S. company with $5 billion in equity capital from Blackstone, confirming an earlier report by The Wall Street Journal.

The venture, the biggest attempt yet by Google to sell and monetize its own chips to external parties, will sharpen a rivalry with Nvidia, the market leader in AI computing.

The new company aims in 2027 to bring 500 megawatts of capacity online—roughly the same amount of electric power required to serve a midsize city—and substantially increase capacity over time, Google and Blackstone said.

The companies are forming the venture as demand for computing power to train and run advanced AI models reaches unprecedented levels. Most of the major AI companies currently rely, at least in part, on computing infrastructure from CoreWeave, which uses Nvidia’s chips. A class of smaller so-called neocloud companies have also cropped up in response to ravenous demand.

Google last month introduced a new processor that is customized for AI inference, or the computing required to run models rather than train them. Demand for that type of processing has exploded as businesses embrace AI. Google also introduced a new version of its chips that is specially designed for training models.

Google will supply hardware—including its specialized chips known as Tensor Processing Units, or TPUs—as well as software and services to the venture. Benjamin Treynor Sloss, a longtime Google executive, will serve as the new company’s CEO.

Blackstone will be the majority owner, people familiar with the matter said, and is expected to support around $25 billion in compute investments including leverage. Google and Blackstone have identified data centers that will likely be part of the venture, some of which are in the process of being built, the people said.

Industry observers have wondered for years whether Google will commercialize its TPUs for widespread use. The technology giant has signed two major deals with outsiders: one to give Claude-maker Anthropic access to about one million of its chips, and another with Facebook owner Meta Platforms.

News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal, has a commercial agreement to supply content on Google platforms.

Blackstone is one of Wall Street’s most active investors in AI and counts itself as the world’s largest provider of data centers. In 2021, it struck a deal to buy data-center operator QTS Realty Trust and in 2024 it agreed to buy data-center operator AirTrunk.

The firm has also made significant investments in CoreWeave, Anthropic and OpenAI, among other AI-related companies.

Blackstone Chairman and Chief Executive Stephen Schwarzman, who has been active in the AI field for over a decade, said on a recent earnings call that the firm has more than $150 billion in data-center assets, including sites under construction, with an additional $160 billion in potential new projects.

Blackstone recently launched a new unit called Blackstone N1, or BXN1, to centralize the firm’s AI bets and named Jas Khaira, who spearheaded its CoreWeave investment, as the unit’s global head. The venture with Google is BXN1’s second investment after a $1.5 billion joint venture with Anthropic and other firms unveiled earlier this month to sell AI tools to companies.

WSJ : The Biggest Challenge of a Utility Megadeal: Regulators

The Biggest Challenge of a Utility Megadeal: Regulators
NextEra and Dominion must convince state and federal regulators that combining two of the U.S.’s largest utilities will benefit customers

  • NextEra Energy and Dominion Energy agreed to a $67 billion deal that would create an East Coast energy behemoth.
  • The merger faces a “regulatory marathon” requiring approval from state and federal commissions.
  • Regulators are focused on consumer costs and grid reliability amid increased demand from AI data centers.

NextEra Energy NEE -4.63%decrease; red down pointing triangle and Dominion Energy D 9.44%increase; green up pointing triangle have agreed to combine in a blockbuster utilities deal. Now comes the hard part: a regulatory marathon.

The companies must convince a web of state and federal regulators that combining two of the U.S.’s largest utilities will benefit customers and avoid increasing electricity bills at a time of heightened scrutiny on consumer costs and grid reliability.

Dominion owns the transmission lines at the center of America’s data center boom in northern Virginia’s “Data Center Alley,” while NextEra is a major developer of the power generation and batteries needed to fuel energy-hungry AI campuses.

The $67 billion deal would create an East Coast energy behemoth with 10 million customer accounts in Florida, the Carolinas and Virginia. It would be the largest U.S. electricity producer—specifically the biggest provider of natural gas-fired power and No. 2 in nuclear, the companies said.

The tie-up will offer the next test of the Trump administration’s willingness to consider mergers that reshape industries. It needs approval from utility commissions in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, which are increasingly focused on making sure data centers shoulder the cost of grid upgrades and new power plants. It will also require the approval of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The path through the state regulators will be “challenging,” said Alex Torgerson, partner in mergers and acquisitions at West Monroe, while federal regulators will be “slightly below challenging.”

“None of this is going to be easy,” he added.

The utility industry is facing its biggest increase in customer demand in decades, much of it driven by artificial intelligence-related data center construction. New data centers require city-size amounts of electricity, and access to power has become a key hurdle in the global AI race.

Much of the growth potential for the combined company revolves around data centers, which face a growing backlash in much of the country. Having data centers or other large customers added to the power grid can bring local benefits, Torgerson said, but he called it a difficult narrative for states.

“You’re going to commissions where their responsibility is really consumer protection,” he said.

Utility affordability has become such a concern that state regulators primarily will want to see tangible customer savings, said Paul Patterson, an analyst with Glenrock Associates. The companies are clearly aware of this priority, he added, based on their promise to offer $2.25 billion in consumer credits across Virginia and the Carolinas.

Consumer advocacy group Clean Virginia said it is skeptical of the business combination and is urging state and federal regulators, the governor, attorney general and lawmakers “to subject the proposed merger to the most rigorous scrutiny possible.”

“One-time credits are a down payment on political goodwill, not a guarantee of affordability,” said Brennan Gilmore, executive director of Clean Virginia, in a statement.

Capital spending plans for a group of investor-owned utilities are estimated to reach $1.4 trillion for the next five years, according to a recent report from the consumer education group PowerLines. The record levels of capital investments are being driven by new demand on an aging electricity system that has faced repeated storm damage.

Unlike other large customers, new AI data centers can consume the same amount of electricity as an entire city, while guzzling power around the clock. Beyond AI, many utilities are trying to keep up with growth in manufacturing, electric vehicles and residential markets, too.

“This is a time for companies to bulk up because the spending is going up so much,” said John Bartlett, president of Reaves Asset Management, which invests in the sector. For Dominion, increased capital spending will be easier as part of a larger company, he said.

Utilities have attracted investment from infrastructure funds and private equity in recent years, and have been raising money for needed investments with at-the-market share sales.

Bartlett said utility acquisitions are fairly straightforward and that the combination of the two companies could benefit customers, but NextEra must prove it.

“The onus is definitely on NextEra to show the value proposition and what’s in it for rate payers, and that’s important,” Bartlett said.

NextEra has seen acquisition plans fail at the state level before.

In 2016, Hawaii regulators rejected its $4.3 billion bid to buy the state’s biggest utility, Hawaiian Electric, unconvinced it would have benefited utility consumers or helped the state achieve its aggressive goal to become more energy sufficient.

The following year, Texas regulators rejected NextEra’s bid for Oncor, one of the largest electricity transmission businesses in the country that at the time was being sold as part of a bankruptcy case.

Despite the “suboptimal” track record, “we think this time is different,” said Julien Dumoulin-Smith, analyst at Jefferies, in a client note.

FERC will consider market concentration, possibly in New England, where both companies have assets, or in the PJM Interconnection, the country’s largest electricity market, which includes Data Center Alley, analysts said. The NRC will focus on the safe operations of reactors. Both companies already own and operate nuclear plants.

The companies say the deal is expected to close within 18 months, a timeline that analysts say is possible but optimistic. Executives are expressing confidence in their ability to get through the regulatory hurdles. The deal includes a $4.8 billion termination fee that NextEra would pay if regulators block the deal.

NextEra Chief Executive John Ketchum told analysts that the companies will enter the regulatory process with “no asks,” meaning they aren’t asking commissions to approve new power plant investments.

FT : Investors warn of ‘correction’ risk as high-flying stocks defy bond gloom

Investors warn of ‘correction’ risk as high-flying stocks defy bond gloom
Wall Street indices have surged to a string of record highs despite anxiety over economic fallout from Iran war

Soaring borrowing costs could trigger a “correction” in the stock market, big investors have warned, highlighting a growing disconnect between exuberant equities and bonds battered by worries over high inflation.

Wall Street’s S&P 500 stock index has punched through a series of record highs in a tech-powered rebound that began at the start of April, when news of a temporary ceasefire in the Middle East war prompted traders to pile back into the market.

By contrast, a sell-off in government bonds has pushed US bond yields to their highest level in more than a year as investors bet that oil prices stuck above $100 a barrel will fan inflation and spur central banks — including the Federal Reserve — to lift interest rates.


The divergence has prompted some big fund managers to doubt whether equities can continue to shrug off the gloom enveloping fixed income, particularly if rising borrowing costs trigger alarm over sky-high valuations of AI stocks.

“We will see a correction — the question is more when than if, in my opinion,” said Vincent Mortier, chief investment officer of Amundi. Mortier said that the equity market had “seen a total change of narratives, views and positioning in a matter of six weeks” in contrast to bond investors’ focus on the surge in prices for everything from diesel to petrol and jet fuel triggered by Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury has climbed 0.28 percentage points since the initial ceasefire as a global bond sell-off gathers pace.

A market measure of inflation expectations for the 12-month period a year from now — the one-year, one-year inflation swap — on Monday rose above 4 per cent for the first time since early 2025.

The S&P 500, however, has gained 12 per cent since the ceasefire, and is showing little indication that the conflict in the Middle East will do lasting economic damage.


“There’s an incompatibility between having equities at all-time highs, [credit] spreads at tights, high bullishness . . . and at the same time, interest rates and energy [markets] pricing in a lasting impact on the economy,” said Raphaël Thuin, head of capital markets strategies at Tikehau Capital.

“Short-term, there are good reasons to be nervous,” Thuin added. “It does feel like the rally is very stretched [and] the market is due a pause.”

Wall Street stocks have also powered ahead of their European counterparts, highlighting the rally’s growing dependence on just a few technology and semiconductor stocks linked to AI.

Mandy Xu, head of derivatives market intelligence at Cboe Global Markets, said activity in the single stock options market suggests that “higher rates have not dampened extreme bullish positioning”, with some indicators of exuberant sentiment approaching the same levels as the 2021 “meme stock” era.


The greater dependence of Europe on energy imports has punctured traders’ bullishness about the region, leaving the Stoxx Europe 600 struggling to return to its prewar level.

“There is this dichotomy in the [US] markets where [they] are looking to other things than geopolitics right now,” said Kamal Bhatia, chief executive of Principal Asset Management. “It’s very perplexing.”

For some investors, the exceptional first-quarter earnings season did more than enough to outweigh the geopolitical uncertainty for the stock market. Giles Parkinson, head of equities at Trinity Bridge, said the recent rally in stocks is in fact “underdone” while “earnings are exploding”.

For now, “bonds are saying ‘yellow flag here’ about inflation and the risk of chronic inflation and high oil prices causing the economy to eventually slow”, said one asset management executive. “Equities are saying, ‘we’re going to keep partying until that happens’.”

FT : SpaceX IPO adds air to the Silicon Valley ‘genius bubble’

SpaceX IPO adds air to the Silicon Valley ‘genius bubble’
The biggest one-man brands today benefit from the impression that no cycle can bring them down

Financial bubbles start when investors see a certain asset rocketing in value and start chasing anything that resembles it. Earlier generations had tulips, railroads and beachfront properties. Now a new must-have has emerged: smarts.

Shareholders will acquiesce to anything in their pursuit — as shown by the initial public offering of SpaceX. Norms like shareholder democracy have disappeared into a black hole. Elon Musk will retain control of the rocket-making company through super-voting shares and is thus unfireable; disputes must be arbitrated privately, not in court. An astronomical bonus is in store if he hits highly aspirational targets. And SpaceX’s $1.75tn whispered valuation, more than quadruple what it was six months ago according to PitchBook, suggests investors are nonetheless willing to accept a high price to reap the fruits of his unique brain.

While Musk may think he is one of a kind, the SpaceX genius premium is part of a wider phenomenon. Since the 2010s, tech companies have been enshrining founders through separate classes of shares, combined chair-chief executive roles and toothless boards. Being weird, hyper-elitist or generally offensive is a badge of honour. After all, being unconventional is, by definition, a requirement for generating market-beating financial “alpha”.


The race to back individual hotshots is supported by data. Research by Bain & Company shows founder-led companies have served up roughly double the shareholder returns of non-founder businesses, and outperform even after stripping out tech. In a separate analysis of 290 tech companies, sustaining 20 per cent growth for 10 years was strongly indexed to having a “founder mentality” and fewer organisational layers.

Still, the belief that an investment theme has broken the rules of finance is a tale as old as time — and usually proves temporary. Private credit may also be on the cusp of this. It swelled to a $3tn asset class as investors drooled over historically generous returns. Now cracks are appearing. Some financial luminaries are warning that the credit cycle will return, as it always has, leaving the complacent and indiscriminate with losses.

But the biggest one-man brands today benefit from the impression that no cycle can bring them down. Space exploration and AI are treated as one-way bets. Moreover, the market behaves as if those that have reached scale — OpenAI, Nvidia and Tesla, say — cannot be knocked off their perch.

This assumption will be tested. When a company’s worth is disproportionately weighted towards a “terminal value” composed of cash flows still many years away, even leading positions can be won and lost in a flash. Anthropic, the AI company now valued at $900bn, is only five years old. It’s not unthinkable that a big company could fall as fast as it rose.

Bubbles generally look obvious in hindsight. The genius bubble will be no different. One problem, perhaps, is that memories are short. In private credit, sceptics fret that the vast majority of fund managers joined the workforce after the 2008 crisis. Tech’s last big crash in 2000 is even more remote. Brains are an asset, for sure, but one just as liable to be overvalued as a Florida mansion, an unprofitable pet food retailer or a tulip bulb.

FT : Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis emerges as early Anthropic investor

Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis emerges as early Anthropic investor
Nobel laureate’s protégés are raising billions and spreading his influence across the AI industry


Demis Hassabis, the founder of Google DeepMind, was an early investor in Anthropic, a previously undisclosed stake that highlights the Nobel laureate’s growing influence across the AI industry.

People familiar with the matter said Hassabis was an angel investor in Anthropic, which has since become a key AI rival and among the world’s fastest-growing start-ups.

Google has separately invested billions of dollars in Anthropic as part of its cloud and AI partnership with the company. Anthropic chief Dario Amodei considers Hassabis a role model, according to people close to the company, which was recently valued by investors at $900bn.

News of the investment comes as former DeepMind researchers have founded more than a dozen companies since 2021, raising at least $14bn, according to PitchBook and Dealroom. They include UK-based Isomorphic Labs, also founded by Hassabis, and Ineffable Intelligence, which together raised more than $3bn in the past month from investors.

Hassabis, who sold his London-based AI lab to Google for £400mn in 2014, is also an angel investor in businesses founded by former colleagues.

This includes Inflection AI, launched by DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman before he joined Microsoft in 2024, and Ineffable Intelligence, founded by longtime collaborator David Silver.

Meanwhile, senior DeepMind executives have moved into key positions across Google as the company races to strengthen its AI operations.

Koray Kavukcuoglu, DeepMind’s chief technology officer, was elevated last year to chief AI architect at Google, while Pushmeet Kohli, who led research including the Nobel Prize-winning AlphaFold project, was promoted last month to chief scientist at Google Cloud.

“Demis has a huge amount of soft power at Google and beyond,” said Matt Clifford, a longtime associate of Hassabis, and co-founder of start-up incubator Entrepreneurs First, in which Hassabis is also an angel investor.

“He was a pioneer before it was obvious what AI was, and the availability of capital for his protégés is pretty striking. That’s a big driver of what has happened.” 

Start-ups founded by former DeepMind employees include well-funded companies such as Mistral, Harvey, AMI Labs, Recursive Superintelligence, Latent Apps, Reflection AI, Cursive AI and Orbital Materials, among others.

A person close to Cambridge-based Cusp.ai, an AI search engine for new materials, said roughly one in three employees were former DeepMind or Isomorphic employees, although this did not include the start-up’s founders.

Tantum Collins, a former DeepMind researcher and senior White House official, is now co-founding a stealth AI start-up in London’s King’s Cross with two other former DeepMind researchers, the latest example of the lab’s growing diaspora.

Collins said DeepMind established an early template for turning frontier AI research into commercially viable businesses. He credited Hassabis with instilling a disciplined approach to selecting research and business priorities in a crowded AI market.

“As a proof point and a source of inspiration, I think it’s responsible for a lot of what we see around here today,” Collins said of the AI cluster around King’s Cross, where Google recently opened a new $1bn headquarters.

The company said: “It is impressive to see Google DeepMind alumni building impactful new ventures. Investors clearly recognise Google DeepMind experience as a hallmark of deep expertise and high quality work.”

DeepMind’s position within Google was strengthened in 2023, following a merger of Big Tech group’s research teams into a single unit led by Hassabis.

The move was a response to new competition from OpenAI, which had released ChatGPT and triggered the AI boom. At the time, Hassabis said his new team would “need to work with greater speed, stronger collaboration and execution, and to simplify the way we make decisions to focus on achieving the biggest impact”.

While his clout has grown over Google’s AI business, DeepMind continues to operate out of the UK rather than Silicon Valley. “Despite having stayed in London, Demis’s influence only increased,” Clifford said.

FT : Drone start-up Helsing set to mount joint bid for military satellite projec

Drone start-up Helsing set to mount joint bid for military satellite project
German group to join up with OHB to build satellite constellation with AI to provide surveillance and reconnaissance

Drone start-up Helsing is planning to join forces with satellite producer OHB as the two German groups look to create an orbital reconnaissance network for the country’s armed forces.

Europe’s largest economy is racing to boost its capabilities in space and the two companies will on Tuesday unveil a joint venture to bid for a multibillion-euro programme for the Bundeswehr, known as Spock 2.

They will propose building a constellation of satellites equipped with AI technology from Helsing to provide surveillance and reconnaissance, as well as identify military targets. 

The aim would be to supply rapid information about the activities of hostile forces and provide support for possible frontline operations, particularly on Nato’s eastern flank, where Germany is building up a permanent brigade in Lithuania.

The partnership comes amid fierce competition for the €35bn that Berlin has pledged to spend on military space technology by 2030. 

That plan, announced by defence minister Boris Pistorius last September, was unveiled as the war in Ukraine underlined the importance of space-based reconnaissance and surveillance as well as communications networks.

It was also fuelled by growing European unease about the continent’s reliance on the US for satellite-based intelligence at a time when President Donald Trump is reducing Washington’s longstanding role as a guarantor of its security. 

Helsing co-chief executive Gundbert Scherf, whose company is best known for its kamikaze attack drones, said that the US had historically been the world’s “most ambitious and most resourceful nation” when it came to military space technology.

But he said that Europe had a unique opportunity to move ahead. “We think this is an opportunity here for Europe to leapfrog,” he told the FT. “We think we can build a cutting-edge capability here.”

OHB and Helsing declined to put a figure on the value of the Spock 2 contract, but it is likely to be worth several billion euros.

The OHB-Helsing tie-up follows anger within the space industry after the Spock 1 programme, a deal worth up to €2.7bn to provide reconnaissance information to the Bundeswehr, was awarded without competition to a joint venture formed by German arms giant Rheinmetall and the Finnish start-up Iceye.

Rheinmetall and Iceye are also expected to bid for the second stage Spock 2 programme, which is set to involve an array of different sensors. The European defence and space giant Airbus is another possible contender. 

The jostling for the Spock 2 programme remains in its early stages, with the contract unlikely to be finalised before next year. 

But OHB chief executive Marco Fuchs said that the two companies wanted to work on a proposal ahead of time that would help inform the thinking of procurement officials. “It’s about providing a solution to our government that is asked for — and that is also kick-started by industry.”

The two companies will also announce on Tuesday that OHB is joining a German-Norwegian space consortium that was announced last year by Helsing, the Norwegian defence company Kongsberg as well as the German rocket launch start-up Isar Aerospace and the sensor maker Hensoldt.

Pistorius, the defence minister, said on a visit to Norway’s Andøya spaceport in March that he was interested in deepening co-operation between Berlin and Oslo, citing the possibility of a joint satellite constellation for imaging reconnaissance.

The partnership comes as the Bremen-based OHB, which is partly owned by KKR, prepares to harness the surge in European defence spending to issue new shares and allow the US private equity group to reduce its stake in the company.

OHB is also awaiting approval from German regulators for a separate joint venture with Rheinmetall to bid for a parallel German space programme to create a military version of Elon Musk’s Starlink space-based communications network for the Bundeswehr. 

FT : A $420bn mega-merger for AI’s next-era dominion

A $420bn mega-merger for AI’s next-era dominion
‘Data centre alley’ is at the centre of NextEra’s deal with Dominion

‘Data centre alley’ and a $420bn mega-merger
The AI boom is meeting Donald Trump’s light-touch approach to antitrust in one of the largest mergers ever.

NextEra Energy has agreed to combine with rival Dominion Energy in an all-stock deal to create a $420bn power behemoth, DD’s James Fontanella-Khan and Oliver Barnes scooped last week. The utility companies confirmed the deal on Monday.

At the crux of the merger is Dominion’s prized role as the main supplier of power to “data centre alley”. The stretch of land in the suburbs near Washington, home to more than 150 data centres, is the heartland of the US AI infrastructure build-out.

Despite its enviable home turf, Dominion was a “fixer-upper”, according to James West, head of energy and power at Melius Research. 

Its stock badly trailed the wider utilities sector over the past decade, forcing it to freeze its dividend in 2022 and shed a series of assets.

For its part, NextEra was looking to diversify beyond renewables and gain a foothold in the data centre market, analysts told the FT.

The combined group said it had a further 130 gigawatts of prospective data-centre-related demand in its pipeline, enough electricity to power as many as 130mn homes.

NextEra agreed to pay the equivalent of almost $76 a share for Dominion as part of an all-stock deal that values the group’s equity at roughly $67bn, a 23 per cent premium to Friday’s closing price.

Dominion shareholders will receive 0.8 shares of NextEra in exchange for common stock, leaving NextEra investors with control of 74.5 per cent of the combined company. They will also be paid a quarterly dividend in the run-up to the deal closing and a $360mn cash payout upon closure.

But the path to regulatory approval could be difficult as Americans rebel against data centre development. They’ve watched their energy bills rise in recent years, driven in part by booming demand from data centres, and complain the projects are noisy visual blights.

Power costs are up 12 per cent in Virginia since February 2025 and 7 per cent nationally. 

NextEra and Dominion will have to win over federal antitrust and energy regulators as well as state utilities watchdogs. The growing backlash could make for a bruising political fight, especially in the states.

NextEra has apparently been strategic on this front. 

It has committed just over $2.2bn in bill credits for Dominion’s legacy customers in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, a likely attempt to win over the states’ regulators, whose main concern will be the deal’s effect on energy prices. NextEra has also emerged as one of the corporate donors backing Trump’s controversial $300mn White House ballroom project. 

The company has said it expects approvals within 18 months, though some analysts believe the process could take longer. If the deal is blocked by regulators, NextEra would owe Dominion a $4.8bn break fee, according to regulatory filings.

FT : Lethal Ebola virus outbreak triggers urgent international quest for vaccine

Lethal Ebola virus outbreak triggers urgent international quest for vaccine
World Health Organization experts will meet to recommend candidate jabs for clinical trials

The deadly Ebola outbreak in two African countries driven by a virus species with no vaccine has triggered an urgent search for a potential jab, in a test of troubled global efforts to avert threats posed by emerging diseases.

A World Health Organization advisory group is due to would meet on Tuesday to recommend candidate jabs to prioritise for clinical trials, the global health body said. It will assess data including an analysis by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (Cepi), which was set up after failures in the international response to a previous Ebola crisis.   

The latest Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda has infected hundreds of people and killed more than 80, health authorities say. Cepi’s reaction will be a crucial indicator of its progress towards its wider goal of producing vaccines for pandemic threats in just 100 days, despite steep cuts to international health funding.

“If there was ever a time that we could show the world why Cepi is needed and show the world why the 100-day mission is needed, it’s now,” Nicole Lurie, the organisation’s executive director for preparedness and response, told the FT. “We’re happy to accept that responsibility, but obviously we need help from partners — particularly financial help in the long run.”

DR Congo and Uganda would make the final decision on whether to press ahead with any vaccine candidates endorsed for clinical trials by the WHO experts, the global health body said.

“Other ethical and community acceptability issues will be considered,” said the WHO, which declared the latest outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on Sunday. “This will be important to make sure that the trial, if it happens, will be adequately communicated to the population.”

Lurie said Cepi had provided information from a survey of research teams and companies working on drugs that might be effective against the Bundibugyo virus behind the outbreak. The organisation hoped soon to announce partners in the quest for a jab, she added, although she declined to give a timescale for when one might be developed.

The hunt for a vaccine should be helped by scientific advances including the use of artificial intelligence to find drugs active against viruses, Lurie said. Existing jabs against the Zaire Ebola virus responsible for many previous outbreaks might provide a basis for tackling the Bundibugyo species, she added. 

“We’ll see how far and how fast we can get,” Lurie said, adding that Cepi had done preliminary work recently on a possible jab for the rat-borne hantavirus responsible for a recent fatal outbreak on a cruise ship. “Both with hantavirus and now with Ebola, [we] are getting some live-fire drills.”

Ebola disease viruses, which are thought to be spread by fruit bats, cause haemorrhagic fever in people and are often fatal. They are transmitted between humans by direct contact, via broken skin or mucous membranes, with body fluids or objects contaminated with them.

Cepi, which was set up after a 2014-16 Ebola epidemic in West Africa that killed more than 11,000 people, has expanded its role since the Covid-19 pandemic. It is based in Norway and includes representatives from governments, industry and science.

The coalition focuses on a group of priority destructive pathogens including Ebola, as well as work to deal with an as yet unknown “Disease X” with the potential to cause another pandemic.  

Cepi and other bodies are grappling with sharp cuts to global health finance commitments by the US and other rich nations. “We’ve seen a lot of disinvestment from other countries in a lot of this — and that is particularly worrisome,” Lurie said.

>>> US After Hours Summary: AGYS +14.2% sharply higher on earnings; NOMD +1.1%

After Hours Summary: AGYS +14.2% sharply higher on earnings; NOMD +1.1% on insider purchases; XP -4.3% lower on earnings

After Hours Gainers:
Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: AGYS +14.2%

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: INFU +3.7% (authorizes new $20 mln stock repurchase program), WVE +3.6% (update on RestorAATion-2 Trial), NRGV +2.4% (to delay 10-Q), TLX +2.1% (completes enrollment for IPAX-2 study of TLX101-Tx), GSIT +1.7% (awarded Phase I of a Smart City project by the Hsinchu County government in Taiwan), MSCI +1.2% (Chairman and CEO Henry Fernandez bought 4,000 shares at $559.40-565.17 worth ~$2.25 mln), NOMD +1.1% (discloses share purchases by CEO and CFO), CGEN +1% (files for $400 mln mixed securities shelf offering), DOW +0.9% (NRC completes EA for DOW and XE Construction Permit Application), LUNR +0.9% (two prime lunar reconnaissance contracts), DRS +0.7% (launches Tenum 640 Orbit), SSRM +0.7% (to sell 20% equity interest in Hod Maden), RGLD +0.7% (restructures HOD Maden project interests), ANTA +0.7% (strategic expansion into AI infrastructure), LMB +0.6% (appoints new COO), BLDR +0.5% (COO to retire; names successor), MDLN +0.5% (deploys new AutoStore installation at distribution center), EVTL +0.4% (stock offering by selling shareholders), T +0.1% (on track to achieve 2026 and multi-year guidance)

After Hours Losers:

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: XP -4.3% (also appoints new CFO; also authorizes R$1.0 bln share repurchase program)

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: AKAM -2.8% (convertible senior notes offering), ICHR -0.6% (files mixed securities shelf offering), CTRE -0.2% (common stock offering), TSLA -0.2% (Elon Musk says he will file an appeal with the Ninth Circuit regarding the OpenAI verdict in X post), CGEM -0.1% (to present initial clinical data for CLN-978 in treatment-refractory rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus