>>> TradeGate Pre-Market Indications

DAX:
  • SAP (SAP TH) +1.2%
  • Siemens Energy (ENR TH) +1.1%
MDAX:
  • RENK Group (R3NK TH) +3.3%
  • Deutz (DEZ TH) +2.4%
    • German Engine Maker’s Defense Pivot to Yield Revenue Jump
  • CTS Eventim (EVD TH) +2%
    • CTS Eventim FY Normalized Ebitda Meets Estimates
  • Evonik (EVK TH) +1.9%
    • Evonik Raised to Overweight at Morgan Stanley; PT 18 euros
  • Puma (PUM TH) +1.4%
  • Jungheinrich (JUN3 TH) -2.9%
    • Jungheinrich Sees 2026 Ebit EU380M to EU450M, Est. EU421.5M
  • Lanxess (LXS TH) -3.5%
    • Lanxess Cut to Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley; PT 20 euros
SDAX:
  • Medios (ILM1 TH) +3.4%
  • Kontron (KTN TH) +2.5%
  • ProSieben (PSM TH) +1.4%
  • Sixt (SIX2 TH) +1.4%
  • Tonies SE (TNIE TH) -1.2%

The Information : OpenAI Surpasses $100 Million Annualized Revenue From Ads Pilo

OpenAI Surpasses $100 Million Annualized Revenue From Ads Pilot
The revenue milestone comes six weeks after the ads pilot was announced.

OpenAI has surpassed $100 million in annualized revenue from its ChatGPT ads business, six weeks after the pilot was announced, according to a spokesperson. That revenue has been generated from the less than 20% of U.S.-based ChatGPT Free and Go users who are shown ads on a daily basis today, though around 85% of Free and Go users are eligible to see ads, the spokesperson said.

OpenAI has expanded to more than 600 advertisers, and is on track to launch self-serve advertiser access in April, they said. The company is currently focused on improving ad relevance, with less than 7% of ads rated by users as “low relevance,” as well as ensuring that ads don’t negatively impact user trust, the spokesperson said.

The company announced earlier this week that it had brought on former Meta ad executive Dave Dugan to lead ads sales. It’s now exploring expanding ads into other geographic regions including Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the spokesperson said.

Ads represent an important source of revenue as the company gears up to go public. Executives have told investors that the company expects to generate more than $17 billion from consumers using ChatGPT in 2026, including making money from free users through advertisements.

The Information : Ozempic Maker Says AI Agents Are Shortening Its Clinical Trial

Ozempic Maker Says AI Agents Are Shortening Its Clinical Trials

In the ultracompetitive world of drug development, getting a new medication on the market as fast as possible can have major business implications. There’s perhaps no better recent example than Novo Nordisk, which has generated nearly $100 billion in sales of weight loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy while trying to fend off competition from Eli Lilly.

Now, Novo Nordisk says it’s using AI agents to shorten by weeks or months the time it takes to both start new clinical trials and to complete them. The new tools are expected to add tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in additional revenue while helping the company spend less on labor, according to Digital Transformation Officer Stephanie Bova.

The company already was using AI models like Anthropic’s Claude to speed up drafting documents submitted to regulators for drug approval, as we previously wrote. But recently, Novo created more advanced AI to audit and coordinate the clinical drug trials themselves, she said.

To train the agents, the drugmaker used software from the AI startup Celonis to pull Novo’s internal data, as well as information disclosed by competitors about how to run clinical studies. (Celonis, which is headquartered in Germany, has raised $1.6 billion from backers including Silver Lake and Accel.)

One agent Novo developed using the Celonis software, which relies on AI models from Anthropic, OpenAI, and other providers, helps employees manage clinical trials. For instance, the agent detects possible risks that could cause trials to take longer, such as a step in protocol that researchers missed or data that looks incomplete. It can automatically notify leaders overseeing the trial to suggest steps to avoid the delay. (Celonis helps Novo figure out which provider’s model to use for the agent’s tasks.)

Novo has been developing such AI agents for about a year, and Bova said they already appear capable of automating parts of the clinical trial process that would have previously been done by humans, such as choosing the best country or location for a clinical trial based on patient availability and local regulations.

“We‘re looking at shortening the time from first in human trials to when we submit the drug for approval,” Bova said. “Thats the big question that all drug development leaders have in mind, is how long is this going to take—it’s a race.”

Bova declined to say how much Novo Nordisk spends to run the new AI, but said the savings greatly outweigh the cost. Bova estimates that, for new trials starting in the coming year, the AI agents will help shave months or possibly years off the time it takes to get new drugs approved.

Pharmaceutical firms have long been at the forefront of using advanced machine learning for core research, so the industry is particularly well positioned to harness the latest AI.

Bova, who previously worked at drugmaker Novartis from 2019 until 2022, says she believes competitors are developing similar AI agents.

“A week of time saved in getting to market can mean tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of dollars in peak revenue impact,” Bova said. “So as long as we’re shortening that timeline, I wouldn't even bother doing a business case calculation because the juice is clearly worth the squeeze.”

Finding Redundancies

Bova said she expects the drugmaker to save money by reducing the time employees spend on tasks—for instance, an AI agent analyzing the company’s business processes noticed that three different departments had overlapping roles in the process of submitting drugs for regulatory approval. The agent has also started to handle data analysis that Novo Nordisk historically outsourced to several hundred contractors, she said.

Still, that doesn’t mean all its AI efforts have been worth the money.

For instance, Bova said the company previously built an AI tool, Found Data, that its researchers used to pore over decades of prior clinical trial data to look for potential trends past studies had missed.

But Novo has limited how many employees can use the tool, which is powered by Anthropic’s Claude model, because it was expensive to run and the company is still developing the tool, she said.

“[T]here’s been this mad dash to have AI use cases without thinking about whether it's the best use of your time and money to do it that way,” she said. “If I can do it better and cheaper and more reliably in Excel, I’m going to tell you to stay in Excel.”

The Information : Anthropic Discusses Going Public as Soon as the Fourth Quarter

Anthropic Discusses Going Public as Soon as the Fourth Quarter

The Takeaway
  • Anthropic discusses IPO as soon as Q4, with bankers expecting over $60 billion raise.
  • Anthropic’s annualized sales doubled to $19 billion in the first two months this year.
  • Bankers expect Anthropic to list before OpenAI due to market preference for its focus.

Anthropic executives have discussed an initial public offering of the AI firm’s shares as soon as the fourth quarter this year, according to people familiar with the matter.

Bankers vying to take Anthropic public expect the company to raise more than $60 billion in the initial public offering, said some of the people. That could be the second-biggest such deal after SpaceX, which is expected to raise as much as $75 billion in an IPO as soon as this summer. The figures won’t be decided until just before the offerings.

Companies typically sell between 10% and 25% of their total equity in an IPO, so bankers typically base their estimates of how much money a company will raise in an IPO by predicting the company’s estimated valuation at the time of the offering, plus other factors such as investor demand.

While Anthropic is discussing more specific timing for an IPO, such planning can change on a dime and can also be influenced by macroeconomic events. The company, last valued at $350 billion in a financing last month, could still decide not to go public at all. But it is taking concrete steps toward an offering, such as working with law firm Wilson Sonsini, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Archrival OpenAI is also gearing up to go public as soon as possible, and CEO Sam Altman has said privately he would prefer to list the ChatGPT maker’s share before Anthropic goes public, according to people with knowledge of the comments. The company is close to raising $120 billion at a $730 billion valuation before the financing, so it isn’t under financial pressure to list its shares, said a person with knowledge of the situation.


The debut of OpenAI and Anthropic shares would be a landmark moment in the AI boom, which has boosted the shares of major cloud and chip firms that cater to OpenAI, Anthropic and other key developers. Anthropic has experienced staggering revenue growth this year; annualized sales more than doubled to $19 billion during the first two months this year, on the strength of its automated coding tools, and is closing its revenue gap with OpenAI.

Meanwhile, OpenAI, powered by subscription sales from ChatGPT, topped $25 billion in annualized sales last month. Anthropic in December projected its business would generate cash as soon as 2028 and OpenAI, earlier this quarter, projected positive free cash flow by 2030, though OpenAI previously projected it would burn more than $200 billion before then.


Anthropic, in contrast, previously projected—optimistically—that it would burn around $22 billion before generating positive free cash flows. (Read more about each companies’ finances here, here and here.)

Bankers and lawyers who work on IPOs largely expect Anthropic to list shares before OpenAI does, as they believe public market investors would favor Anthropic’s focus on selling to developers and enterprises rather than consumers and its shorter projected path to profitability.

IPO advisers say that as Anthropic and OpenAI discuss their potential offerings with regulators, their differing methods of booking revenue related to cloud providers that resell their AI models will almost certainly come up, as will the ways the companies have projected unprecedented revenue growth and server costs.


The two companies’ IPO timing could heavily depend on the broader market conditions. The Iran war and rising oil prices have prompted worries about increased inflation and lower consumer spending, which could impact IPO activity and when ultimately the two AI labs go public. The Financial Times previously reported an Anthropic IPO could happen this year.

OpenAI has had informal conversations with banks Goldman Sachs, which advised OpenAI on its restructuring process last fall with veteran banker Michael Klein, and Morgan Stanley, said a person familiar with the discussions.

Both companies are competing to win over coveted business customers owned by private equity firms. Anthropic is in talks to form a joint venture with private equity firms including Blackstone and Hellman & Friedman and Permira, according to people familiar with the discussions. OpenAI also discussed a similar joint venture with private equity firms TPG, Advent International, Bain Capital and Brookfield Asset Management.

>>> US After Hours Summary: President Trump has extended pause on attacking Iran

After Hours Summary: President Trump has extended pause on attacking Iran energy facilities to April 6, according to CNBC; U +13.8% sharply higher after raising guidance; AGX +9.8% higher on earnings; ACOG -8.1% lower on earnings

After Hours Gainers:

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: U +13.8% (guidance; also to sunset ironSource Ads Network), IMDX +10.5% (also submits GraftAssureDx for FDA review), AGX +9.8%, VERI +9.2% (guidance; also strategic deal with ORCL), NMAX +6.2%, OXM +1.3%

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: SIGA +9.9% (declares special cash dividend of $0.60/share), SSRM +1.9% (expects Q1 charge related to sale of Çöpler mine), BE +1.5% (appoints new CFO), CRDO +1.3% (reaches a cross-license and settlement agreement with Molex), RPD +0.9% (acquires Kenzo Security), RUM +0.6% (names new CFO), VG +0.5% (co and Edison announce Calcasieu Pass arbitration settlement), IPSC +0.5% (files prospectus supplement relating to a sales agreement; may offer up to $150 mln of common stock), AAPL +0.4% (report it has discontinued the Mac Pro, according to 9to5mac.com), AMZN +0.2% (Amazon AI chip product leader exits, according to The Information), BA +0.2% (awarded a $326 mln Army contract), NOC +0.2% (awarded a $127 mln Navy contract), MSFT +0.1% (OpenAI surpasses $100 mln annualized revenue from ads pilot, according to TheInformation)

After Hours Losers:

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: ACOG -8.1%, DBVT -2%, SKYX -1.4% (also files $200 mln mixed shelf offering), SGP -0.6%, BTGO -0.1%

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: DTCX -28.8% (stock offering; prices offering at $2/share), ZBIO -9.7% (convertible note and stock offering), PAR -3.7% (files mixed securities shelf offering), VTS -3.5% (names new CEO), ABOS -2.4% (stock offering by selling shareholders), IRON -1.6% (completes enrollment of Phase 3 APOLLO trial of bitopertin), KYTX -1.2% (files for $300 mln mixed securities shelf offering), NUVB -0.5% (European Medicines Agency accepts Market Authorization Application for Taletrectinib), RTX -0.1% (awarded a $773.5 mln modification to Missile Defense Agency contract; also awarded a $193.2 mln modification to Missile Defense Agency contract)

>>> BEtaville : Auction Technology Group said to ...

Auction Technology Group said to ...

Auction Technology Group, the London-listed online operator of auction marketplaces, is at the centre of a renewed round of takeover rumours.

People following the situation have heard talk Auction Technology Group may have attracted fresh takeover interest.

The rumoured takeover interest is said to have come after Auction Technology Group rejected multiple hostile takeover proposals, including one at 400p a share, from FitzWalter Capital, one of the company's largest shareholders, earlier this year.

People following the situation had heard speculation Auction Technology Group was working with advisers from Bank of America on garnering takeover interest and two private equity firms are rumoured to be circling the business.

The buy out firms interested in Auction Technology Group are said to be medium-sized private equity houses that specialise in technology deals with one outfit based in Boston and the other headquartered in New York, said people following the situation.

To be clear, this story is UNCOOKED. I have pasted the definitions of UNCOOKED below in case you don't recall their definitions.

UNCOOKED: Market gossip as Betaville receives it. This scuttlebutt has just come in and hasn't been checked with all of Betaville's well-informed RARE sources let alone formal journalistic channels (public relations executives, bankers etc). The rumour might be total codswallop, rubbish or nonsense - but then again there may be something in it, so it's worth airing on Betaville.

>>> Europe : Brokers Upgrades & Downgrades - 26th of March 2026 V2(+)

>>> Up
* ABN Amro GDRs Raised to Market Perform at KBW; PT 33 euros
* Almirall Raised to Buy at JB Capital Markets; PT 14.80 euros
* ARM Holdings ADRs PT Raised to $200 from $165 at Barclays
* Bankinter Raised to Buy at Bestinver; PT 15.20 euros
* Chemometec Raised to Buy at SEB Equities; PT 400 kroner
* Close Brothers Raised to Buy at UBS; PT 555 pence
* Comet Raised to Outperform at BNP Paribas; PT 318 Swiss francs (+)
* Commerzbank Raised to Outperform at KBW; PT 39 euros
* Eckert & Ziegler Raised to Overweight at Cantor; PT 21 euros (+)
* Fincantieri Raised to Buy at Kepler Cheuvreux; PT 16.50 euros (+)
* Heidelberg Materials Raised to Outperform at Oddo BHF
* Hensoldt Raised to Buy at BofA; PT 88.50 euros
* ING Raised to Market Perform at KBW; PT 26 euros
* Leonardo Raised to Buy at Deutsche Bank; PT 70 euros
* Lufthansa Raised to Buy at Bankhaus Metzler; PT 9.50 euros
* Nyfosa Raised to Buy at SEB Equities; PT 74 kronor
* Soitec Raised to Overweight at Morgan Stanley; PT 70 euros
* SSAB Raised to Buy at ABG; PT 85 kronor
* STMicro Raised to Overweight at Morgan Stanley; PT 36 euros
* Suominen Raised to Reduce at Inderes; PT 1.10 euros

>>> Down
* Elopak Cut to Hold at Danske Bank Markets (+)
* Nokia Cut to Hold at SEB Equities; PT 7.40 euros
* Redeia Cut to Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley; PT 15 euros
* REN Cut to Underperform at RBC; PT 3.40 euros
* Saab Cut to Neutral at BofA; PT 709 kronor
* Sagax Price Target Cut to SEK 207 from SEK 212 by SEB
* Terna Cut to Sector Perform at RBC; PT 10 euros
* Warsaw Stock Exchange Cut to Reduce at Erste Group

>>> Initiation
* Baillie Gifford European Growth Trust Cut to Sell at Investec
* Bank of America Rated New Buy at Jefferies
* BRGE LN Rated New Hold at Investec
* Citigroup Rated New Buy at Jefferies
* Eqva ASA Rated New Buy at Arctic Securities; PT 4.10 kroner
* European Smaller Companies/The Rated New Buy at Investec
* HBX Group International Rated New Buy at Berenberg
* Intrum Rated New Neutral at SB1 Markets; PT 41 kronor
* JPMorgan European Discovery Trust PLC Rated New Buy at Investec
* JPMorgan Rated New Hold at Jefferies
* Montanaro European Smaller Cos. Trust Cut to Hold at Investec
* Polar Capital Tech Rated New Outperform at Peel Hunt
* Sentia Rated New Buy at SB1 Markets; PT 95 kroner
* Serica Rated New Neutral at SB1 Markets; PT 260 pence
* Systemair Rated New Buy at SB1 Markets; PT 94 kronor
* U.S. Bancorp Rated New Hold at Jefferies
* Van Lanschot Kempen GDRs Rated New Buy at William O'Neil
* Wells Fargo Rated New Buy at Jefferies

>>> Call
* KBW Cuts European Bank Forecasts but Keeps Overweight View (+)
* Air Defense Outlook Positive, Hensoldt Raised to Buy at BofA (+)
* Boliden’s Garpenberg Mine Impact Worse Than Expected, RBC Says
* HBX Group Gets Another Buy as Berenberg Sees Outsized Growth
* Ipsen Price Target Increased at JPMorgan on Earnings Upgrades (+)
* Nokia Cut to Hold at SEB After Recent Share-Price Strength (+)
* Redeia Lacks Catalysts, Cut to Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley
* Schaeffler Gets Positive Catalyst Watch at Citi, PT Increased
* STMicro, Soitec Upgraded as Morgan Stanley Sees Optical AI Play