TheChek News Flow

Leading battery maker says region’s market can support multiple producers despite high costs and supply chain issues

CATL is ready to assist European battery makers and contribute to building up a regional industry hub as the Chinese giant bets on strong growth in the continent’s EV market.

Matt Shen, CATL’s general manager for Europe, said local battery makers needed help to overcome the high production costs and supply chain challenges in the region, which have hampered their efforts to manufacture at scale at competitive prices.

“The [European] market is big enough” to support multiple battery manufacturers, Shen said.

Although Beijing has placed restrictions on technology and equipment sharing around advanced battery production, “we need to work together to finally make this [electric] transition possible”, he said. 

The world’s largest EV battery manufacturer has been rapidly expanding its share in the European market, which rose to 45 per cent from 37 per cent last year, according to JPMorgan. 

Its global share was at 37 per cent in first seven months of the year, compared with 18 per cent for BYD, according to South Korea’s SNE Research.

Europe has struggled to build an independent battery industry with Northvolt filing for bankruptcy in March. That has strengthened concerns about the continent’s heavy reliance on China for a critical technology that is key to driving the energy transition.

Shen said the company remained optimistic about the speed of the electric transition in Europe even as the car industry has called for more flexibility on the EU’s 2035 ban on petrol engines.

In the first seven months of the year, battery electric cars accounted for 15.6 per cent of the EU market share on the back of an increased offering of more affordable EV models, compared with 12.5 per cent last year, according to European car industry body Acea.

CATL unveiled two new battery products tailored for the European market on the sidelines of last week’s Munich motor show including one that promises a 758km range and a 12-year lifespan and another that can add a range 410km in 20 minutes even under extremely cold weather conditions.

The group also plans to bring its battery-swapping and recycling technology to Europe.

The Chinese group has invested more than €11bn in Europe, expanding its local manufacturing footprint in Germany and Hungary. It is also building a new plant with Stellantis in Spain, which is expected to start operations by the end of next year.

The Chinese government has said it would restrict sharing of knowhow and equipment on highly advanced lithium iron phosphate batteries with foreign companies. However, implementation of these restrictions remains unclear.

Shen said CATL was open to discussing joint ventures not only with other carmakers but also with battery makers such as France’s Automotive Cells Company, a joint venture between Stellantis, Mercedes-Benz and TotalEnergies. 

While many companies were continuing with their plans to build their battery manufacturing plants in Europe, he acknowledged that CATL and others were facing a shortage of skilled workers, high energy costs and supply chain constraints.

“The overall cost is very high” to produce batteries in Europe, Shen said. “Everybody has similar problems so that’s why we want to co-operate with everybody.” 

CATL has previously said it is flexible in how it approaches overseas growth.

In the US, where protectionism, anti-China sentiment and security concerns has led to an effective ban on new Chinese cleantech manufacturing, the group has instead licensed its battery manufacturing technology to Ford and Elon Musk’s Tesla.

Brussels is also increasingly seeking the transfer of skills and knowhow from Chinese companies setting up batteries and other joint ventures in Europe.

Earlier this month, the bosses of Germany’s PowerCo, ACC and Verkor called on European policymakers to provide new funds to support local production, warning that the continent “risks losing its strategic autonomy in a critical 21st-century technology”.

Luxury brand’s CEO insists its Russia operations are within EU rules after hedge fund’s allegations rattle investors

The chief executive of Brunello Cucinelli has hit back at short sellers’ claims that it is violating EU sanctions by continuing to sell luxury goods in Russia, as the Italian brand moves to reassure investors its operations in the country are within the rules.

In a note to clients this summer London-based hedge fund Pertento Partners, which holds a short position in Brunello Cucinelli, alleged the Milan-listed group’s three Russian stores remain open and sell current collections for “prices many times higher than sanction ceilings permit”.

Cucinelli chief Luca Lisandroni told the Financial Times that its Russian boutiques were shut. He added, though, that staff are “currently engaged in one-on-one sales activities in our showroom and the product on sale is limited to what can legally be sold”. Cucinelli’s showroom is located close to its store at Moscow’s Red Square.

In 2022 the EU imposed a ban on the export of luxury goods valued at more than €300 to Russia, in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine. The outbreak of war left western companies with a dilemma of whether to cut all ties with Russia or attempt to continue trading there in line with sanctions, and potentially expose themselves to criticism.

Brunello Cucinelli, founder of the eponymous brand, is renowned for his advocacy of “humanistic capitalism” — whereby economic and environmental sustainability and the wellbeing of workers are prioritised over profit.

Pertento, which holds the largest disclosed short position in Cucinelli, said Russian import records showed $6.1mn of the brand’s apparel was imported to the country in 2024. Each item was “priced just below €300, regardless of its nature,” said the hedge fund, which also claimed items priced above €300 were being sneaked into Russia via intermediaries in other countries.

Lisandroni disputed Pertento’s claims and said that the company was not aware of any triangulation: “internal checks as well as the Italian and foreign customs agency never highlighted anomalies”.

Cucinelli had “opted to maintain our local structure unaltered [in Russia],” Lisandroni said, justifying the move on the basis that it guaranteed full salaries to employees and that it would honour its lease agreements.

“Our [Russian] activities are based on shipments within the price limits allowed by the European Union, and on our residual stock in the country which was delivered to Russia before the outbreak of the war,” he added.

Lisandroni acknowledged that Cucinelli continues to supply department stores in Moscow but said the company was acting “in full observance of EU rules, only supplying items of our collections within the price caps fixed by the EU”.

Cucinelli has this month attempted to reassure investors that Pertento’s allegations — concerning its activities in Russia, as well as its substantial levels of inventory and the health of its brand — were a misinterpretation of reality, according to people with knowledge of the private exchanges.

The €300 limit on the value of goods refers to the value disclosed in the export declaration, which is typically the same as the wholesale price. For luxury goods, this can be as little as one-third of the retail price, according to industry insiders.

Cucinelli would therefore be able to legally sell goods with a retail value of about €900 in Russia, although that would still exclude a considerable proportion of its overall product range. Only a limited number of Cucinelli products, including T-shirts and belts, are available for less than €900.

Short selling reached 3.2 per cent of Cucinelli’s shares outstanding this month, nearly a record high, according to data disclosed by the Italian regulator and compiled by data analytics company Breakout Point.

Other short sellers of Cucinelli shares, besides Pertento, include London-based Kintbury Capital and US quantitative hedge fund AQR. Shorting a company’s stock involves borrowing the shares and selling them, in the hope of buying them at a lower price in the future and pocketing the difference.

The Pertento report also alleged Cucinelli is using its Russian channels to “dump” excess inventory.

Cucinelli has previously told investors that an ordinary inventory level for the group is about 28 to 29 per cent of revenue — its latest disclosed inventory position was €378.6mn, equivalent to 29 per cent of its 2024 revenues. Lisandroni called Pertento’s claims “entirely inappropriate and not representative of its business model”.

At the time of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Cucinelli’s sales in Russia had peaked to 9 per cent of the group total, from an average of 4 to 5 per cent before 2020, as more wealthy Russians stayed in the country during the pandemic, according to the company’s annual report. 

“Russia now makes up 2 per cent of our revenue and exports to our subsidiary there have dropped from €16mn in 2021 to €5mn last year,” said Lisandroni. “We think these figures can help put this whole story, including claims we might be dumping excess inventory into the country, into perspective”.

Three companies building small nuclear reactors aim to go public via SPACS. What to watch for.

More than 80 companies around the world are developing new kinds of nuclear reactors, hoping to get their hands on the tens of billions of dollars that utilities are expected to spend on reactors in the coming decade. But there are only three pure-play stocks in the U.S., making it difficult for investors to buy into the trend.

That could change soon. Three more companies working on building new kinds of small reactors—Terra Innovatum, Terrestrial Energy, and Eagle Energy Metals—have filed to go public via SPACs, or special purpose acquisition companies, and they intend to start trading by the end of the year.

The three are entering public markets at a time of enormous enthusiasm for new nuclear technologies, which are seen as one solution to the growing electricity demand from artificial-intelligence data centers and other industrial plants. Amazon and Alphabet’s Google have already made deals with unproven nuclear companies to buy power from their reactors. Investors are plowing money into the industry. Upstart nuclear stocks Oklo, NuScale Power, and Nano Nuclear Energy have all more than tripled since their stock debuts.

All three of the coming SPACs have designed nuclear reactors that are expected to be smaller than the enormous nuclear plants in operation today, and use newer technology that’s meant to be safer and more nimble than current reactors.

There are dozens of different designs out there, but they’re generally lumped together as “small modular reactors”—modular meaning that most of them can be built in pieces in a factory rather than having to be custom-built on site for each nuclear plant. Presumably, that process will make them cheaper to construct than big plants, though there’s no evidence of that yet. Only a small handful have been built anywhere, and none in the U.S.

Terra Innovatum, which is based in Italy, aims to sell very small reactors, with just 1 megawatt of electric capacity, or enough to power a few hundred homes. Existing U.S. reactors tend to provide at least 800 megawatts of power. Terra Innovatum’s reactors are built in cubes that measure 10 meters, or about 33 feet, on each side, allowing them to be transported and placed almost anywhere, the company says. They could be deployed alone or in bunches, allowing them to power everything from a hotel to an industrial facility or a mine in a remote location.

Terrestrial Energy, based in Charlotte, N.C., is designing reactors with the capacity to provide about 390 megawatts of power. The reactors use molten salt instead of water to power the turbines that turn nuclear energy into electricity, and to cool the reactions. Terrestrial CEO Simon Irish says that molten salt is a much more efficient fuel source and coolant than water, which all existing U.S. reactors use today.

The company acknowledges in securities filings that its novel process could delay regulatory approval, but it also has attracted partners that could advance the technology faster. Terrestrial was one of 10 companies chosen by the U.S. Department of Energy last month for a pilot reactor program that aims to get small versions of the reactors operating as soon as July 2026.

Eagle Energy Metals, whose corporate office is in Reno, is both a reactor-developer and a uranium miner. The company’s most important asset is a mine in Oregon that it calls the “largest mineable, measured and indicated uranium deposit in the United States.” The mine will still take years to develop. CEO Mark Mukhija said in an interview he doesn’t expect commercial operations to start until 2032. But once it starts up, it could produce between one and four million pounds of uranium a year, according to initial estimates cited by Mukhija. That compares to total current U.S. production of less than one million pounds.

The company also licensed a small modular reactor design based on liquid metal-cooled reactors from an arm of the University of New Mexico. It says the business is very promising but will be a secondary priority to the mine.

Given the modular nuclear industry’s limited track record, and the fact that none of these companies have working or licensed reactors, it’s tempting to dismiss the whole small nuclear trend as too speculative. Nuclear is by definition a risky technology, and the companies are all experimenting with methods that haven’t been commercialized yet.

Chris Gadomski, the lead nuclear analyst for Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said in an interview that each of the companies’ methods raise practical questions. In Eagle’s case, he considers the idea of a uranium miner also developing reactors to be an awkward fit, as the two businesses have little in common. For Terra, he worries that it will be expensive to provide security for tiny reactors spread out in several places. And with Terrestrial, he understands the theoretical benefits of molten salt technology but thinks it could be trickier in practice. Its lack of operating history means investors will be taking “first of its kind” risk.

On top of that, the three companies are going public using a method that’s had a very mixed track record.

SPACs are investment vehicles that can seem like a way to back into a public listing. A SPAC sponsor—often a financial firm or fund manager—raises money from investors with the intention of eventually merging with a private company and taking it public. Once a merger is completed, shares start to trade on public markets. Historically, the SPAC process has been considered less-rigorous and time-consuming than the traditional IPO method, although beefed-up SEC requirements have since closed some of the gap.

Though they’ve been around since the 1990s, SPACs skyrocketed in prominence in 2020 and 2021, an era of aggressive risk-taking. They also gained a bad reputation. The average SPAC that came public between 2017 and 2022 returned negative 61% for an investor who held it for three years, according to one academic study published last year. SPACs fell out of favor by 2022 and issuance has been down, but 2025 has seen a resurgence. More SPAC teams have launched IPOs this year than any year since 2021, according to SPAC Insider.

While SPACs overall have struggled, nuclear stocks have been one notable exception. Oklo and Nuscale went public using the SPAC process and have soared since, despite neither of them having built a reactor yet. There is simply so much excitement about the industry, and so few ways to play it.

Irish, the CEO of Terrestrial Energy, said that he chose the SPAC route for several reasons. “In certain circumstances, they serve a unique and valuable role—and that is the ability to bring companies into public markets in a way which is perhaps less risky and faster than would be the case in a conventional IPO,” he said.

This next tranche of nuclear stocks may not enjoy the same big returns as the first group. Oklo, NuScale, and Nano all benefited from the fact that they were the only game in town. “That scarcity does lead to better performance,” said Chris Sorrells, the CEO of Spring Valley Acquisition Corp., the SPAC sponsor taking Eagle public. Sorrells also took NuScale public.

Once there are more options, investors will be able to be choosier about which companies they want to invest in, Sorrells said.

Gadomski thinks that there are all sorts of reasons to doubt nuclear start-ups, because implementing the technology is much harder than developing it. “I kind of just scratch my head and wonder when it’s going to end, when it’s going to fall apart,” he said. But he’s clear-eyed about the investor demand, and doesn’t see any immediate signs of it slowing down. So far “the investors who participate in these things are very, very happy.”

The floodgates are opening for companies to go public. How to avoid getting burned.

• The IPO market is experiencing a resurgence, with over 150 companies going public this year, raising $28.5 billion.
• First-day gains are averaging 26%, but many IPOs have shaky financials, and some, like StubHub, have underperformed.
• Upcoming IPOs include Solera, Wealthfront, and Grayscale Investments, with Databricks, Stripe, and Fanatics in 2026.

tubHub may be indispensable if you’re desperate to buy playoff tickets and don’t mind overpaying. StubHub Holding’s stock, also pricey, may be less appealing. StubHub fizzled in its first day of trading, closing 6% below its initial-public-offering price of $23.50.

It’s a reminder that while IPOs are booming again, plenty of companies are going public with inflated prices and shaky financial prospects. While some of the new crop look solid—and you could make a mint on a trade—it may be best to wait for the froth to settle before buying.

After a hiatus of a few years, IPO mania is back. More than 150 private companies have made their debut on the stock market this year through traditional IPOs, up from 99 at this time last year and 76 in 2023, according to Renaissance Capital. Companies have raised $28.5 billion in capital, up from $24 billion last year. First-day gains are averaging 26%, the best since 2020, according to Trivariate Research.

The wave may still be building as companies involved in everything from crypto to artificial intelligence—and even a trio of companies making new kinds of small nuclear reactors—go public or make plans to do so. Renaissance Capital estimates 40 to 60 additional IPOs by the end of the year.

“We are seeing optimism return to the IPO markets, and it’s broader than just the AI theme,” says Michael Bayer, an adjunct lecturer of finance at Babson College and chief financial officer of Wasabi Technologies, a data storage firm.

The payoffs can be huge. Sizzling IPOs this year have included Circle Internet Group, Figma, Newsmax, AIRO Group Holdings, Bullish, and Voyager Technologies —closing up 82% to 735% on their first day from their initial offering price. Buy-now, pay-later company Klarna Group

gained more than 30%.

Some smaller IPOs are also proving lucrative. WaterBridge Infrastructure, for instance, had a successful debut on Sept. 17, closing up nearly 15% from its offering price of $20. The firm supplies water-treatment services to the oil-and-gas industry—a thriving business—and raised more than $600 million through its IPO.

Yet for every big winner, there’s a list of flops and floundering stocks. StubHub was a disappointment. Gemini Space Station, the crypto money manager led by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, is now trading below its IPO price. Firefly Aerospace nearly doubled on its first day but recently traded at its offering price of $45.

One hurdle for investors is that IPO pricing is an opaque art, handled by investment bankers, company insiders, and institutional investors. Banks like Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley often serve as bookrunners—handling the investment roadshows, figuring out pricing, and allocating shares to institutional clients. Smaller banks also participate.

In some cases, winners are obvious before they hit the market. When an IPO is “oversubscribed,” meaning there’s more demand than supply of shares, the offering price rises. The stock is likely to open strong and pop on its first day due to pent-up demand. However, if the price drifts down before its debut, it may have been overpriced, making first-day gains more questionable.

Getting into an IPO before it starts trading can be ideal, but it isn’t easy. Institutional clients typically get first dibs. Brokerages like Fidelity and Charles Schwab may get some shares, and firms such as Robinhood Markets and Moomoo are taking steps to make it easier. Hot IPOs, however, are prized commodities. And unless you’re a high-net-worth investor, you may not be allocated shares or receive only a small amount.

“The initial allocation game is for hedge funds,” says Josef Schuster, chief executive and founder of IPOX Schuster, a research firm. “We hope to buy and hold IPOs for years to come. Let the market cool and then you can try and pick winners.”

Volatility isn’t an IPO bug; it’s a feature. Privately held firms usually issue a small portion of their equity—about 15% to 20%—which then has to go through a public price-discovery process. There’s usually an initial lockup period of 180 days, after which early investors can start to sell, and stocks can be especially volatile with a limited float. It also takes a few months for brokerages to start issuing research, bringing in bigger institutional investors.

The early days can be a wild ride. AI company CoreWeave, for one, had a tepid debut when it went public in late March. It tumbled further in its first few weeks of trading, dipping below its IPO price. But it has since taken off, thanks to renewed demand for tech and AI stocks as well as strong revenue growth and guidance. The stock is now trading just below $120, nearly triple its offering price.

Bear in mind that multiples on newly public tech stocks often look extreme. Circle trades for more than 130 times earnings estimates. Figma goes for 184 times estimates. Gemini is trading at 21.6 times 2024 sales, a sizable premium to rival Coinbase Global, valued at 13 times revenue.

Steep multiples may reflect the fact that firms are plowing revenue into growth initiatives, leaving less for the bottom line. But “profitability matters,” as Trivariate founder Adam Parker recently noted.

Companies that lose money or are unprofitable “strongly underperform” those with positive net income in their first 18 months as public companies, Parker wrote in a recent report. IPOs without a majority seller (owning at least 50% of shares) underperform peers, he added, and IPOs with a share lockup lag behind those with no lockup over the first two to three years.

It’s far from clear that IPOs in general are a good bet. Since 2020, the average IPO has trailed its industry average by 4% over the following three years from its first day closing price, according to Parker. The Renaissance IPO exchange-traded fund is having a good run this year, up 25%, but its 10.2% annualized return over the past decade trails the S&P 500 index’s 15%.

While there’s certainly some froth in the market, there are also encouraging signs. A big difference between the late 1990s and today is that companies back then went public earlier in their life cycles, while now they’re staying private for longer, says Adam Farstrup, head of multi-asset for the Americas at Schroders. That means there may be more higher-quality names today, though they could still be overpriced.

Should you buy any of the recent crop? Some certainly look appealing.

Consider MNTN, a company that helps monitor ads on internet-connected TVs. It went public in May at $16 and trades around $20, up more than 25% from the IPO price. It’s expected to generate a profit in 2026 and is trading at just 23 times earnings estimates. Seven of the nine analysts covering it rate MNTN a Buy, with a price target of about $33.67, 67% higher than current levels.

Investors aiming to capitalize on the crypto boom may want to consider brokerage eToro Group over pricier options such as Gemini and Galaxy Digital. EToro, which also went public in May, reported better-than-expected quarterly results in August. The stock is down due to rising costs. But that’s an overreaction, according to Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Brett Knoblauch, who has a Buy rating and an $80 price target on the stock, up more than 85% from current levels. EToro trades at 20 times earnings estimates, far below Robinhood’s 72.

Bullish, the crypto exchange that went public in August, may also be proving its mettle. The company reported a net profit of $108 million for the second quarter. Citi analyst Peter Christiansen raised his price target on the stock to $70, up nearly 20% from current prices, following its earnings. He cited increased confidence in growth expectations for 2026.

Smithfield Foods is another unlikely success story. The pork producer was taken private in 2013 by WH Group, a Chinese company, and went public again in January. Even though it priced its offering below the range, shares have since gained more than 20% from the IPO price. The stock trades for only 10 times earnings estimates, as well, a discount to rivals Conagra Brands, Tyson Foods, and Hormel Foods.

If none of this year’s IPOs look appealing, plenty of big ones may be coming.

Firms that may go public over the next year include software company Solera, robo-advisor Wealthfront, and crypto firm Grayscale Investments. Highly anticipated debuts in 2026 include so-called unicorns (worth at least $1 billion) such as AI analytics leader Databricks, financial-technology firms Stripe and Revolut, and sports apparel and betting company Fanatics.

Databricks was valued at $100 billion in its last round of financing. Fanatics had a valuation of more than $30 billion.

Then there are the mega unicorns: OpenAI and SpaceX. While both companies appear well capitalized now, they could decide to go public so that early investors can start cashing out.

“We will see more unicorns come to market,” says Mike Bellin, the U.S. IPO leader for PwC. “There eventually has to be true liquidity to reward employees and early investors and give companies currency for acquisitions.”

One other way to play the IPO boom, of course, is with the middlemen: investment banks like Goldman, Morgan Stanley, and Citi, along with smaller firms like Jefferies Financial Group. All are reporting pickups in investment banking revenue. If the IPO party is only getting started, the bankers should continue to profit, even if stocks of newly public companies flame out.