FT : SEC chief threatens ban on European accounting rules over sustainability

SEC chief threatens ban on European accounting rules over sustainability
Paul Atkins questions whether overseas companies should be barred from using International Financial Reporting Standards

The top US markets regulator has threatened to ban overseas companies from using accounting rules from the International Financial Reporting Standards if its rulemakers continue to pursue sustainability and climate issues.

Securities and Exchange Commission chair Paul Atkins told the Financial Times that the IFRS Foundation was “chasing political fads” with sustainability issues, calling it “a real issue, a real problem”. 

“Those sorts of [sustainability] principles coming into IFRS could undermine the integrity of IFRS and particularly its compatibility with [US accounting standards],” Atkins said, which “creates a question” of whether the SEC should prohibit its use in the US.

The SEC has for almost two decades allowed overseas companies with US listings to use accounting standards issued by the IFRS Foundation, rather than adhere to the US’s own standard, Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. Meeting the approved accounting standards are required to access US capital markets.

Revoking overseas companies’ ability to use IFRS accounting standards would force them to reconcile their accounting with US standards, a lengthy process that could come at considerable cost.

Atkins, a champion of light touch regulation, has reversed many of the policies of his predecessor Gary Gensler, including on cryptocurrency exchanges, climate disclosures and artificial intelligence, since his appointment by President Donald Trump in April.

He reiterated his concern about the European accounting body’s focus on sustainability in his keynote address at the OECD Roundtable on Global Financial Markets on Wednesday, hitting out at the body that created the IFRS Foundation.

“[They] must promote high-quality accounting standards that are focused solely on driving reliable financial reporting and are not used as a backdoor to achieve political or social agendas,” he said.  

US accounting standards do not contain explicit requirements for sustainability or climate-related disclosures, and the SEC in June withdrew a near-finalised rule that would have required such disclosures.

One person familiar with the IFRS Foundation’s discussions with US regulators said the standards body had for months been operating in fear of the US crackdown on sustainability efforts, adding that some speeches and press releases had been edited to avoid further straining relationships. 

The criticism from Atkins was pointed at so-called double materiality disclosures, where companies are told to disclose the sustainability impact of their activities on the outside world — on top of the standard “financially material” issues, such as the impact of climate change on the company itself.

The IFRS’s sustainability standards do not rest on double materiality. But critics of its sustainability standards say that the sustainability impact disclosures that the body classifies as “material” lie beyond traditional definitions of financial materiality.

Atkins added that the funding originally allocated to the IFRS’s sustainability body would expire soon, leaving the parent foundation footing the bill despite existing worries about “adequate funding” for the IFRS itself. “With another draw on their resources, what does that portend for the IFRS standards that come out of the board?”

An IFRS Foundation spokesperson said: “The SEC is an important stakeholder and we continue to maintain close dialogue with it.”

The spokesperson added that the foundation established its sustainability body “in response to investor and capital market demand globally for financially material sustainability-related financial disclosures”.

It operates and is funded independently from the foundation’s accountancy standard body, they said, which was “a key consideration” when it was established, and “their respective standards do not impose requirements on each other”.

“The IFRS Foundation is midway through a two-year transformation programme . . . including the development of our long-term funding strategy.”

FT : Avalanche blockchain aims to raise $1bn for crypto-hoarding companies

Avalanche blockchain aims to raise $1bn for crypto-hoarding companies
Two vehicles will buy millions of Avax tokens at discounted price

The non-profit group behind Avalanche, a blockchain used by Wall Street companies such as BlackRock and Visa, is in talks to create two cryptocurrency-hoarding vehicles in the US, as it tries to fund its bid to become the main digital ledger for capital markets.

Avalanche Foundation is in advanced discussions with investors over deals to launch one digital asset treasury company and convert another company into such a vehicle, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions. It hopes to raise about $1bn in total and to conclude the deals in the coming weeks.

The money raised will be used to purchase millions of Avax, the cryptocurrency attached to the Avalanche ledger. Avax would be available from Avalanche Foundation at a discounted price, the people said. Avalanche Foundation declined to comment.

The moves come despite a recent sharp fall in the share prices of many crypto treasury companies, in a sign that the stock market craze for vehicles that sell shares and bonds to fund token purchases may be fading.

Tokens linked to the ethereum and solana blockchains have soared in recent months, helped by a surge in fundraising by companies planning to stockpile crypto assets. Such companies have raised more than $16bn this year, according to data from Kaiko, in a model inspired by bitcoin treasury company Strategy.

Avalanche is among the blockchains being tested out by investment firms such as BlackRock, Apollo and Wellington Asset Management, which have trialled tokenised versions of funds on it. However, the network’s Avax token has largely missed out on the rally that has lifted rivals.

The first deal aimed to raise up to $500mn through a private investment led by Hivemind Capital in an existing Nasdaq-listed company, the people said. It was likely to be finalised at the end of the month, and Anthony Scaramucci, a crypto investor and former White House press secretary, was advising on the deal, they said. Hivemind confirmed it was working on a deal but declined to give further details. Scaramucci did not respond to a request for comment.

The second deal was via a special purpose acquisition vehicle, which is being sponsored by Dragonfly Capital, and was also looking to raise up to $500mn but might not be concluded until October, the people said. Dragonfly did not respond to a request for comment.

Both companies will initially purchase cut price Avax tokens held by the Avalanche Foundation. There are a maximum of 720mn Avax tokens in existence, with about 420mn of those currently in circulation.

Foundations that support crypto blockchains and associated communities through education or the organisation of conferences are common in crypto markets. Most are set up as not-for-profit organisations, allowing them to skirt US securities laws, and are based in low-tax jurisdictions.

FT : VW vows to defend Europe crown in fightback against Chinese EVs

VW vows to defend Europe crown in fightback against Chinese EVs
Competition in region’s electric vehicle market intensifies as German carmaker launch new models and software

Volkswagen has vowed to defend its lead in Europe “by all means”, including a revamped vehicle and software strategy, as German carmakers make a renewed push against Chinese competition in the region’s electric vehicle market.

A year after VW presented plans to drastically cut headcount and capacity at its German plants, its executives at this week’s Munich motor show said the group was ready to fight back against Chinese rivals.

“We are dominant in Europe and will defend it by all means,” VW brand chief executive Thomas Schäfer told the Financial Times, as the group battled sliding market share in China and the rise of BYD and other EV rivals. The new range was “very competitive” and Chinese manufacturers would face bigger challenges breaking into the European market, he added.

German carmakers’ latest comeback signals a further intensification of competition in Europe’s battery vehicle market, where Chinese groups have rapidly expanded their presence.

The market share of Chinese brands reached a record 5.7 per cent in the UK and European car markets during the second quarter, rising to 10.7 per cent in the EV market, according to Schmidt Automotive Research.


VW, with its new models, a stronger cost base and its software partnerships with Rivian in the US and Xpeng in China, believes it has the armoury to fight back.

Europe’s largest carmaker is by far the dominant player in the region’s EV market, with a 30 per cent share in August. This was up from 23 per cent a year before, while market shares for Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Tesla have all declined, according to Jefferies. BYD, meanwhile, grabbed a 3.8 per cent share in the European EV market, up from 2.5 per cent.

“We are convinced that we will be the automotive global tech driver in the future,” said Oliver Blume, Volkswagen group chief executive.

At Munich the Wolfsburg-based group presented a quartet of entry-level EVs, which will go on sale next year starting at €25,000: a new Škoda, Cupra and two new Volkswagen models. This includes the new ID. Polo, combining old and new VW brands — the Polo and ID.2.

BMW also released new battery vehicles, with the group’s SUV iX3 the first to be built on the company’s Neue Klasse platform, marking the start of a completely revamped product line with more powerful computing.

Mercedes-Benz promised a significant software upgrade and expanded battery range, with a refreshed product line-up.


The Germans, however, have not been alone in expressing their confidence this week.

BYD said that its western rivals had yet to catch up with its EV technologies.

“I think we still have a lot of space to do more even if we have some brands catching up,” said Stella Li, BYD’s executive vice-president.

The Chinese group plans to bring its ultrafast charging technology to European models from next year and begin producing all of its EVs in Europe within the next three years.

“This is a huge game changer,” said Li, referring to its new battery charging system able to add a range of about 470km in five minutes. 

State-backed Changan aims to gain a foothold in Europe by debuting its electric Deepal S07 SUV at £39,990 in the UK this month. The Chinese group plans to open a factory in Europe within the next few years and will aim to become a top-10 player in the UK.

Thomas Schemera, global chief operating officer of GAC International, said the state-owned carmaker plans to produce in Europe “as soon as possible” in response to higher tariffs the EU has imposed on China-made EVs.

As more and more Chinese brands enter the continent, analysts say one challenge for companies is to differentiate their brands in the minds of European consumers.

Leapmotor, which has leveraged its capital tie-up with Stellantis to expand its dealer network, says its affordable pricing — its electric B10 compact SUV starts at €29,900 — is a differentiating factor.

“We are almost very close” to price parity between petrol and battery-powered vehicles, said Tianshu Xin, who heads the joint venture between the Chinese EV start-up and Stellantis.

“That’s one of the key elements to [offer] customers the opportunity to try those technologies,” he added.

Changan, however, says it does not want to be drawn into a price war in Europe. 

“That’s not our route to market,” Nic Thomas, Changan’s managing director in the UK, said. “If we want to look for price war, we need to look at European brands right now . . . and there is very deep discounting.”

European car executives say it will be difficult for Chinese brands to build cars in Europe at competitive prices as in their home market due to the higher labour and energy costs.

But Li at BYD, which will open plants in Hungary and Turkey, said the company learned from building cars in Thailand and will leverage its cost-effective manufacturing technology.

“We got a good sense of how we can maintain the manufacturing cost,” she added.

FT : The blurred line between free speech and medical misinformation

The blurred line between free speech and medical misinformation
Transparency is key if public fears about vaccines are to be allayed

It started off promisingly enough. Dr Aseem Malhotra, a charismatic British cardiologist invited to address the Reform UK party conference at the weekend, spoke persuasively of how the medical world is rife with conflicts of interest and biases among researchers, journals and regulators.

He favoured evidence-based medicine but, he railed, Big Pharma’s need to maximise shareholder returns burdens society with treatments of questionable efficacy. Lifestyle factors such as poor diet, meanwhile, have stoked a healthcare crisis but, again, powerful vested interests, including Big Food, stymie action.

So far, so robust. But then came some astonishing talking points: the World Health Organization has been captured by Bill Gates; mRNA Covid vaccines are, in effect, a form of gene therapy that has killed or harmed millions; the mainstream media won’t touch the story. Malhotra cited the suspicions of others that the jabs were a “significant factor” in cancers among British royals.

Reform, a pro-Brexit, anti-immigration party led by Nigel Farage, later distanced itself from the presentation but defended Malhotra’s right to free speech. And that neatly illustrates an urgent challenge in health and science: how to combat possible misinformation in a febrile political environment without being accused of censorship or paternalism.

The UK health security agency said the mRNA vaccines were proven to be safe and effective, and “ultimately helped to save many thousands of lives” in the UK. The charity Cancer Research UK says there is no good evidence linking the jabs to cancer.

Several respected medical commentators also expressed strongly dissenting opinions. Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of the Lancet medical journal, said that the benefits of mRNA vaccines massively outweigh their harms. Brian Ferguson, a professor of viral immunology at Cambridge university, accused Malhotra of spreading “anti-vax tropes that have been extensively disproven”.

Dr Rachel Clarke, an NHS palliative care doctor, author and medical commentator, told me that inaction by medical authorities was allowing Malhotra to “scaremonger with impunity”. Spreading misinformation, she said, could incite people to act in ways that harm their health, such as rejecting vaccination out of hand: “That is deeply wrong . . . Malhotra’s free speech as an individual is irrelevant to what he can and can’t say as a doctor, which should be curtailed by his duty to do no harm.”  

Malhotra is used to controversy: he disputes the benefits of statins and questions the role of saturated fats in heart health. A General Medical Council spokesperson said: “We are aware of comments made by Dr Aseem Malhotra and we will consider them with care before deciding what action, if any, may be necessary.”

Malhotra denied peddling misinformation and defended his speech, telling the FT it was intended “to highlight that commercial distortions of the scientific evidence (including biased reporting in the media) are at the root of the healthcare crisis. I’m pro drug and vaccine safety in keeping with the principles of ethical evidence-based medical practice.” Malhotra said his speech was in keeping with GMC rules and the Nolan principles of public life. He added: “I think use of the word ‘anti-vax’ as a form of abuse should be considered a hate crime.” 

Reform is closely allied to the Maga movement and Malhotra, an adviser to US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, helped with the party’s “Make Britain Healthy Again” health policy. Kennedy’s impact on American public health has been brutal: diminishing or dismantling health agencies, cancelling research, sacking experts and promoting vaccine sceptics. Last month, Kennedy cancelled $500mn of research into future mRNA vaccines.

The public is not at fault for falling for pseudoscience, Clarke argues, because “they are floundering in an unregulated morass of claim and counterclaim on social media”. The starting point is always to understand people’s concerns, she says, and move to calm and respectful discussion.

Tech companies, meanwhile, surely bear some responsibility for any misinformation on their platforms; people in power have a duty to call it out. “Prebunking” myths ahead of time can help: mRNA technology did not come from nowhere but had been in development for decades. Transparency is key: no drug or medicine is completely free of adverse effects and what matters is weighing the benefits against possible harms.

This is no time for scientists to be timid. It would be a mistake to think the chaos unfolding in US labs and research institutes could not happen elsewhere.

FT : What next for troubled Ørsted?

What next for troubled Ørsted?
Danish group likely to scale back the global drive that made it the world’s top offshore wind developer

The head of the Danish Shareholders’ Association posed several questions to Ørsted’s management as investors gathered in Copenhagen on Friday to vote on the troubled offshore wind company’s plans to tap them for $9bn.

Would the company — whose bet on the US has turned sour — need further cash injections in the future? Was Ørsted’s top team up to the job? “Thousands of Danish shareholders deserve . . . clarity,” said Mikael Bak, the association’s chief executive.

Shareholders gave management the benefit of any doubt this time and approved the plan to raise three-quarters of the company’s market value in new capital, the terms of which will be set out in an upcoming prospectus.

It should give the Copenhagen-listed company the funds to finish its 924-megawatt Sunrise Wind development off the New York coast, despite being unable to sell a stake in the project amid US government hostility to the industry, and the rest of the 8.1 gigawatts of offshore wind it is building in the US, UK, Poland and Taiwan.

But with US President Donald Trump continuing to rail against the sector, and the era of rock-bottom interest rates that fuelled the industry’s growth at an end, Ørsted executives indicated the company was unlikely to keep to the global ambitions that made it the world’s largest offshore wind developer.

Instead of the aggressive expansion that transformed Ørsted from an oil and gas driller into a green industry champion — while pushing the rest of the industry forward — it is narrowing its focus to finish the development under way and looking to Europe for any future mega projects.

It is also pulling back from areas such as onshore wind and hydrogen and seeking to hold a larger slice of its projects than previously, while boosting its power trading division.

This marks an evolution from the “build, sell down, build” model that propelled Ørsted’s expansion, and raises questions about the growth of the offshore wind and renewables industry despite global decarbonisation goals.

“The future Ørsted will primarily allocate capital to offshore wind in Europe,” its chair Lene Skole told shareholders.



Industry costs have grown sharply in recent years as interest rates rose and suppliers rebelled after a long period of squeezed margins, causing problems for several offshore wind farms being built and harming political support.

Ørsted abandoned two US projects in 2023, before Trump was re-elected, triggering multibillion-dollar writedowns and accelerating a share price slide, which has reached almost 80 per cent over the past five years.

Completing the projects under way should help Ørsted restore its finances, bringing in roughly DKr11bn ($1.7bn) to DKr12bn of earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation annually from 2028, and adding to the 18.5GW of renewables it has developed around the world, of which it now owns a 12GW share.

That portfolio is one factor persuading investors to stick with the company, regardless of prospects for growth beyond the current build-out. Ørsted has said it planned to resume dividends next year, having suspended them in 2024.

Charles Lemonides, chief investment officer at hedge fund ValueWorks, an Ørsted investor, said: “They’ve put up windmills around the world and they’re generating electricity and cash flows, and those assets are worth money regardless of what Donald Trump says.”

But completing the current build is no small order. The US government in August ordered Ørsted to stop work on its $1.5bn Revolution Wind development off Rhode Island, which is about 80 per cent complete. Ørsted is challenging the ban in the courts.

The Danish government, which owns 50.1 per cent of Ørsted, was also lobbying the Trump administration to soften its approach to the industry, said people familiar with the matter, mindful of the damage it may do to Danish companies across the supply chain.

Yet Copenhagen’s efforts may have to be redoubled. “There isn’t a future for offshore wind because it’s too expensive and not reliable enough,” Trump’s interior secretary Doug Burgum told the Gastech conference in Milan this week, saying the administration was taking a “deep look” at each of the current projects under construction.

Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind account for about 20 per cent of the offshore wind capacity Ørsted is building. As well as fending off Trump, the company also needs to raise further cash to fund its programmes by selling off its European onshore wind business as well as stakes in two major projects in Taiwan and off the east coast of the UK, testing the appetite of offshore wind investors.

Ørsted, which announced 800 job cuts in 2024, is also weighing further spending reductions, with announcements planned for later this year. “We’re in the process of right-sizing our organisation to the reality we’re in,” said Rasmus Errboe, chief executive.

He pledged a “value over volume” approach to new projects, highlighting the potential for the technology in Europe, where politicians want to expand capacity from about 37GW to at least 300GW by 2050 to meet decarbonisation goals. About 1GW of offshore wind can supply electricity for 1mn homes.

The decision by Norway’s state-controlled energy company Equinor to take a 10 per cent stake in Ørsted last October raises the prospect of closer industrial tie-up between the Scandinavian nations. Equinor will subscribe to the rights issue and nominate a director to Ørsted’s board.


But the rising costs and supply chain strains has tempered some of the optimism in Europe. Developers have shunned recent auctions for new projects in Denmark and Germany, while the opposition Reform UK party, which leads British opinion polls several years away from a general election, has threatened to withdraw state support.

One of Ørsted’s wind farms in Germany stands idle as its grid connection is not ready, while demand for the electricity produced is subdued partly because of high costs and technical challenges.

“Electricity demand is not as big as we expected it to be at this stage,” said Giles Dickson, outgoing chief executive of the WindEurope trade group.

“A few years ago, heavy industry in the Netherlands was saying to us, ‘please build offshore wind farms now, we want to electrify’. Then heavy industry realised it was actually very difficult to electrify [and] the business case wasn’t there.”

Despite the uncertain future, some shareholders take a forgiving view.

“Ørsted has had mis-steps for sure,” said Lemonides of ValueWorks. “But they’ve also done more to advance this industry than anybody else. Part of being a leader is sometimes you hit roadblocks.”

FT : Advent strikes €4.1bn deal to sell generic drugmaker Zentiva to GTCR

Advent strikes €4.1bn deal to sell generic drugmaker Zentiva to GTCR
Sale is second private equity-backed healthcare transaction within weeks in Europe

Chicago-based private equity group GTCR has struck a €4.1bn deal to buy generic drugmaker Zentiva from Advent International, in Europe’s second big private equity-backed generics deal this year.

The takeover, which follows a competitive bidding process, comes a week after CapVest acquired a majority stake in rival generic drugmaker Stada, valuing the business at €10bn.

The deal to buy the Prague-based company, which was the generic drug unit of French pharmaceutical company Sanofi before being carved out in 2018, has been signed and is set to be announced in the coming days, said two people familiar with the matter.

Zentiva is valued at €4.1bn including debt, the people said. The sale will mark a profitable exit for Advent, which bought the former Sanofi unit for €1.9bn seven years ago. The company traces its origins to a centuries-old pharmacy in Prague and operates in 35 countries across Europe.

GTCR was previously in talks to buy Stada, according to separate people familiar with the matter. GTCR, which has $46.7bn of assets under management, has invested heavily in healthcare companies.

Advent declined to comment. GTCR did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The company has supplied over-the-counter medicines, such as paracetamol and co-codamol, to more than 100mn patients across Europe, with a target to reach one in five Europeans by the end of the decade.

There were $198bn in healthcare deals globally until the end of August, up 2 per cent on the same period last year, according to LSEG Intelligence data, with private equity striking a series of deals to buy generic drugmakers, contract drug manufacturers and other life sciences companies.

>>> US After Hours Summary: OXM +16.3% sharply higher on earnings; OPEN +14.2% h

After Hours Summary: OXM +16.3% sharply higher on earnings; OPEN +14.2% higher on naming Shopify COO as new CEO; QMCO -17% and KEQU -16.3% lower on earnings
After Hours Gainers:

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: OXM +16.3%, AVNW +6.2%,

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: OPEN +14.2% (names new CEO and Chairman; also $40 mln in PIPE financing), RVMD +7.9% (new clinical results of RASolute 303), WOLF +3% (launches 200mm SiC material products), MLP +2.3% (strategic evaluation of water source and transmission assets), UDMY +2.2% (authorizes new $50 mln share repurchase program), VCTR +2% (reports Auugust AUM), AB +1.9% (reports August AUM), CIGI +0.5% (engineering platform acquires LRL Associates), GOOD +0.3% (10-yr lease extension with JBT Marel Corp.), ORCL +0.3% (initiated plans to restructure in 10-Q filing), AGX +0.2% (increases dividend), FAF +0.1% (increases dividend), APAM +0.1% (reports preliminary August AUM),

After Hours Losers:

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: QMCO -17%, KEQU -16.3%,

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: RNA -21.7% (proposed public offering of common stock), VERI -14.3% (public offering of common stock), ENVX -12.6% (private placement of convertible senior notes), WAY -3.9% (secondary offering of common stock), CAPR -2.5% (files for $300 mln mixed securities shelf offering), BABA -2.1% (proposed convertible notes offering), INBK -1.9% (to sell nearly $1 bln of single tenant lease financing loans), ALK -1.1% (names CEO of Hawaiian Airlines segment), AVAV -0.3% (first launch of Switchblade 600 from MQ-9A), EQT -0.2% (files mixed securities shelf offering)