TheChek News Flow

The company sees demand for more than 43,000 passenger and freighter aircraft between 2025 and 2044

Airbus AIR -0.79%decrease; red down pointing triangle said it would increase shareholder returns in the coming years, betting that strong demand for aircraft will continue to fuel growth.

The European plane maker said Wednesday that it was lifting its dividend payout ratio to between 30% and 50% from a current range of 30% to 40%. The company said special dividends and share buybacks remained on the table to return extra cash to shareholders.

The announcement came during the Paris Air Show trade event where Airbus secured several aircraft orders, underscoring strong demand for planes as airlines continue to expand capacity. LOT Polish Airlines ordered 20 A220-100 and 20 A220-300 narrow-body aircraft, while Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Air ordered 25 A350-1000 wide-body aircraft.

Airbus sees demand for more than 43,000 passenger and freighter aircraft between 2025 and 2044, saying it expects a higher proportion of deliveries to replace older, less fuel-efficient planes.

Still, the group remains in a difficult spot: Airbus has to navigate uncertainty from President Trump’s tariffs, as well as supply-chain hurdles that have made it difficult to procure the parts it needs to assemble its planes.

The company backed its aircraft-delivery and financial targets for the year, which exclude any effects from tariffs. Chief Executive Guillaume Faury said in April that Airbus wouldn’t cover the cost of tariffs for aircraft imported from its overseas factories into the U.S.

The group expects to deliver roughly 820 commercial aircraft to customers this year, more than the 766 planes it dispatched in 2024. The company had shipped 243 planes by the end of May, cautioning that the bulk of deliveries would be made later in the year due to supply-chain bottlenecks.

Airbus recently agreed to acquire some Spirit AeroSystems Holdings facilities that make parts for its jets in the U.S., Europe and Africa, moving to take direct control of production in a bid to stabilize supply chains after months of disruption. Faury previously said that challenges, in particular with Spirit, were putting pressure on plans to ramp up production of its A220 narrow-body and A350 wide-body aircraft.

The company said Wednesday that working with suppliers helped it to mitigate the effect of supply-chain snags. However, procuring engines and cabin equipment remained difficult, it said.

Airbus expects to produce 14 of its A220 aircraft a month in 2026 and 75 A320 narrow-body planes a month in 2027. It also expects around four A330 planes a month, though it didn’t provide a date. For its bigger model, the company continues to target 12 A350s a month in 2028. Airbus has had to delay the entry of the A350 freighter variant into service to the second half of 2027 from 2026 previously.

Adjusted earnings before interest and taxes—Airbus’s preferred measure of profitability—are expected at around 7 billion euros ($8.04 billion) this year, while free cash flow before customer financing—a metric closely watched by analysts and investors—is projected at around 4.5 billion euros.

Investors have approached Anysphere, the company behind the popular AI coding assistant Cursor, offering to invest in the company at a valuation of $18 billion to $20 billion in recent weeks, Bloomberg reported. The company might not agree to the offers, according to the report.

But if the company does accept the funding, it would double its valuation from $9 billion earlier this month, when it raised $900 million led by Thrive Capital, Bloomberg reported, adding that the company had surpassed $500 million in annualized revenue.

Cursor has already helped define coding as a key application for large language models. The doubled valuation immediately following its last funding round would further establish Anysphere as a breakout winner of the generative AI boom.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been on something of a hiring spree lately, trying to staff up Meta’s new superintelligence team with top-tier AI researchers from competing labs. To work on a team led by former Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang and at a desk physically near Zuckerberg, Meta has reportedly offered employees from OpenAI and Google DeepMind compensation packages worth upwards of $100 million.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman confirmed those reports on a podcast with his brother, Jack Altman, which was published on Tuesday. However, the OpenAI CEO noted that Zuckerberg’s recruiting efforts have been largely unsuccessful and made sure to throw a few more digs at Meta in the process.

“[Meta has] started making these, like, giant offers to a lot of people on our team,” Sam Altman said on the podcast. “You know, like, $100 million signing bonuses, more than that [in] compensation per year […] I’m really happy that, at least so far, none of our best people have decided to take him up on that.”

The OpenAI CEO said he believed his employees made the assessment that OpenAI had a better chance of achieving AGI and may one day be the more valuable company. He also said he believes Meta’s focus on high compensation packages for employees, rather than the mission of delivering AGI, would likely not create a great culture.

Meta reportedly tried to poach one of OpenAI’s lead researchers, Noam Brown, as well as Google’s AI architect, Koray Kavukcuoglu. However, both efforts were unsuccessful.

Sam Altman went on to say he believes OpenAI’s culture of innovation has been a major key to its success, and that Meta’s “current AI efforts have not worked as well as they hoped.” The OpenAI CEO said he respects many things about Meta but noted he doesn’t “think they’re a company that’s great at innovation.” Later in the podcast, Altman said he believes it’s not enough for companies to catch up on AI — they have to truly innovate to stay ahead.

The OpenAI CEO’s comments highlight some of the challenges that Meta has to overcome in order to build out a successful AI superintelligence lab. Besides bringing on Wang, Meta announced last week that it invested significantly in Wang’s former company, Scale AI. The company has also reportedly nabbed a few star AI researchers, such as Google DeepMind’s Jack Rae and Sesame AI’s Johan Schalkwyk. But there’s more work ahead.

In the coming year, Meta will have to staff up its new AI team while OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind operate at full speed. In the coming months, OpenAI is expected to release an open AI model that’s likely to set Meta back in the AI race even further.

Later on in the podcast, Sam Altman described an AI-powered social media feed that seems likely to encroach on Meta’s apps. The OpenAI CEO said he’s curious about exploring a social media app that uses AI to deliver custom feeds based on what users want, rather than the default, algorithmic feed that exists on traditional social media apps.

OpenAI is reportedly working on a social networking app internally. Meanwhile, Meta is experimenting with an AI-powered social network through its Meta AI app. However, it seems that some users are confused by the Meta AI app and have shared some hyperpersonal chats with the broader world.

Whether AI-powered social networks take off remains to be seen. In the meantime, Zuckerberg and Sam Altman seem poised to butt heads over the AI talent race.

Through its quarterly "Luxury Pulse" survey, the retailer gets into the heads of luxury shoppers across the U.S.

America’s luxury consumers are down on the economy — and that’s no surprise to Saks Global.

On Tuesday, the retailer detailed the results of the latest Saks Global Luxury Pulse survey to WWD, getting into the heads of luxury consumers. The survey found that optimism about the economy continues to decline, driven by economic uncertainty and market volatility.

Fielded from April 24 to April 28, the Luxury Pulse indicated that America’s affluent have been affected by market volatility and flip-flopping tariffs, are worried about a possible recession and are increasingly discerning when spending on luxury. The quarterly survey gathered responses online from 1,248 U.S.-based luxury consumers over age 18 during a time when many of the tariffs in U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war had been paused, starting a 90-day period of negotiation.

Among luxury consumers, the top five concerns are the general social and political climate, a potential recession, personal financial security, stock market volatility and ongoing global conflict.

“We’ve been doing these surveys for a few years and this is another one of those market declines,” said Emily Essner, president and chief commercial officer of Saks Global. “This is a meaningful decline.”

But the situation isn’t entirely bad. “While we saw a decline in how consumers felt about the macro environment, we also saw optimism about their personal finances.” The luxury spending is more tied to how consumer feel about the macro environment, rather than their personal finances, she said.

In addition, “When we think about higher-income spenders, they are last in, first out,” Essner said, meaning, they’re the last group to put the reins on spending during challenging economic times, and the first to rev up their spending when the economy rebounds.

“There is still a desire to spend for moments that are special,” Essner said, referring to holidays, birthdays and other special occasions.

While the survey showed economic sentiments declining, Essner did suggest that attitudes could have changed for the better since the survey was taken in April. Saks’ next Luxury Pulse, to be taken during the summer, could tell a different story from the latest one.

“The most important thing is to understand where their heads are at,” Essner said. The Luxury Pulse, she said, is an important tool for that, helping Saks executives plan and forecast their business.

Given the shifting attitudes among consumers, Essner said the company has to work harder to convey the value, timeliness and high quality of the fashion products it sells and to emphasize that much of the assortment contains “investment pieces” meaning they’ll last well into the future and are not trendy.

In addition, given the state of mind of the luxury consumer, personalization has become an even more important part of the Saks Global strategy, Essner said. Asked if Saks will be more promotional, Essner replied, “We wouldn’t anticipate significantly changing our approach.”

While acknowledging that consumers do get more motivated to shop during strong promotions, Essner said that, “In the end, our strategy is to be decreasing promotionality overall,” and to be more “targeted” with promotions.

Essner also acknowledged that given the dynamic nature of the macro environment and consumer attitudes, planning becomes more challenging. “It’s definitely hard to think six to eight months down the road,” she said.

She also said there were no indicators that luxury consumers were shifting discretionary dollars to areas such as travel and entertainment at the expense of fashion.

Among the key findings from the Luxury Pulse:

• The luxury consumer’s intent to spend on luxury has softened compared to recent surveys, with 47 percent planning to spend the same or more on luxury in the next three months. This represents the lowest level since tracking by Saks began in April 2023, and a decline of 11 percentage points compared with the prior survey.
• Twenty-eight percent of respondents reported feeling optimistic about the economy, which is a decline of 13 percentage points compared with the prior survey fielded in January 2025 and a decline of 17 percentage points compared with the survey fielded in April 2024.
• Luxury consumers are feeling significantly less calm about the economy, with 32 percent feeling calm, representing a decline of 13 percentage points compared with the prior survey and down 22 percentage points compared with the same time last year.
• Despite a decrease in optimism about the economy, the majority of luxury consumers remain optimistic about their personal finances. Sixty-seven percent of those with an income of $200,000 or more said they feel prepared when it comes to their personal finances.

Formerly known as the Saks Luxury Pulse, following the completion of Saks Global’s acquisition of Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman in December, the survey’s scope broadened and it was rebranded as the Saks Global Luxury Pulse. For the year ended Feb. 1, Saks said revenues totaled $3.8 billion. That included about $432 million in sales from Neiman Marcus Group, which was acquired on Dec. 23. Incorporating Neiman’s business for the whole year, sales fell 10 percent to $7.3 billion.

Gulf states tap cheap Chinese batteries to power renewable ambitions

Storage systems are seen as crucial to integrating solar and wind into electrical grids

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are taking advantage of falling prices to load up on Chinese-made battery energy storage systems, so they can boost their renewable energy ambitions.

Battery storage systems are seen as crucial to integrating solar and wind energy into electrical grids. The systems soak up excess power that can be released back into the system when renewable energy is not available — for example at night — and are one of the fastest-growing uses for batteries.

Oil-rich Saudi Arabia and the UAE had been slower to develop renewables than many countries that have to import energy. Saudi Arabia still burns oil to generate electricity, which accounted for just under half its power-generating capacity in 2023, according to BloombergNEF. The International Energy Agency’s latest data shows that the Middle East region accounts for 13 per cent of the world’s fossil fuel investments, but contributes just 2 per cent of those in clean energy. 

However, the two Gulf nations have stepped up construction of solar power plants in recent years, eyeing an opportunity to export more fossil fuels and ease their reliance on imported gas. Riyadh has set itself an ambitious target of 50 per cent of energy use to come from renewables by 2030, while the UAE is aiming for a more modest 44 per cent from clean energy by 2050. Both will require battery energy storage to support their renewables targets, experts say. 

Rystad Energy expects Saudi Arabia’s battery energy storage capacity to surpass 11 gigawatt hours (GWh) by the end of the year, from zero at the start of 2024. According to the consultancy, Saudi Arabia plans to have the world’s fifth-largest utility-scale battery storage capacity, after China, the US, Australia and the UK. 

Meanwhile, the UAE has launched a “gigascale” solar and battery project in Abu Dhabi, which is planned to provide baseload energy 24 hours a day. The plant will have a 19GWh battery storage system, and is a partnership between utility Emirates Water and Electricity Company and renewables group Masdar. Abdulaziz Alobaidli, Masdar’s chief operating officer, says it is the company’s “largest and most ambitious project to date”.  

The latest advances in Chinese battery technology have made the systems better suited for deployment in the Gulf’s harsh conditions, experts say, with the batteries now housed in containers that can be cooled and protected from dust. 

“First it was solar technology to change. That’s got so much cheaper,” says Dave Jones, director of global insights at think-tank Ember. “And now the battery technology has actually improved in itself.” 

Jones says battery units produced in China have improved “by an order of magnitude” over the past two years, and there has been a “remarkable fall” in price thanks to factors such as a greater supply of crucial element lithium than had been previously anticipated. 

Battery cell prices fell to an “unsustainably low level” in 2024, of $50 per kilowatt hour, according to industry think-tank Volta Foundation. These rock bottom prices made competition ever fiercer and discouraged investment, Volta says. With China dominating the supply chain, it drove some companies to diversify overseas, where they could command higher profit margins.

But for Saudi Arabia, cratering battery prices have been a boon. Rystad estimates the cost of installing battery energy storage is far lower than in Europe or the US, because Chinese suppliers charge less and workers are paid less. While building a kilowatt-hour’s worth of battery energy storage in Europe or the US costs about $250, Rystad estimates in Saudi Arabia it is less than $200.

Chinese battery maker BYD, whose electric vehicles are popular in the region, dominates the market in Saudi Arabia. It supplied the equipment for what is said to be the world’s “largest single-phase grid-connected energy storage project” in Bisha, in Saudi’s Asir region. The 2.6GWh project connected to Saudi’s grid early this year. BYD has also signed a contract with the Saudi Electricity Company for a 12.5GWh energy storage project. 

Marek Kubik, director of energy storage at Saudi’s Neom megaproject, estimates the Bisha project “could supply over 90,000 US homes for a whole day off one single charge”.

Meanwhile, technology for Abu Dhabi’s round-the-clock solar and battery project will be provided by Chinese battery maker CATL, whose listing in Hong Kong in May was the world’s biggest so far this year. Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund was among the cornerstone investors.

Europe’s air defence dilemma: can Franco-Italian system rival US Patriot?

New SAMP-T system on display at Paris Air Show seeks buyers amid Europe’s efforts to re-arm

France and Italy are wooing potential buyers of their new joint air defence system at this week’s Paris Air Show, in an effort to convince European armies to reduce their reliance on US weaponry.

European missile champion MBDA, French defence group Thales and Italy’s Leonardo are casting their new generation SAMP-T surface-to-air weapon system as a viable alternative to the best-selling US Patriot. 

With first deliveries expected next year, the commercial performance of the SAMP-T NG will be a litmus test of Europe’s resolve in manufacturing and buying more of its own weapons as it re-arms to face the Russian threat. 

But the Franco-Italian pitch may be an uphill struggle since the older model was not as good as the Patriot, and many countries already have the US system installed.

One factor playing in their favour: the geopolitical shifts triggered by the Trump administration.

Donald Trump’s cold shoulder to Europe has prompted even staunch Atlanticists such as Germany and Poland to question whether the US president is still a reliable ally. 

“It always used to be a safe buy if you bought American,” said Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. But now “if you are an American defence contractor you will be aware [that geopolitics] . . . make your sales pitch that little bit harder”. 

In a sign of the SAMP-T NG’s strategic importance, the French and Italian defence ministers on Wednesday are scheduled to jointly visit the stand where the weapon is on display. Last year, the pair also wrote a letter to their European peers to vaunt the system’s advantages compared with the Patriot.

French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen have argued that the region needs to be more self-sufficient, but it remains to be seen whether this will curb decades of reliance on US-made equipment. 

Europe’s lack of domestic air and missile defence capabilities has come into sharp focus since the start of the war in Ukraine. Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte has estimated that about four times more systems are needed than the alliance has today.

MBDA, Thales, and Leonardo are eager to be part of the rearmament push. 

Usually mounted on a truck, the SAMP-T NG uses precise radars to target and fire long-range missiles that can shoot down aircraft, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, at a distance of more than 150km. It can fire up to 48 Aster missiles, which are manufactured by MBDA and battle tested in Yemen and Ukraine.

The original version of the SAMP-T that debuted in 2010 got little traction as so many countries were already locked into the American system. The first SAMP-T was only bought by France and Italy, while a marine variant was also bought by them and the UK Royal Navy. Only 23 in total were produced.

Ukrainian forces have reported subpar results from the original SAMP-T, including targeting issues and its inability to intercept Russian ballistic missiles. Patriot, by contrast, has been crucial in defending Kyiv and other cities from Russia’s aerial attacks.

For those reasons, some experts believe that the US model will continue to be the market leader. But backers of the SAMP-T NG claim that the new version matches the Patriot, while being cheaper to operate since it requires less manpower and is easier to transport. 

Eric Beranger, the chief executive of MBDA, said he was convinced the SAMP-T NG would have better commercial prospects than its predecessor. “Air defence is indeed now a very, very key concern for a number of countries. We have countries who are interested,” he told the Financial Times this spring.

The French and Italian armies will be the first customers, receiving the SAMP-T NG starting next year.

Denmark and Belgium were both evaluating the SAMP-T NG versus the Patriot in ongoing procurement processes, said people familiar with the matter. For Belgium, it would be the first time it has bought air defence systems in years, so an official said the process could take several years given that its expertise was “almost zero”. 

But the current rightwing Belgian government has pledged to follow its neighbour, the Netherlands, which has committed to buying more Patriots — although no final decision has been taken yet.

Other countries such as Greece, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil may also look at the Franco-Italian model when their existing Patriot systems will require an upgrade, although that would be years off. 

“Today the decision to buy Patriot or SAMP-T is more political than qualitative,” said Michel Yakovleff, a former general in the French army who also served at Nato.

“Among European countries, there is simply a lack of dedication to buying European.”

Many European countries buy American in an implicit bargain that they will continue to benefit from the US security umbrella. The US government does play an active role in cajoling purchases from European countries, which are all too aware of the importance of having access to America’s extensive intelligence and surveillance network. 

Europe remains divided on the strategy for air defences, although all agree much more investment is needed. Those rifts were on stark display when Germany spearheaded the creation of Sky Shield in 2022, a buying club for countries to jointly order Patriot, and Israeli and German systems. Some 25 countries have since joined, although only a few have put in orders. 

Macron has vehemently opposed Sky Shield since it excluded the SAMP-T, and would lock European countries into the Patriot for decades to come.

“The US is a historical ally, but at a certain point they will put their interests first,” Macron told the FT this year. “Do you think they will have enough Patriots for other customers then? Well, that’s why it’s good we have the new SAMP-T NG — and it is better than the Patriot.” 

Justin Bronk, an expert on air power at the Royal United Services Institute, said it was “more likely” that the SAMP-T NG would be “selected over Patriot than in previous” tenders given the focus among European governments on boosting sovereign resilience.

A shortage of Patriot interceptor missiles, the PAC-2 and the PAC-3, which have mostly been funnelled to Ukraine, was another factor in considering the Franco-Italian option, Bronk said. 

Raytheon, maker of the Patriot system together with Lockheed Martin, told the FT that the company continued to “invest to increase production”. Tom Laliberty, president of land and air defence systems at Raytheon, said that by the end of this year the company would have “accelerated delivery times for Patriot radars by 25 per cent”. 

Bronk added that it would also help the SAMP-T NG’s chances if Europe were able to “up its game and deliver” faster manufacturing, although this would “require more aggressive investment in production”.

The European Commission has spearheaded several initiatives on how to expand investment in the arms sector, including by offering governments more funding, relaxing fiscal rules for defence spending and offering to pool orders to scale up production.

The defence contractors behind the SAMP-T said they will be able to keep up, if the demand comes. At a factory in Limours, south of Paris, Thales has multiplied its production of its radars by three to respond to strong demand.

Hervé Dammann, who heads land and air systems at Thales said: “Give us more orders, we have already proven our ability to ramp up, and are ready to do even more.”