TheChek News Flow

DAX:

MDAX:

SDAX:

Walmart’s $1.4 billion purchase of New York–based advertising technology startup Vibe on Tuesday is a reminder of how serious the retail giant is about building its ad business.

Walmart is paying a big price for Vibe, which helps small businesses buy ads on streaming platforms and will allow Walmart to reach more advertisers looking to buy spots on its site. The $1.4 billion price, which includes a $180 million executive retention payment, is more than three times the startup’s last private valuation of $410 million last September.

Vibe’s investors include London-based venture firm Hedosophia, Sequoia’s Scout Fund and former Meta Platforms executive Carolyn Everson.

Vibe made $105 million in gross revenue in 2025, although its net revenue—after forking over a share of advertiser purchase to streaming platforms—was only $44 million. It estimates net revenue will more than double to $111 million this year, according to financial projections seen by The Information. (Its financials haven’t been previously reported.)

On that basis, Walmart is paying 12.6 times projected 2026 revenue for Vibe. In contrast, a Vibe competitor, MNTN, is trading at only about 1 times this year’s expected revenue, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. The Trade Desk, another ad tech firm that works with Walmart, among others, is trading at 2.4 times projected 2026 revenue, according to S&P data.

A spokesperson for Walmart declined to comment. Vibe didn’t respond to requests for comments.

Walmart already has a string of partnerships with ad tech firms to help sell ad inventory on its site, including with Yahoo, Google and The Trade Desk.

Advertising is a small but fast-growing part of Walmart’s business. The retailer uses data it gathers on its shoppers to target people wherever they go on the internet. Walmart’s ad revenue rose 46% last year to $6.4 billion. That’s a fraction of the $68 billion Amazon generated from advertising last year, but it’s ahead of digital ad firms such as Snap and Pinterest.

The purchase of Vibe allows Walmart to control more of the tech for its own ad business, which it has shown a penchant for doing. Walmart’s acquisition of Vizio for $2.3 billion in 2024 enabled it to control the operating system in its house-brand TVs, on which it can run ads. Previously, Walmart relied on Roku’s operating system to power its televisions.

Walmart archrival Amazon also has been emphasizing its ad tech capabilities in conversations with advertisers. In recent years, Amazon has been pitching its advertising technology as the ideal place to buy ads across the web and TV, and not just on its own website, The Information has previously reported.

Prosecutors charged around 450 defendants in alleged fraud spanning Medicaid and hospice care

WASHINGTON—The Justice Department on Tuesday unveiled charges against around 450 defendants for alleged healthcare fraud totaling over $6.5 billion as part of the Trump administration’s stepped-up antifraud efforts.

The announcement includes charges against 90 medical professionals and targets a range of alleged healthcare fraud schemes, such as wound care and opioid distribution. It also includes what officials said is a record number of Medicaid fraud defendants, with nearly 300 people accused of submitting over $500 million in false Medicaid claims.

Federal officials said the operation spanned 57 federal court districts and 41 states and territories, involving 46 state Medicaid Fraud Control Units in what they described as the department’s largest coordinated antifraud effort to date. They added that authorities seized more than $127 million in cash, luxury vehicles, jewelry and other assets.

“This announcement marks the greatest combined federal and state effort in combating healthcare fraud in history,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters Tuesday. “These alleged fraudsters will face justice.”

In one of the cases, prosecutors charged the owner of several healthcare businesses in the Los Angeles area, including at least four hospices, with a scheme that they say involved paying kickbacks and bribes to enroll people who weren’t actually terminally ill in hospice care. Prosecutors allege the scheme resulted in nearly $27.7 million in fraudulent Medicare claims for medically unnecessary hospice services, with Medicare paying about $26.9 million.

According to the indictment, prosecutors allege the scheme involved enrolling deceased Medicare beneficiaries in hospice after their deaths using stolen personal information obtained through a funeral home employee, and creating backdated medical records to make it appear the patients had qualified for hospice before they died.

The owner of the hospices, Oren David Shachar, also personally approached Medicare beneficiaries, according to the indictment, misrepresented hospice as a program focused on improving quality of life rather than end-of-life care, and concealed that enrolling in hospice would limit their access to other Medicare-covered treatments. The indictment further alleges that the owner paid beneficiaries up to $400 a month in cash and provided groceries, alcohol, televisions, furniture and other gifts to keep them enrolled, while also offering referral payments to beneficiaries who recruited others into the program.

A lawyer for Shachar, who pleaded not guilty in the case, didn’t return a request for comment.

Officials said the Los Angeles case illustrates the types of complex fraud schemes the department is seeking to identify earlier through new investigative tools and expanded coordination across agencies.

“This was a concerted effort to stay under the radar, and it indicates the cat-and-mouse game that we’re involved in,” said Jacob Foster, acting chief of the Justice Department’s Health Care Fraud Unit.

The Trump administration has intensified its focus on what it describes as government waste while launching a so-called “war on fraud.” Democratic critics have argued some of the administration’s efforts are politically motivated attempts to target blue states and programs that conservatives have sought to cut, such as Medicaid, a federal and state program that provides health coverage to millions of low-income people.

As part of Tuesday’s announcement, the Justice Department also unveiled a series of new data-sharing agreements across the federal government that officials said will significantly expand their access to fraud-related data.

Among them are memorandums of understanding with the Federal Trade Commission, giving prosecutors access to consumer-complaint data relevant to telemarketing and telemedicine scams. Officials announced an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security, providing travel information that can help identify providers billing for services while they are physically outside their clinics.

The Justice Department also announced an agreement with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that gives prosecutors access to CMS’s fraud-detection system, which uses machine learning to identify suspicious billing by healthcare providers. Officials said the tool is already helping investigators spot potential fraud faster and send cases to specialized teams that analyze emerging fraud trends.

Cerebras Nearly Doubles Revenue, But Projects Full-Year Negative Margins

Chip maker says it expects to keep operating at a loss, highlighting the heavy costs of the AI buildout

Cerebras CBRS 1.02%increase; up pointing triangle Systems narrowed its loss and reported revenue nearly doubling in its first earnings release as a public company, but said it expects its margins to remain negative through the end of the year.

The company raised about $5.6 billion in its May initial public offering, fueled by enthusiasm about its flagship Wafer-Scale Engine chip, which is purpose-built for artificial-intelligence models. Its first-quarter results show that enthusiasm is continuing, executives said.

“Our strong financial performance in Q1 highlights the large and rapidly growing opportunity in front of us,” Chief Financial Officer Bob Komin said. “We are focused on innovating at the pace of demand, supporting accelerating investments in growth and capitalization on strategic opportunities while effectively managing our capital structure.”

But the company said it expects to keep operating at a loss, highlighting the heavy costs of the AI build-out. It projected full-year core operating margins, which exclude certain items, of between negative 28% and negative 32%.

The release comes amid a broader selloff in the tech sector, as investors worry about AI costs and possible rate increases from the Federal Reserve.

Shares in Cerebras fell 8.2% to $208.12 in after-hours trading on Tuesday. The stock closed up 1% at $226.72, down 27% since its IPO.

The company reported a first-quarter loss of $14 million, or 22 cents a share. That compares with a loss of $23.9 million, or 46 cents a share, a year earlier. Analysts polled by FactSet were expecting a reported loss of 25 cents a share.

Revenue rose 94% to $193.4 million, beating the $181.2 million analysts were expecting.

Hardware revenue grew 59% to $110.6 million, while revenue from cloud and other services jumped nearly tripled to $82.8 million.

For the current second quarter, the company is expecting core revenue to grow 88% to around $194 million. Core revenue excludes certain items including customer warrant amortization, data-center pass through revenues and costs, and stock-based compensation.

It is projecting full-year core revenue of between $855 million and $865 million, representing 69% growth at the midpoint.

Ariel Emanuel in talks to buy West End and Broadway giant ATG for $6bn

People familiar with the situation hope deal can be concluded soon with theatre group’s private equity owner Providence

American media mogul Ariel Emanuel is in advanced talks to buy theatre group ATG Entertainment for £4.5bn ($6bn). 

ATG has been owned by private equity firm Providence since a £350mn deal in 2013 and after a series of acquisitions now owns about 70 venues across the UK, US and Europe. Blackstone bought a minority stake in the business in 2024. 

US-based Providence is now in exclusive talks to sell to Emanuel’s Mari Group amid hopes a deal can be concluded within the next month, four people close to the situation said. The timing could still slip and a deal is not confirmed, one of the people stressed.

The theatre group owns London West End venues including the Lyceum, which stages The Lion King, and the Savoy Theatre, which is currently staging the award-winning production of Paddington the Musical. In the US it owns Broadway theatres including the Lyric, which shows Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. It also owns theatres across the UK including Liverpool’s Empire Theatre.

The theatre group last year explored a takeover of TodayTix, which helped facilitate paperless tickets to venues, only to lose out to Emanuel’s new media group venture, Mari, which is now in the late-stage talks to swoop on ATG.

Mari was founded last year by Emanuel, who is also executive chair of talent agency WME Group and represents some of the biggest names in entertainment including Oprah Winfrey and Martin Scorsese. 

Mari was launched with $2bn of equity and its investors include Apollo, Redbird Capital and Qatar Investment Authority. The business has already invested in the Frieze art festival and London’s Winter Wonderland theme park as well as sports events including the Miami Open tennis tournament. 

ATG was founded by husband and wife team Sir Howard Panter and Dame Rosemary Squire in 1992 as the Ambassador Theatre Group. The business has bounced back from theatre closures and restrictions during the Covid pandemic to record an operating profit of £160.9mn in the year to the end of March 2025. 

Providence had considered an exit of ATG in 2020, only for the pandemic to disrupt the theatre group’s operations. 

Mari and Providence declined to comment. ATG did not respond to an immediate request for comment.

US billionaire’s fund participated in €500mn funding round despite previous criticism of company’s links with financier

A venture capital firm founded by US billionaire Peter Thiel was a leading investor in a newly closed €500mn funding round by German drone start-up Stark, despite previous criticism of the company over its links with the financier.

Thiel’s Founders Fund was one of the backers in the new funding round, announced on Tuesday. The fund played a significant role in the fundraising, according to people familiar with the deal, while California-headquartered Sequoia Capital was also a substantial investor. The new funding round values Stark at €3.2bn.

Both Sequoia and Founders Fund, co-founded by Thiel, have previously invested in Stark, which this year struck a deal to supply its “kamikaze” attack drones to the German armed forces.

Stark told members of the German Bundestag on Monday, in a letter seen by the FT, that “Peter Thiel himself” continued to hold “significantly less than 10 per cent of Stark’s shares”.

The company said that his stake had been “further significantly reduced as a result of this round”, adding that he held no special rights, no supervisory board role, no special voting rights and no access to security-critical technical information or intellectual property.

Stark told the FT that Thiel’s overall shareholding in the company — including all direct and indirect investments — would decrease as a result of the funding round.

The drone-maker said in a statement that it was “a European company, incorporated and headquartered in Europe, with a fully European supervisory board. All its leadership, operations and decision-making are based in Europe.”

It added: “Peter Thiel through his investment holds a single-digit stake. He is not a member of the supervisory board and holds no special rights.

“No individual shareholder has access to sensitive information . . . which [is] strictly subject to applicable legal and regulatory requirements.”

Berlin-based Stark’s decision to take more funding from one of Thiel’s funds comes after the start-up faced a political backlash this year about the role of the libertarian billionaire, who has close links to US President Donald Trump.

German defence minister Boris Pistorius previously said that he had concerns over Thiel’s involvement, saying in February that “we simply need to clarify what influence Mr Thiel actually has”.

Sebastian Schäfer⁩, a Green lawmaker who has previously criticised Thiel’s links to Stark, said that he was alarmed by Founders Fund’s role in the latest round.

“What I hear from companies like Stark is that it’s still very difficult to find money in Europe. But there are alternatives. We see other companies that don’t need his money to scale up and be successful.”

Stark makes armed drones designed to blow up a target on impact and in February was one of three companies awarded a deal — worth roughly €300mn each — to supply the lethal weapons to Germany’s armed forces. The company last year opened a factory in the UK town of Swindon.

Stark, which announced the fundraising round and notified lawmakers after they were approached by the FT for comment, has become one of the most high-profile players in Europe’s defence tech industry at a time when the continent’s governments are increasing spending on their militaries.

Other well-known groups such as Germany’s Helsing and Quantum Systems are also discussing large fundraisings including increased valuations. 

Those deals are being negotiated against a backdrop of falling share prices for listed defence groups, as venture capitalists bet that a new generation of defence technology companies will grow quickly and secure future contracts.

US investors have been among the most eager backers of defence technology groups. Founders Fund is also a key investor in the $61bn defence tech start-up Anduril Industries.

Other investors who took part in the latest Stark fundraising round included the Nato Innovation Fund, Project A and Döpfner Capital, a VC firm headed by the son of Axel Springer chief executive Mathias Döpfner.

Uwe Horstmann, founder and chief executive of Stark, said: “This financing is a €500mn commitment to Europe’s defence industrial base — funding the engineers, factories and technologies that Europe needs now.”

Founders Fund declined to comment.

The company has already begun by shedding non-core assets

Porsche is in talks to cut jobs as it pushes ahead with a broader streamlining plan that seeks to put the German sportscar maker on firmer footing for the future.

Open discussions are underway with employee representatives on the adjustment of employee numbers alongside other initiatives to ensure the competitiveness of Porsche’s sites, Chief Executive Michael Leiters said in a statement from the company’s annual shareholder meeting Tuesday.

With discussions “in full swing,” Leiters said in a speech at the meeting that it wasn’t possible to provide further details on job cuts at the moment.

The CEO previously outlined plans to streamline the automaker and boost profit by realigning the strategy to counter a slow uptake of electric vehicles, weakness in China, and U.S. tariffs.

The company has already begun by shedding non-core assets, with an agreement to sell out its stakes in hypercar joint venture Bugatti Rimac and electric-vehicle maker Rimac Group. It has also moved to shut down its battery-tech developer Cellforce Group, e-bike electric drive systems developer Porsche eBike Performance and Cetitec, a company that produces specialized software for data communications.

In the same statement, Leiters said he is focusing the company on its core business, structurally adapting the organization and streamlining it across the board.

“But in order to secure our competitiveness in the long term, the streamlining of the company planned so far will not be enough,” he said.

Porsche is investing in new gas-powered and hybrid models after delaying the rollout of new all-electric vehicles, with Leiters targeting a value-over-volume strategy that seeks profitability over maximizing sales volumes by producing more higher-margin, desirable cars.

The company is also reducing the number of model variants, allowing it to focus on a smaller range of more appealing cars.

It plans to present a full strategy for the period to 2035 at an investor event in October, but it said the key elements of the plan are centered on the brand and customer, products and technology, and the company and operations.

Porsche also used the meeting to confirm its full-year guidance, despite a “very challenging” market environment. It still expects sales this year at between 35 billion and 36 billion euros ($40 billion-$41.14 billion), an operating margin of 5.5% to 7.5% and an automotive net cash flow margin between 3% and 5%.

One-off costs related to its restructuring are expected at 800 million to 900 million euros this year, while tariff costs are guided to around 700 million euros.