Corporate Actions

Aira Factoring Public Company Limited, or AF, has set a target for total loan disbursements in 2026 of approximately 18 to 19 billion baht, while continuing to prioritise asset quality management alongside growth. Chief Executive Officer Akarawit Suksai said the company will focus on lending to roughly four main industry groups: medical and healthcare businesses, businesses related to clean energy, packaging and eco-friendly materials businesses, and food and beverage businesses, with particular emphasis on medical and healthcare, which is supported by an ageing society. In 2027, the company plans to place greater weight on expanding lending in this industry. As for ESG Finance loans, which have been operating for about two years, they are expected to grow by no less than 15% this year compared with last year. Overall loan disbursements this year are expected to expand at a rate similar to last year, or grow by no more than about 5 to 6%. Non-performing loans, or NPLs, are expected to remain at a level close to the roughly 9% seen at the start of the year, and the company estimates that industry NPLs for the full year may be in a range of about 9 to 11%. For its strategy in the fourth quarter of 2026, the company will increase the weight of lending to business groups that benefit from the peak season, especially services, food, and beverages. If the government's economic stimulus measures, such as the "Thai Help Thai" scheme, are extended or additional measures are introduced, this will support purchasing power and liquidity in the system, which in turn will benefit the factoring business.

Ollie's Bargain Outlet Holdings reported second-quarter results for the period ended August 1, 2026, with adjusted earnings per share jumping 43.4% to $1.42 while comparable store sales fell 1.8% and net sales rose 9.1% to $741.3 million on new store growth. Management cut its full-year comparable sales outlook to flat-to-0.5% growth and guided net sales to $2.928 billion to $2.941 billion. Among the seven analysts who weighed in, two firms raised their price targets while five cut them, though none turned outright bearish; RBC Capital raised its target to $124 from $121, Truist went to $85 from $80, and Craig-Hallum trimmed to $120 from $130, while Morgan Stanley's Simeon Gutman cut to $98 from $108, BofA to $105 from $115, Piper Sandler's Peter Keith to $100 from $113, and Citi to $98 from $100. Gross margin rose 360 basis points to 43.5%, with 380 basis points of that increase coming from IEEPA tariff refunds worth roughly $0.35 a share, a benefit management is already redeploying into about $15 million of price investment, and CFO Robert Helm flagged rising fuel costs as a 20 to 30 basis point headwind. The company opened 15 new stores in the quarter, bringing the total to 686 across 36 states, up 11.9% year-over-year, while Ollie's Army membership grew 12.7% to 18.1 million, and it ended the quarter with $507.1 million in cash and no meaningful long-term debt, bought back $84 million of stock, and raised its full-year repurchase target to roughly $175 million. Point72 Asset Management raised its stake 45% to 1.51 million shares worth $116.2 million as of the second quarter of 2026, Hood River Capital Management trimmed its position 16% to 742,353 shares worth $57.1 million, Citadel Investment Group cut 11% to 443,728 shares worth $34.1 million, and ExodusPoint Capital took a new position of 346,871 shares worth $26.7 million, with overall hedge fund ownership ticking up to 38 funds from 36 and short interest at 15.00% of float.

BMW is facing a bill of more than £600m from the motor finance mis-selling scandal, one of the biggest hits faced by any lender. In newly filed accounts, the German carmaker's British finance arm increased its provision to cover mis-selling claims from £206m in 2024 to £612m in 2025. That liability is more than the £430m Barclays expects to pay and the £320m set aside by Close Brothers, though it is still dwarfed by Lloyds Banking Group, the worst affected lender, which has provisioned £1.95bn. The Financial Conduct Authority announced a redress scheme in March covering some 12.1 million historic car loan deals, awarding drivers on average around £830 if they were mis-sold car finance, at a cost to lenders of £7.5bn in payouts and £1.5bn in administration. The scheme is currently subject to legal challenges from the UK motor finance arms of Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and the French bank Crédit Agricole, and BMW said the final cost could be materially different as a result. BMW also earmarked an extra £25.5m for agreements not caught by the FCA's plans, and BMW Financial Services (GB) fell to a pre-tax loss of £139m last year from a profit of £39m in 2024.

VERAXA Biotech is entering a new phase of development following its transition to the NASDAQ market and a series of scientific and corporate milestones centered on its proprietary BiTAC platform. The Swiss biotechnology company began trading on the NASDAQ Capital Market under the ticker VRXA in June following the completion of its business combination with Voyager Acquisition Corp. The transaction was accompanied by financing arrangements that included a $27.5 million senior secured note and a securities purchase agreement for up to an undisclosed additional amount. VERAXA is advancing an oncology pipeline built around BiTAC, an AND-gated therapeutic approach in which two complementary components must engage the same cancer cell before the intended cytotoxic mechanism is activated, alongside additional antibody-drug conjugate and engineered-antibody technologies. The company has reported early preclinical evidence for both its BiTAC-TCE and BiTAC-ADC approaches, including an in-vitro proof of concept for BiTAC-ADC announced in June, and recently appointed Raju Willener as CFO and Christoph Erkel, Ph.D., as chief scientific officer.

Lode Gold Resources Inc. has submitted all necessary discharge documents to release the company from its senior secured debt obligations, a move that will free the Fremont Gold Mine from its pledge as security and leave Lode Gold and its subsidiaries with no outstanding loan obligations. With the discharge documents signed and submitted, the company said it can now focus fully on advancing the Fremont Gold Mine through its next phase of technical development, resource expansion and corporate growth. Over the next six months, Lode Gold plans to develop a preliminary mine plan for the Fremont Gold Mine, with the objective of establishing the technical foundation for environmental studies and permitting work. The company described the completion of the loan repayment as an important milestone that allows it to direct its financial and technical resources toward its flagship asset, and said it is now pursuing technical studies to evaluate optimized mine plans. The Fremont Gold Mine is a brownfield project in Mariposa, California, with 43,000 m drilled, 10,000 underground channel samples, 14 adits and 2 shafts, and a 2023 PEA based on 1.16 Moz at 1.90 g/t Au within 19.0 Mt Indicated and 2.02 MOz at 2.22 g/t Au within 28 Mt Inferred.

Friedman Industries, Incorporated announced that its Board of Directors declared a cash dividend of $0.04 per share on the company's Common Stock. The dividend was declared on September 22, 2026, and will be paid on November 13, 2026 to shareholders of record at the close of business on October 23, 2026. The payment marks the company's 219th consecutive quarterly cash dividend since it became publicly traded in 1972. Friedman Industries is a Texas-based company engaged in metals processing, pipe manufacturing, and metals distribution. The Board said it reviews dividends quarterly and aims to pay a level it believes can be held stable for the foreseeable future, though it noted there is no guarantee that dividend payments will always continue.

NVIDIA expects roughly a quarter of its fiscal 2028 business to come from AI labs it will back with its own balance sheet, a concentration management acknowledged some will call circular financing. NVIDIA has already invested nearly $50 billion in frontier AI labs, and for one more lab it will provide credit support for nearly 2 gigawatts of computing capacity, while guaranteeing minimum revenue on part of some cloud partners' facility capacity. Business Insider reported that NVIDIA's overall equity portfolio has reached $99 billion, up from roughly $7 billion in summer 2025, a 14-fold increase. Days of sales outstanding rose to 60 days, which management attributed to extended payment terms for large purchases by certain investment-grade customers shipped over multiple quarters. OpenAI's existing and planned commitments represent about 12 gigawatts of NVIDIA computing, with deployments committed through 2030, and NVIDIA's next update comes at its fiscal Q3 2027 earnings call on November 17.

Mogotes Metals Inc. has outlined exploration plans for the next 12 months across its Filo Sur project in Argentina and Chile, its Beskauga project in Kazakhstan and its Copper Cliff project in Montana, USA. At Filo Sur, the company plans up to 20,000 metres of drilling in the 2026-2027 season, more than three times the 6,208 metres drilled in 2025-2026, with drilling targeted to restart in November 2026 subject to weather and site access. At Beskauga in Pavlodar Province, Kazakhstan, drilling has started and the company plans to continue up to 50,000 metres until winter weather sets in, with first assay results expected in the fourth quarter of 2026 and a preliminary economic assessment targeted within 12 months, to be followed by a pre-feasibility study. At Copper Cliff in Montana, Mogotes plans 8,000 to 9,000 metres of drilling with the earliest possible start in November 2026, pending permits, under an option to enter a joint venture with Kennecott Exploration Company, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto, where Mogotes may earn a 51% interest by funding US$16 million of exploration expenditure over three years. The company also released an updated corporate presentation ahead of the Precious Metals Summit Beaver Creek in Colorado, and clarified that insiders purchased an aggregate of 5,503,323 common shares pursuant to its August 27, 2026 placement, a related party transaction under MI 61-101.

SL Green Realty signed 129 Manhattan office leases totaling 1.76 million square feet from the start of the year through Sept. 14, 2026, with replacement-lease mark-to-market 15.8% above previous fully escalated rents. Manhattan same-store leased occupancy rose to 94.7% as of June 30, 2026, from 93% at year-end 2025, and same-store cash NOI increased 4.3% year over year in the second quarter of 2026, excluding lease termination income, with management expecting leased occupancy to reach 95% by year-end 2026. In July 2026 the company signed a 10-year, 98,420-square-foot lease at 11 Madison Avenue, bringing 2026 office leasing volume to nearly 1.5 million square feet, while first-half 2026 Manhattan office leases carried an average term of 8.5 years. On the capital side, SL Green agreed in September 2026 to sell 110 Greene Street in SoHo to Natora Group for $226 million, with the deal expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026, after selling 10 East 53rd Street, which had been contracted for $312.2 million, in August 2026. The SLG Opportunistic Debt Fund deployed $306.4 million year-to-date through June 2026, including $94.7 million in the second quarter, and SL Green repurchased $14.1 million of common stock in the second quarter of 2026.

Dave's Hot Chicken franchisee TIG Reaper LLC, which operates locations in Pennsylvania, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after Bank Midwest, a division of NBH Bank, filed a complaint against it. The Langhorne, Pa.-based franchisee filed its petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on Sept. 21, 2026, listing $10 million to $50 million in assets and liabilities, and court papers indicate the debtor will have funds available to distribute to unsecured creditors. The filing followed a Sept. 8 complaint by Bank Midwest in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania alleging TIG Reaper may have failed to meet certain debt obligations, and all litigation against the debtor is subject to an automatic stay while the case proceeds. TIG Reaper operates franchises at 9113 Roosevelt Blvd. in Philadelphia and 122 Park Ave. in Willow Grove, Pa., while the Dave's Hot Chicken franchisor itself has not filed for bankruptcy. The broader fried chicken sector is in significant expansion mode in 2026, with chains including Wingstop, Raising Cane's, Slim Chickens and Dave's Hot Chicken collectively planning to open more than 750 new locations by the end of the year, and Dave's Hot Chicken alone targeting 140 new restaurants in 2026 with a $1.6 billion sales goal, up $400 million from 2025.

Exor N.V. announced a share buyback program of up to €500 million alongside its half-year report for 2026, with the buyback to be executed on the market until its next financial results in March 2027. The company said NAV per share declined 3.9% in the first half of 2026, compared with an 11.8% increase in the MSCI World Index. Portfolio simplification continued: Iveco Group completed the sale of its defence business to Leonardo, Tata Motors launched its tender offer for Iveco Group with closing expected in November 2026, and Exor completed divestments in GEDI, Lifenet and NUO and agreed to sell its stake in Welltec. The Welltec deal will return a MOIC of approximately 2.4x and bring Exor's deployable cash to around €4 billion. CEO John Elkann said the reshaping of the portfolio has continued and that the shares trade at a substantial discount to NAV that does not reflect the company's assessment of the intrinsic value of its portfolio.

ACG Acquisition said its updated technical report for the Gediktepe mining operation in Türkiye raised the project's estimated net present value to $1.2 billion at consensus commodity prices and $1.4 billion at spot prices, with estimated net asset value per share of about £34 and approximately £43 respectively. The company raised its expected average production over the next five years to more than 36,000 metric tons of copper equivalent annually, up from an original plan of roughly 20,000 metric tons, and now expects average annual revenue of about $450 million over that period versus roughly $130 million in recent years. ACG acquired Gediktepe for $120 million in September 2024 and is investing a further $200 million in the asset, of which $146 million has been invested, including a flotation plant, while about $60 million is being allocated to a SART plant scheduled to begin production in the third quarter of 2027. For the first half of 2026, ACG reported $90 million in revenue, about $50 million in EBITDA and $30 million in cash flow, and management is targeting a lower-cost refinancing of its $200 million Nordic bond, which began with a 14.7% coupon, possibly at the January call date or earlier. The company also announced an agreement to acquire a license about 70 kilometers from Gediktepe for just under $8 million, payable in two tranches, which could extend heap-leach production by six to seven years.

Bankers are reaching out to investors ahead of the sale of $49 billion in financing backing Paramount Skydance Corp.'s takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., after the company settled a series of lawsuits that had held up the $110 billion acquisition. Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., and Apollo Global Management Inc. underwrote one of the largest buyout debt packages on record earlier this year to fund the takeover, and lined up significant investor demand before the deal ground to a halt amid the threat of legal proceedings. The $49 billion package includes about $30 billion of investment-grade bonds, $7.5 billion of investment-grade loans and roughly $12 billion of second-lien bonds, targeting a wider range of dollar and euro investors than is typical for a leveraged buyout. The debt was structured to leave Paramount on the hook, rather than its lenders, if borrowing costs rise, with no caps on the interest rate, which should prevent a repeat of the hit banks took on so-called hung loans in 2022. Regulators in nearly 70 jurisdictions have already approved the merger, and the Federal Communications Commission and other federal agencies signed off on an extraordinary level of foreign financing, making it likely the acquisition can close very soon.

Paramount Skydance reached a settlement with California and 11 other states that had sued to block its planned purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery, clearing the antitrust case that had threatened to hold up the acquisition, though the deal still awaits judicial clearance. Warner Bros. Discovery shares closed Sept. 21 at $30.80, up 10.8%, leaving them 20 cents short of the $31-per-share cash consideration Paramount would pay, while Paramount Skydance shares slumped 2.9% after initially gaining on the settlement news. The transaction values WBD at approximately $81 billion in equity value and $110 billion in enterprise value, and Paramount expects the combination to generate more than $6 billion in annual synergies within three years of closing. Under the settlement, the merged firm must release at least 30 theatrical pictures yearly in the first two years after closure and 32 annually in the next three years, with independent producers required to make a minimum of four films a year, or Paramount would pay $30 million for each picture it fails to deliver and may be forced to sell Miramax Studios. Paramount also agreed to spend at least $300 million more per year on U.S. film production, or a minimum of $1.5 billion over five years, compared with its 2025 spending level, and the settlement includes a $47.5 million worker fund and restrictions on how the combined company negotiates cable distribution. The resolution eliminates one of the largest near-term risks to the transaction's timing, as WBD shareholders are entitled to an additional $0.00277778 per share for every day after Sept. 30 until the deal closes, capped at $0.25 per 90-day period, a commitment Paramount has said is approximately $7 million a day based on WBD's share count.

Meritage Hospitality Group, one of Wendy's largest franchisees, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week after several quarters of declining same-store sales across the Wendy's system left it unable to maintain profitability. Revenue declined 7.6% to $618 million in 2025 compared to about $669 million in 2024, and fell 14% to $274 million in the first half of 2026, while same-store sales dropped 7.2% in 2025 and 8.3% in the first half of this year. An $8 million net income in 2024 flipped to a nearly $32 million net loss in 2025, followed by a net loss of $23 million in H1 2026. The operator, which spent $400 million growing its Wendy's portfolio to more than 370 units and today owns 314 Wendy's restaurants plus one Bojangles and five independent concepts, closed about 60 underperforming restaurants and completed sale-leaseback deals netting $41 million and over $11 million. Wendy's franchisor organization, Quality Is Our Recipe, sent a termination of franchisee rights and lease occupancy rights on Sept. 16, claiming Meritage owes over $27 million in past due royalties and more than $119 million in continuous operations fees, a notice Meritage disputes as ineffective.

Third Avenue Management's Small-Cap Value Fund initiated a position in government services contractor Maximus, Inc. during the second quarter of 2026, according to the fund's quarterly investor letter. The fund returned 12.85% in Q2 2026, trailing the Russell 2000 Value Index's 17.19% but beating the MSCI USA Small Cap Value Index's 12.61%, and is up 21.72% year-to-date. Maximus closed at $55.97 per share on September 21, 2026, down 4.37% over the past month and 36.07% over the past year, with a market capitalization of $2.93 billion and a 52-week range of $52.73 to $100.00. The fund said Maximus' federal business revenue grew more than 8% in 2025, and that management's recent operational guidance and a very substantial share buyback authorization inspire confidence, with operating margins expected to increase in 2026 due to internal use of artificial intelligence. As one example, the fund cited Maximus' Veterans Affairs benefits administration business, which now processes ten million pages of medical records every day in the Amazon cloud.

Microsoft's Xbox division is eliminating 268 jobs and reorganizing several of its game studios, with Activision taking responsibility for development of the next Halo title, according to a staff memo cited by Variety. The cuts affect Halo Studios, other first-party studios and Xbox Game Studios management and central functions, Xbox Chief Content Officer Matt Booty said in the memo on Tuesday. Under the reorganization, Activision will also oversee World's Edge and Rare, with the next Halo game developed by a new team separate from Activision's ongoing Call of Duty work, while a smaller group at Halo Studios continues supporting existing games and the franchise's community. Bethesda will take responsibility for Obsidian, King will add Microsoft Casual Games to its operations, and Playground and Turn 10 will combine into a single studio focused on the Forza and Fable franchises. Xbox is also continuing efforts to divest some studios: Undead Labs has transitioned to a new publisher and plans to release State of Decay 3 on Game Pass on its launch day, two proposed agreements involving Ninja Theory fell through and Xbox plans to begin consultations with employees over a possible closure, while discussions involving Arkane remain ongoing. The latest actions follow Xbox's July announcement of plans to cut as many as 3,200 jobs, or about 20% of its workforce, as part of a broader restructuring.

BBGI Public Company Limited, or BBGI, informed the Stock Exchange of Thailand that its Board of Directors, at meeting No. 12/2569 held on 22 September 2569, resolved to approve the termination of the construction project for a biotechnology plant carried out under BBGI Fermbox Bio Company Limited, or BBFB, a subsidiary in which the company holds approximately 86.8% of the registered capital. The decision resulted from a review of information and factors related to the project as a whole, including commercial and operational factors, risk management, and the information currently available to the company. The Board considered that this action is consistent with the company's business management principles, good corporate governance, and risk management guidelines. For the termination of the project, the company will proceed in accordance with its rights and duties under the relevant contracts and laws. This action and disclosure do not constitute a waiver of rights and do not affect any rights, claims, defenses, or remedies the company has under the relevant contracts and laws. The company added that the termination of the project will not have a material impact on its financial position, operating results, or core business operations.

Thaicom Public Company Limited, or THCOM, informed the Stock Exchange of Thailand that its first extraordinary general meeting of shareholders of 2026, held on September 15, 2026, approved a resolution to amend and change the company's name, seal, articles of association, and Clause 1 of its memorandum of association to align with the name change. The company has completed the registration of its name change with the Department of Business Development under the Ministry of Commerce, effective from September 17, 2026 onward. The effective date for the change of the securities' ticker symbol will be in accordance with the rules and requirements of the Stock Exchange of Thailand.

SpaceX saw its weighting in the Nasdaq 100 more than double during the index's September quarterly rebalance, forcing every fund tracking the index, starting with the Invesco QQQ, to hold a materially larger position in the company. The reweighting followed the expansion of SpaceX's public float as post-IPO lockups expired, with roughly 7.7 billion shares outstanding and a float near 3.7 billion. At $151.85 and roughly $1.17 trillion of market capitalization, SpaceX is among the largest companies ever admitted to the Nasdaq 100 in its first year of trading, yet it reported a $541 million net loss last quarter on $7.81 billion of revenue, with a $143 million operating loss. Adjusted EBITDA was $3.54 billion, up 191% year over year on 92% revenue growth, with backlog at $47.5 billion, and management pulled its internal $1 trillion revenue timeline forward from 2031 to 2030 as Starlink subscribers doubled to 12.0 million. The same lockup expirations that lifted the index weight also add new tradable supply, and another unlock in late October and early November threatens to test whether the passive bid holds, with options pricing about an 18% implied weekly move around the earnings-and-unlock combination.