Firms that manage other people's money and safeguard their assets — running mutual funds and holding investments securely for clients.
Contains
News movingAsset Management & Custody Banks
Asset Management & Custody Banks▲
IREN Fair Value Trimmed to US$79.03 as AI Cloud Wins Meet Build Out Risks
IREN's fair value estimate has been trimmed from US$80.93 to US$79.03, a modest adjustment reflecting a mix of growing AI cloud contracts and ongoing questions around execution and supply build out through 2027. The revision lifts revenue growth assumptions to 168.01% from 125.79% and net profit margin expectations to 11.73% from 5.79%, while the future P/E assumption drops to 31.26x from 90.29x and the discount rate rises to 9.41% from 8.83%. On the bullish side, JPMorgan shifted IREN from Underweight to Overweight with a US$65 price target, citing a partnership with Nvidia, new customer signings and higher industry pricing, while H.C. Wainwright raised its target to US$90 after IREN announced US$2.8b of new multi year AI cloud contracts and lifted its 2026 AI cloud annual recurring revenue target to more than US$4b. Northland initiated IREN at Outperform with a US$99 price target, and Freedom Capital upgraded the stock from Hold to Buy. Freedom Capital nonetheless flagged execution on supply additions over the next two years as a central risk, noting the story depends heavily on adding capacity on schedule.
DOJ Weighs Joining State Antitrust Suit Against BlackRock and State Street
The U.S. Department of Justice is actively weighing whether to intervene in a high-stakes state antitrust lawsuit against asset management giants BlackRock Inc and State Street Corp, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Senior antitrust officials have held discussions in recent weeks with involved state attorneys general and company representatives, though federal officials have yet to reach a final determination on joining the litigation. The core dispute stems from a late 2024 lawsuit led by Texas alongside 12 other state attorneys general, which alleges the investment managers leveraged their vast market power and climate coalition memberships to curb coal production and inflate regional energy prices. Federal interest in the proceedings is not entirely unprecedented, as both the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission filed a joint statement of interest in May 2025 indicating that the alleged conduct, if proven, would constitute antitrust violations. Vanguard Group Inc., originally named as a co-defendant in the filing, resolved its involvement in February by agreeing to a $29.5 million settlement while committing to restrict ESG targets across its portfolios, despite denying all underlying claims, and a federal judge cleared the case to move forward against BlackRock and State Street in August 2025.
DOJ Weighs Joining Texas-Led Antitrust Suit Against BlackRock and State Street
The U.S. Department of Justice is evaluating whether to join a state-led antitrust lawsuit against BlackRock and State Street over claims the fund managers used their power to pressure coal producers to cut output. Senior DOJ officials have recently discussed the possibility of joining the lawsuits with the states, according to a Bloomberg report on Friday citing people familiar with the matter, though no final decisions have been made and the regulator may decide to do nothing. In November 2024, Texas and 10 other Republican state attorneys general sued BlackRock and State Street, claiming the money managers pressured coal producers to cut output, causing residents to pay higher power bills. Vanguard Group, originally named as a defendant in the suit, settled this February, agreeing to pay $29.5 million and to stop imposing ESG goals for its investments. The DOJ declined to comment on whether it will join the lawsuit but told Bloomberg it is focused on affordability for all Americans across the economy, while BlackRock declined to comment and referred to an earlier statement calling the suit baseless, and State Street also declined to comment, saying the lawsuit remains baseless and without merit.
TPG President Todd Sisitsky Exits as CEO Jon Winkelried Stays
Todd Sisitsky, president of TPG, abruptly left the alternative asset manager earlier this month after 23 years at the firm, apparently frustrated by CEO Jon Winkelried's decision to retain the company's reins, according to a media report on Friday. The heir apparent to the 66-year-old Winkelried had wearied of waiting for a chance to take over, Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the matter. A few days after Sisitsky left TPG, Wall Street rival CVC Capital Partners announced that he would become its co-CEO, along with CVC President Peter Rutland, by Q1 2028 as Rob Lucas steps back from the CEO role. Winkelried has good reason to hold on, as he stands to reap almost $500M in bonus compensation if he stays and the stock rebounds. TPG hasn't yet told key backers who will replace Sisitsky or how the firm will revamp its succession plan, the people told Bloomberg.
Northland Initiates IREN at Outperform With $99 Target
Northland Capital initiated coverage of IREN Ltd. at Outperform with a $99 price target, implying more than 100% upside from the prior close, and the stock rose 1.82% premarket on the call. The bullish initiation adds to an analyst base already skewed positive, with 14 buy ratings and three holds before today. The move follows JPMorgan's September 14 upgrade of IREN two notches from Underweight to Overweight with a $65 target, citing its Nvidia cloud partnership and neocloud pricing power. IREN has retired lower-margin Bitcoin mining hardware to redirect power toward AI compute, taking a large non-cash impairment in its fiscal 2026 results while lifting its contracted annual recurring revenue target to $4 billion for 2026.
Beneficient to Launch AltLens Alternative Asset Risk Platform in Q4 2026
Beneficient announced it plans to launch AltLens, an alternative asset portfolio analytics and risk platform for family offices and small institutional investors, in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2026. AltLens maps each portfolio position to private-market risk segments defined by asset class, strategy, geography, and sector, and uses historical quarterly returns to calculate volatility, beta, value-at-risk, correlation, and concentration metrics. The platform will offer historical stress tests simulating the 2008-09 financial crisis, the 2000-03 technology downturn, and the 2021-22 inflationary and rising-interest-rate environment, plus custom hypothetical equity-market declines and interest-rate shocks. Chief Executive Officer James G. Silk said family offices and smaller institutions should not need an enterprise-scale system or a lengthy implementation for sophisticated alternative asset risk analysis. AltLens is part of Beneficient's broader alternative asset technology platform, which also includes AltSignal, an AI-enabled diligence engine, and AltDeal, an enterprise acquisition analysis engine; Preqin has forecast alternatives assets under management will reach approximately $29 trillion globally by 2029.
State Street Names Mostapha Tahiri and Ann Fogarty to Expanded Global Roles
State Street has appointed Mostapha Tahiri as president of State Street Alpha and chairman of Asia Pacific, and Ann Fogarty as enterprise chief operating officer. Tahiri will oversee the front to back platform and the regional business, while Fogarty takes responsibility for technology, AI and firm wide transformation initiatives. The US based capital markets firm, which has a $50.2b market cap and provides custody, fund administration and related services to institutional investors, said the reshuffle keeps its technology and Alpha thesis front and center. The company said the real proof point will be future Alpha and platform disclosures, with investors watching for concrete updates on Alpha client wins, revenue contribution or expense run rate on upcoming quarterly calls after September 2026.
WisdomTree and MoonPay Partner on Tokenized Money Market Funds
WisdomTree and MoonPay announced a strategic partnership on September 17 aimed at expanding access to tokenized funds in the United States and supporting the management of stablecoin reserves. At the center is the tokenized money market fund WisdomTree Treasury Money Market Digital Fund, or WTGXX. WisdomTree will build an acquisition channel using MoonPay's technology and infrastructure, extending distribution from its own channel through its securities subsidiary to MoonPay, which has more than 35 million accounts. Eligible U.S. investors will be able to put money into the tokenized money market fund through infrastructure they already use, and for MoonPay, WTGXX becomes a means of managing reserves within a regulated and highly transparent structure. According to RWA.xyz, the tokenized U.S. Treasury fund market stood at 15.4 billion dollars as of September 17, shrinking about 4.9% over 30 days, and within that market WTGXX ranked fifth by ticker at 1.23 billion dollars, with net inflows of 466 million dollars over the most recent 30 days.
Main Street Capital shares closed up 1.4% at $57.03, outpacing the S&P 500's 1.14% gain, while the Dow added 0.61% and the Nasdaq gained 1.69%. The investment firm's stock has fallen 3.32% over the past month, steeper than the Finance sector's 3.64% loss and the S&P 500's 2.85% decline. For its upcoming release, the company's EPS is projected at $1, a 3.09% increase from the year-ago quarter, with revenue consensus at $144.47 million, up 3.32%. Full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates project earnings of $4.05 per share and revenue of $581.54 million, changes of -3.8% and +2.67% respectively. Main Street Capital carries a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold) and trades at a Forward P/E of 13.96, a premium to its industry average of 8.
BNCCORP stockholders have approved the company's previously announced sale to OppFi, a tech-enabled digital finance platform, in a cash and stock transaction. Under the terms of the agreement, BNCC stockholders will receive $19.375 per share in cash and 1.9 shares of OppFi Class A common stock for each BNCC share. The vote took place on September 17, 2026, though completion remains subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals. The transaction combines OppFi's online lending platform with BNC's national bank charter and diversified banking infrastructure. BNCC Chairman Michael Vekich called the stockholder vote a significant development in completing the transformative agreement. The final vote total will be reported in BNCC's quarterly report for the fiscal quarter ended September 30, 2026.
Victory Capital ETF Assets Rise to $23.474 Billion at August-End
Victory Capital Holdings reported that assets under management reached $356.469 billion at August-end, up from $345.117 billion at July-end, with exchange-traded fund assets climbing to $23.474 billion from $20.889 billion. The $2.585 billion ETF increase accounted for roughly 23% of the total asset increase, lifting ETFs to approximately 6.6% of managed assets, implying monthly growth of about 3.3% in total assets under management and 12.4% in ETFs. The August update provides asset balances without separating net client flows from investment performance, though earlier disclosures showed $2.5 billion in ETF net client inflows during the first half of 2026, below the $4.115 billion recorded a year earlier. Victory Capital reported second-quarter revenue of $435.4 million and a GAAP operating margin of 44.5%, while AUM revenue realization was 47.9 basis points in the second quarter versus 49.4 basis points a year earlier. Insider Monkey's database showed 27 hedge funds holding the stock at the end of 2Q2026, down from 29 funds three months earlier.
Hercules Capital Appoints Alfred B. Fichera to Board of Directors
Hercules Capital, Inc. announced that Alfred B. Fichera was appointed as an independent member of its board of directors, effective September 17, 2026. Fichera, an audit and accounting professional with more than 40 years across the financial services and asset management industries, will serve on the Company's Audit Committee. He served in various capacities at KPMG LLP from 1982 until his retirement in 2019, including as Global Head of Alternative Investments, National Asset Management Leader, National Partner-in-Charge of Alternative Investments, and as an Audit Partner for nearly 25 years. Since September 2025, Fichera has served as an independent director and chair of the audit committee of Warburg Pincus Access Fund, L.P. Hercules Capital is the largest and leading specialty financing provider to innovative venture, growth and established stage companies backed by leading venture capital and select private equity firms.
Iren CEO Touts AI Compute Demand as $684 Million Loss Weighs on Shares
Iren Limited CEO Daniel Roberts argued that demand for AI compute remains structurally constrained by limited supply, even as the company's shares fell nearly 5% on September 14 and dropped 12% after it reported a $684 million net loss in its fourth quarter FY26 results. Roberts cited Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's comment that his company was operating at an 80x pace versus a planned 10x, OpenAI President Greg Brockman's remarks on continued compute constraints, Google's sevenfold increase in processing volume from a year ago, and Nvidia's guidance for roughly 70% revenue growth while describing its own outlook as supply-constrained. On the supply side, he pointed to high-bandwidth memory shortages and Goldman Sachs data suggesting only about half of scheduled U.S. data center capacity will be built on time. The AI pivot is being supported by $6.4 billion in GPU financing, including $3.6 billion of investment-grade financing for the Microsoft contract, which together with customer prepayments funds 96% of the associated GPU capex, though the structure creates meaningful customer concentration risk. Iren reported $4 billion of contracted ARR for 2026 capacity while only about $1 billion of ARR was operating as of August 26, and hedge fund ownership rose to 69 funds at the end of the second quarter of 2026 from 53 at the end of the first quarter, while short interest stood at 24.46% of float as of August 31, 2026.
Nvidia Commits $2 Billion to Brookfield AI Infrastructure Fund
Nvidia Corp. has committed $2 billion to Brookfield Asset Management's global artificial intelligence infrastructure fund, according to investor documents that revealed the size of a previously disclosed investment. The AI giant is an anchor investor for the Brookfield Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Fund, alongside the Kuwait Investment Authority, Brookfield said last year. The fund focuses on the AI buildout, backing factories, dedicated behind-the-meter power solutions and compute infrastructure. Brookfield is raising $10 billion for the AI infrastructure fund as part of a broader plan to raise around $50 billion for the infrastructure group over the next two years, with AI featuring in every strategy. Brookfield is also part of an Nvidia consortium committing to financing AI computing deals totaling more than $500 billion.
Aon Confirms $17 Billion All-Cash Purchase of USI Insurance Services From KKR
Aon Plc confirmed on August 31 that it will buy USI Insurance Services from KKR & Co. Inc. for $17.0 billion in an all-cash deal funded by new debt. Aon expects $395 million in annual run-rate synergies, with the deal accretive to adjusted earnings per share in 2028, and CEO Greg Case said the combination creates the "premier U.S. middle-market platform." KKR, USI's largest shareholder, expects to book about $3.3 billion in after-tax proceeds plus about $2 billion in adjusted net income; under KKR's ownership USI nearly tripled its revenue and completed more than 90 acquisitions. Aon plans to fund the entire $17 billion purchase with new debt and does not expect near-term share buybacks as it prioritizes debt repayment, and the acquisition builds on Aon's 2024 purchase of NFP. Aon shares fell in premarket trading on the news, Reuters reported.
T. Rowe Price Launches Biotech, Small-Cap and Mid-Cap ETFs
T. Rowe Price announced the launch of three new actively managed equity exchange traded funds, T. Rowe Price Biotech ETF, T. Rowe Price Small-Cap ETF and T. Rowe Price Mid-Cap Equity Research ETF, all of which began trading on the NASDAQ today. The three funds bring the firm's total ETF lineup to 38 funds, after eight new active exchange traded offerings were added this year. The Biotech ETF, ticker TDNA, is managed by John Hall and is expected to hold approximately 60-120 companies with an expense ratio of 0.55%. The Small-Cap ETF, ticker TSEE, is managed by Alex Roik, typically holds 200 or more stocks and carries an expense ratio of 0.59%. The Mid-Cap Equity Research ETF, ticker TMID, expands the firm's Structured Research Strategies lineup, is managed by Paige Davis Jr., Amanda Ludwitzke and Thomas Watson, typically holds more than 300 stocks and has an expense ratio of 0.47%. Tim Coyne, Global Head of ETFs, said the funds broaden investors' access to distinct areas of the market while combining the firm's research capabilities with the fully transparent ETF structure.
Ackman's Pershing Square Buys New $1 Billion Netflix Stake
Bill Ackman's Pershing Square has taken a new position in Netflix worth about $1 billion, years after a money-losing bet on the stock. Ackman originally plowed roughly $1.25 billion of Pershing Square capital into Netflix in early 2022, only to sell the entire position weeks later at a significant loss after the company unveiled plans for an ad-supported tier, which he said undermined the predictability his concentrated portfolio requires. In an August letter to shareholders, Ackman wrote that Netflix has since effectively won the streaming wars, with advertising now driving live programming and new subscriptions, while free cash flow has ballooned to approximately 90% of earnings. He now expects Netflix to come close to 20% annualized earnings-per-share growth, below the more than 20% he projected in early 2022, a forecast that proved accurate as EPS has compounded 27% since the end of that year's first quarter. Ackman bought again after the stock's valuation sank back to levels last seen in 2022, this time with greater confidence in the advertising business.
Nebius Raises GPU Rental Rates, Lifting NBIS 10% and IREN 6% as CoreWeave Slips
Nebius Group notified customers of higher on-demand rental rates for a range of AI GPU capacity effective October 1, a rare same-week read-through on pricing power in AI compute that split the neocloud trade three ways. Nebius stock climbed 10% to $229.67 as the party setting the new price card, while IREN Limited rose 6% to $45.20 on the read-through that scarce GPU capacity can be re-rented at higher hourly rates. CoreWeave slipped 2% to $82.10, with the divergence attributed to concerns over how much of its capacity is already committed at older rates, how much debt sits against that capacity, and how fast free cash flow will turn. The Invesco QQQ Trust was up 1.62% to $716.12, while the Global X Data Center & Digital Infrastructure ETF trailed at up 1% to $27.60, a lag suggesting the diversified digital infrastructure basket is not capturing the neocloud repricing on its own. JPMorgan double-upgraded IREN to Overweight from Underweight on September 14, a call that predates this move by three sessions and serves as context rather than catalyst.
Amundi has acquired a 9.9% economic interest in alternatives asset manager ICG in a deal worth about €620m, or $711.4m, following the long-term strategic and equity partnership the two firms agreed in November 2025. Under a 10-year arrangement tied to the deal, Amundi will serve as the sole global distributor in the wealth channel for ICG's evergreen products and certain other offerings, while ICG will be the exclusive supplier of those products to Amundi's distribution business. The agreement also covers the joint creation of new products aimed at wealth investors, with the first, centred on private equity secondaries, due to be introduced in the coming weeks. Amundi CEO Valérie Baudson said the partnership marks a significant step in the development of Amundi's private markets offering, and ICG CEO and chief investment officer Benoît Durteste said the deal is the first step in realising the commercial benefits of the collaboration.
Ares and PSP Investments Launch $2.4B U.S. Logistics Real Estate Joint Venture
Ares Management and Canada's Public Sector Pension Investment Board have formed a joint venture to invest up to $2.4B in U.S. logistics real estate. The venture will target cash-flowing assets in high-growth markets and launches with a 5.2M-square-foot seed portfolio of 14 properties across key U.S. industrial hubs including California, Texas, and New Jersey. The partnership combines Ares Real Estate's vertically integrated logistics investment capabilities and sourcing network with PSP Investments' scaled capital. Dave Fazekas, head of North America Logistics at Ares Real Estate, cited accelerating onshoring, digital infrastructure buildout, and e-commerce growth as factors strengthening fundamentals for strategically placed logistics facilities. Marq Logistics, which represents Ares Real Estate's global logistics platform, will lead sourcing and manage the assets within the joint venture.
BAM champions "rent-to-own plus direct instalments" model to open the path to homeownership as banks reject loans
BAM has launched a "rent-to-own" model alongside "direct instalments" to widen the options for Thais who want to buy a home but face high expenses, slowing income and purchasing power, rising housing prices, and worries about loan rejections and credit denials from financial institutions. Dr. Raks Worakitpokatorn, Chief Executive Officer of Bangkok Commercial Asset Management Public Company Limited, or BAM, said access to credit is one of the key problems in today's real estate market, especially in the housing segment priced at roughly 2 to 5 million baht and among low-income earners, the self-employed, and those with irregular income. BAM has given the public the chance to pay for properties directly to BAM through the "Mahachon Assets" programme, which brings non-performing assets, or NPA, including detached houses, townhouses, condominium units, shophouses, and land in locations nationwide, to add more choices. Currently more than 21,000 properties have joined the programme. Dr. Raks said the overall real estate market still has a large amount of supply, while purchasing power and access to credit are constrained. Therefore, solving the problem should not focus only on creating new supply, but should bring existing properties back to be managed, improved, and passed on to those who genuinely need to use them at an appropriate price.
BlackRock Expands Ethereum Holdings With $1.5 Billion Position
BlackRock is increasingly positioning itself as one of the largest Ethereum holding firms as recent data shows that it is rapidly expanding its Ethereum holdings. The asset manager's Ethereum position now stands at $1.5 billion, according to the report. The move underscores BlackRock's continued buildout of digital-asset exposure beyond its spot Bitcoin products.
BAM launches the Sap Mahachon project to unlock home buying, pushing 21,000 NPA listings
BAM has launched the "Sap Mahachon" project, allowing the public to pay for non-performing assets, or NPAs, directly to BAM in installments. The assets include detached houses, townhouses, condominium units, shophouses, and land in locations across the country. More than 21,000 assets are currently participating, covering the needs of buyers from a wide range of occupations. Dr. Raks Varakitphokathorn, Chief Executive Officer of Bangkok Commercial Asset Management Public Company Limited, or BAM, said that the problem of access to credit is one of the key issues in today's real estate market. Although genuine housing demand, or real demand, still exists, purchasing power has weakened because of economic conditions, income uncertainty, the burden of living costs, and stricter credit screening by financial institutions, causing many people to postpone their decision to buy a home, especially in the housing market priced at around 2 to 5 million baht. Dr. Raks said that overall the real estate market still has a large amount of supply, while purchasing power and access to credit remain limited. The solution, therefore, should not focus only on creating new supply, but should bring existing assets back into management, improve them, and pass them on to those who genuinely need to use them at appropriate prices.
BAM champions rent-to-own and direct installment model, opens up over 21,000 NPA properties
BAM has launched a new approach to address the problem of financial institutions rejecting housing loans, promoting a rent-to-own model alongside direct installments to give Thais easier access to housing. Dr. Raks Varakitphokathorn, Chief Executive Officer of Bangkok Commercial Asset Management Public Company Limited, or BAM, revealed that although genuine housing demand, or real demand, still exists, purchasing power has weakened due to economic conditions, income uncertainty, the burden of living costs, and stricter loan assessments by financial institutions, causing many people to delay their decision to buy a home, especially in the housing market priced at around 2 to 5 million baht and among low-income groups, self-employed people, and those with irregular incomes. BAM is therefore giving people the opportunity to pay for properties directly to BAM through the Sap Mahachon project, which brings non-performing assets, or NPA, including detached houses, townhouses, condominium units, commercial buildings, and land in locations across the country, to expand choices. Currently, more than 21,000 properties have joined the program. Dr. Raks said the real estate market still has a large amount of supply, while purchasing power and access to credit remain limited. The solution should therefore not focus only on creating new supply, but should bring existing properties back to be managed, improved, and passed on to those who genuinely need to use them at appropriate prices.
Apollo to Sell 30% Miller Homes Stake to Daiwa House
Apollo-managed funds have agreed to sell an approximately 30% minority stake in UK housebuilder Miller Homes to Daiwa House, with Apollo Funds remaining the controlling shareholder. Miller Homes, founded in 1934, is the UK's largest private housebuilder, completing approximately 5,000 homes a year across England, Scotland and Wales, and targets delivering 7,000 new homes per year. Daiwa House, a Japanese construction and real estate group operating in 28 countries with roughly 55,000 employees, said the investment will support Miller Homes' continued profitable growth and its multi-tenure model. The transaction is subject to closing conditions including regulatory approvals and is expected to close later this year. Rothschild & Co advised Apollo Funds and Miller Homes, while A&O Shearman and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP provided legal counsel to Apollo Funds.
ACG Metals Lifts Gediktepe Post-Tax NPV to US$1.2bn in 2026 CPR
ACG Metals Limited announced updated Mineral Resource and Ore Reserve estimates and an updated Competent Person's Report for its Gediktepe mine, lifting the total asset post-tax NPV8 to approximately US$1.2 billion from the project NPV10 of $265m reported in the 2024 CPR. The 2026 CPR, prepared by SRK Consulting (UK) Ltd. under the JORC Code 2012, reports total Ore Reserves tonnage up about 43% to 26.5 Mt from 18.5 Mt, containing 176kt copper, 381kt zinc, 535koz gold and 20moz silver, increases of roughly 34%, 1%, 19% and 16% respectively. Average annual production is expected to rise about 60% to roughly 36 kt CuEq between 2027 and 2031, while FY2026 guidance was revised to approximately 12–14 kt CuEq after a three-month rephasing of sulphide production into FY2027. The enriched ore treatment project is expected to add about 84kt CuEq to the life-of-mine profile, and an improved construction schedule brings gold and silver doré and copper and zinc concentrate production online concurrently in Q3 2027, adding $365m to the post-tax asset NPV8. Over the initial 11-year life of mine, Gediktepe is expected to produce a total of 352kt CuEq, with heap-leach gold production continuing beyond end-2026 at roughly 85% commercial recovery using ACG's patented technology.
BAM launches Sap Mahachon scheme with over 21,000 direct-instalment properties to counter bank loan rejections
BAM announced it has launched the "Sap Mahachon" scheme, allowing the public to pay for property purchases in instalments directly with BAM, in response to loan-access problems that have weakened housing purchasing power, particularly in the housing market at price levels of roughly 2 to 5 million baht. Dr. Raks Vorakitpokatorn, Chief Executive Officer of Bangkok Commercial Asset Management Public Company Limited, or BAM, said the scheme brings non-performing assets, or NPA, including detached houses, townhouses, condominium units, commercial buildings and land in locations nationwide, to offer more choices to those who want to own a home. At present, more than 21,000 properties have joined the scheme, covering the needs of buyers across a wide range of occupations, with BAM aiming to design flexible payment conditions to help narrow the gap between people who want to own a home and those who can obtain a mortgage. Dr. Raks said that overall the real estate market still has a large amount of supply, while purchasing power and access to credit remain limited. The solution, therefore, should not focus only on creating new supply, but should bring existing properties back to be managed, improved and passed on to those with genuine demand for use at appropriate prices.
IREN has signed a roughly US$5.50 billion, five-year partnership with Nvidia tied to its fast-growing AI cloud services platform, prompting JPMorgan analyst Richard Choe to issue a rare double-upgrade on the company. The Nvidia deal sits alongside a US$3.65 billion GPU financing facility, and together the two agreements underpin IREN's goal of scaling to 480MW of AI Cloud capacity by the end of 2026. The company is also winding down Bitcoin mining and expanding vertically integrated AI infrastructure, a material redefinition of its core business model. IREN's narrative projects $8.7 billion in revenue and $504.8 million in earnings by 2029, while the most optimistic analysts had already assumed about US$14.7 billion in revenue and around US$1.3 billion in earnings by that year. The company still faces near-term pressure from sizeable capex, financing needs, and execution risk around large contracted projects.
Northern Trust has increased its prime rate from 6.75% to 7.00%, effective Thursday, September 17, 2026. The Chicago-based bank announced the change on September 16, 2026. Northern Trust Corporation, which trades on Nasdaq under the ticker NTRS, provides wealth management, asset servicing, asset management and banking services. As of June 30, 2026, the company reported assets under custody and administration of US$20.0 trillion and assets under management of US$2.0 trillion.
Gladstone Investment Backs Global GRAB's Acquisition of Barrier1 Systems
Gladstone Investment Corporation has provided additional capital to Global GRAB Technologies to support its acquisition of Barrier1 Systems, a U.S. manufacturer of engineered anti-ram vehicle barrier systems. Barrier1, headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, was founded in 2006 and makes crash-rated bollards, drop and swing arms, wedge barriers, crash beams and vehicle arrestor net systems for high-security and mission-critical applications. The deal meaningfully expands Global GRAB's portfolio of engineered and crash-rated perimeter security products and adds complementary engineering and U.S.-based manufacturing capabilities, following the recent acquisition of RSSI Barriers. Global GRAB Chief Executive Officer Mark Horne said the combination strengthens the company's ability to serve customers with increasingly complex perimeter security and facility-hardening requirements. Michael Cueter, a Managing Director at Gladstone Investment, called Barrier1 a highly strategic acquisition that brings a well-recognized brand, strong U.S.-based manufacturing and longstanding customer relationships across demanding high-security environments.
Ares and PSP Investments Launch $2.4 Billion U.S. Logistics Joint Venture
Ares Management Corporation and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board, known as PSP Investments, announced a new joint venture to invest up to $2.4 billion in U.S. logistics real estate opportunities. An Ares Real Estate fund and PSP Investments will combine Ares Real Estate's vertically integrated logistics investment capabilities and sourcing network with PSP Investments' scaled capital, targeting cash-flowing assets in high-growth markets. The joint venture includes a 5.2 million-square-foot seed portfolio of 14 high-quality properties across key U.S. industrial hubs including California, Texas and New Jersey. Marq Logistics, which represents Ares Real Estate's vertically integrated global logistics real estate platform, will lead sourcing and manage the assets within the joint venture. Dave Fazekas, Head of North America Logistics in Ares Real Estate, said the deal underscores Ares' positioning across its U.S. logistics footprint, while Laurence Bastien, Managing Director, Real Estate Investments, Americas at PSP Investments, cited durable demand drivers and structurally constrained supply in the submarkets that matter most. Eastdil Secured Savills and Kirkland & Ellis LLP advised Ares, while Cushman & Wakefield and Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP advised PSP Investments.
Ten Banks Provide $22 Billion Chip Loan for Blackstone and Alphabet's Crux AI
A group of 10 banks is providing a $22 billion chip loan to support Blackstone Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s new cloud venture Crux AI, the latest mega-debt deal in the race to finance the expensive processors crucial to artificial intelligence. The debt will be used to purchase tensor processing units, or TPUs, a type of chip made by Google, and will be backed by the value of those chips and Crux AI's customer contracts, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Banks involved in the loan include Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp., Barclays Plc, BNP Paribas SA, and Bank of Nova Scotia, and the banking group is in the process of bringing in more lenders to share the risk via syndication. The debt could be replaced later with longer-term financing from institutional investors in the investment-grade bond market, and some banks are also providing a separate $1 billion revolving credit facility. Crux AI, known internally as Project Braid, formally launched last week with the goal of providing compute for AI labs, is supported by an initial $5 billion of equity capital from Blackstone, and aims to bring 500 megawatts of capacity online in 2027.
IREN Rebounds 17% After Earnings Dip as AI Cloud Revenue Doubles
IREN Limited is shifting from Bitcoin mining toward a vertically integrated AI cloud platform, a transition that weighed on its fourth-quarter fiscal 2026 results but left its AI business scaling rapidly. The stock fell 12.5% on Aug. 28, the session after results, to $35.45, then rebounded to $41.58 by Sept. 15, gaining about 17% from that low, and is up roughly 10% year to date. Quarterly revenues slipped to $137.2 million from $144.8 million in the prior quarter as Bitcoin mining capacity was decommissioned ahead of GPU installations, yet AI Cloud Services revenues more than doubled sequentially to $70.5 million from $33.6 million, while the $684 million net loss was heavily affected by $450.4 million of non-cash impairments and a $102.1 million reduction in the fair value of mining hardware held for sale. IREN has $4 billion of contracted annualized run-rate revenues tied to 2026 capacity, with about $1 billion already operating and 2026 capacity largely sold out, and its first 50-megawatt deployment for Microsoft, Horizon 1, has been delivered, with Horizons 2 through 4 targeted for the December quarter. Management expects fiscal 2027 capital spending of roughly $25 billion to $30 billion, backed by about $14 billion of existing cash, committed GPU financing and customer prepayments, plus a target of another $8 billion of GPU financing and prepayments, while estimates for fiscal 2027 and 2028 earnings have been revised downward over the past 60 days and the stock trades at about 4.15 times forward sales versus the industry's 2.59 times.
Cipher Digital Shares Jump 13.9% on Texas Data Center Grid Capacity News
Cipher Digital stock surged 13.9% in morning trading Wednesday after the Electric Reliability Council of Texas published an update indicating grid capacity of up to 3.2 gigawatts for the company's data centers in the state. The ERCOT update, issued through its Batch Zero evaluation framework before the market opened, bodes well for the scaling of Cipher Digital's AI compute business. The gain came as AI-related stocks broadly rebounded from recent sell-offs driven by concerns about potential increased regulation of the artificial intelligence industry. At the same point in the session, the S&P 500 was up 0.2% and the Nasdaq Composite was up 0.6%.
Cipher Mining Jumps 9% on Conditional ERCOT Status for 3.2 GW of Texas Capacity
Cipher Mining shares rose 9% to $16.42 in early Wednesday trading after the Electric Reliability Council of Texas disclosed conditional grid capacity covering 3.2 gigawatts across the company's Texas projects through the state grid operator's Batch Zero process, rather than through a company release. Peer names moved in sympathy on the same ERCOT read, with Core Scientific up 4% to $16.76 and IREN up 2% to $42.57, after all three sold off a day earlier as the artificial intelligence buildout trade came apart. The wider sector barely participated, with the Global X Data Center & Digital Infrastructure ETF up 1% to $27.47 and the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust up 0.35% to $760, isolating Cipher's surge as a grid-access story rather than a broad market move. ERCOT created the Batch Zero process earlier this year to work through a queue of large-load interconnection requests dominated by data centers, and a base load classification covers power expected to be consumed continuously; the classifications are conditional and remain subject to verification and further audits, marking a position in a process rather than a completed grid connection. CoinShares, in its most recent quarterly Bitcoin mining report, estimated that artificial intelligence workloads generate annualized profit of roughly $1.5 million per megawatt against $0.5 million per megawatt for Bitcoin mining, and said Cipher expected mining to become immaterial to its business and was winding that operation down.
HIVE's BUZZ HPC signs AI infrastructure deal with ProCogia
HIVE Digital Technologies subsidiary BUZZ High Performance Computing Inc. has entered a strategic partnership with Vancouver-based applied-AI and data engineering company ProCogia, the companies said Wednesday. Under the agreement, ProCogia will procure dedicated GPU capacity from BUZZ HPC's Canadian data centers and layer its applied-AI stack, including LLM hosting, bespoke model training, agentic systems and vertical AI products, on top of that infrastructure for enterprise and small- and medium-sized business clients in Canada, the United States and Europe. ProCogia is deploying dedicated compute on BUZZ HPC's infrastructure while becoming a preferred applied-AI services partner for BUZZ HPC's customers, with plans to co-sell into the U.S. and Europe. ProCogia will use the partnership as a cloud launchpad for its proprietary ZeroBoxx AI framework, and its vertical AI products, CallYeah, a voice-AI solution for healthcare providers, and PolyKode, a code-migration LLM for regulated environments, will run on BUZZ HPC capacity as anchor workloads. Aydin Kilic, CEO of HIVE Digital Technologies, said BUZZ HPC was built so that Canadian companies with real AI ambition would never have to choose between accelerated computing infrastructure and sovereignty over their data, while ProCogia Founder and CEO Meharpratap Singh said the partnership addresses what has historically been the biggest bottleneck for smaller SMB and mid-market clients.
FS KKR Capital Corp Declares $0.44 Quarterly Dividend With 19.24% Trailing Yield
FS KKR Capital Corp has declared a quarterly dividend of $0.44 per share, payable on 2026-10-02 to shareholders of record as of the 2026-09-16 ex-dividend date. The distribution consists entirely of cash and gives the business development company a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 19.24% and a forward yield of 17.03%. The company has paid dividends since 2014 on a quarterly basis, with a three-year and five-year annual dividend growth rate of 2.50%, while its ten-year dividends per share growth rate stands at -3.00%. Its five-year yield on cost is approximately 21.77%, but GuruFocus ranks its profitability and growth each 3 out of 10, and earnings fell roughly 50.00% per year on average over the past three years. Revenue grew about 0.70% per year on average, and the dividend payout ratio as of 2026-06-30 was 0.00, which the report attributes to insufficient data rather than a true zero payout.
BlackRock AI Infrastructure Partnership to Deploy Over 3 Million Tradespeople
BlackRock and its AI Infrastructure Partnership signed an agreement in August with North America's Building Trades Unions to give unions visibility into the coming project pipeline and to train and deploy the workforce needed to build it, with more than 3 million skilled craft professionals represented across the U.S. and Canada. BlackRock expects the expansion of data centers, power generation and related infrastructure to create hundreds of thousands of skilled jobs, and its separate $100 million Future Builders initiative aims to reach 50,000 workers over five years. For traveling union members, pension contributions made while working outside a home local may stay with the jobsite fund or return home through reciprocal arrangements such as money-follows-the-man, while pro-rata reciprocity can combine service earned under multiple participating funds for eligibility or vesting purposes, with each fund responsible for its share. Social Security instead keeps a single lifetime earnings record regardless of the states worked, using the highest 35 years of indexed earnings, though the Social Security Administration ordinarily limits corrections to an earnings record after three years, three months and 15 days, with important exceptions. The company said workers should confirm how reciprocity works before taking an out-of-area job, keep records from every fund and local, and check their Social Security earnings record against W-2s from every state worked.
Blackstone seeks at least $8B for fourth renewable and digital infrastructure credit fund
Blackstone is seeking to raise at least $8B for its private credit fund focused on renewables and digital infrastructure investments, according to a Bloomberg News report. The fund, the fourth iteration of the strategy, will provide loans to companies in the energy transition marketplace, including energy security, power and utilities, data centers, and chip financing. Separately, TXNM Energy, the parent company of PNM, and Blackstone Infrastructure said they have filed a motion with the NMPRC seeking authorization to file a revised version of their merger application. The draft revised application more than doubles direct customer rate credits, strengthens workforce commitments, and includes a nearly $5B commitment to invest in New Mexico's electric grid. The revised draft includes $220M in direct customer rate credits, more than doubling the direct rate credit commitment included in the original application.
Apollo Funds Close €3 Billion Capital Solution for Bayer With KKR as Minority Partner
Apollo-managed funds and affiliates have closed a €3 billion capital solution for Bayer, first announced on July 10, with KKR joining as a significant minority participant. Under the transaction, Apollo and KKR invested equity capital into a newly established entity holding Bayer's long-acting reversible contraceptives business, while Bayer retains a majority stake and continues to exercise full operational control, with no changes to the LARC strategy. Apollo Partner Jamshid Ehsani said the firm originated and led the multi-billion-euro capital solution, adding that Apollo has committed to deploying more than $100 billion in Germany over the coming decade. Centerview Partners served as financial advisor to the Apollo Funds, with Latham & Watkins LLP, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, and NautaDutilh N.V. acting as legal counsel.