South Korea's LG Energy Solution signs $4.3 billion battery supply deal with undisclosed party
The effective date of contract — receipt of orders — began Tuesday and will conclude at the end of July, 2030. During this period, the counterparty will not be disclosed to maintain business confidentiality, the company's filing with the Korea Exchange showed Wednesday. Reuters reported that Tesla was the counterparty.
Earlier this week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed that the EV maker was behind a previously undisclosed $16.5 billion chip contract with South Korea's Samsung Electronics.
LG Energy said in its filing that details of the contract such as the deal amount were subject to change and the contract period could be extended by up to seven years.
"Investors are advised to carefully consider the possibility of changes or termination of the contract when making investment decisions," the company cautioned. It's shares were trading 0.26% lower.
The filing did not clarify whether the lithium iron phosphate batteries would be used in vehicles or energy storage systems. Its major battery customers include American electric-vehicle makers Tesla and General Motors.
The company has been expanding its battery production in the U.S., and is constructing a plant in Arizona that will produce lithium iron phosphate batteries.
LG Energy Solution and Tesla did not immediately respond to CNBC's requests for comment.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Newsweek
10 minutes ago
- Newsweek
Fernando Alonso Reacts to Shocking Aston Martin Hungarian GP Quali Result
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Aston Martin got two of their drivers into the top six during qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix. For most of the season, the team has struggled to score points and consistently show impressive speed. At the Hungaroring, Aston Martin flipped the script and out-qualified both Red Bull cars, a Mercedes, a Ferrari, and both Racing Bulls. The Silverstone-based team achieved this result despite their lead driver, Fernando Alonso, missing the first practice session due to a lingering back pain from the season. Fernando Alonso of Spain and Aston Martin F1 Team celebrates in parc ferme during qualifying ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Hungary at Hungaroring on August 2, 2025 in Budapest, Hungary. Fernando Alonso of Spain and Aston Martin F1 Team celebrates in parc ferme during qualifying ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Hungary at Hungaroring on August 2, 2025 in Budapest, Hungary. Photo byAlonso stepped back into the cockpit and got his best qualifying result of the year. After the session, he appeared happy that he had recovered from the injury. "Yeah, I'm glad, obviously. When the car is a little bit faster, you will not enjoy watching TV. Probably I would enjoy watching Spa if I was about to miss that race, but you never know," Alonso told the media. "I got hurt a little bit in the Spa race with the seat and I have this muscle tear, (torn) fibre or something like that, so that needs a little bit of relax. "About two weeks, I don't have two weeks, I have it now for tomorrow and I will enjoy summer, a little bit of relaxing and recovering." Alonso and the team remain stumped on what exactly led the car to perform so well since there were no upgrades to the Aston Martin. "I would say that it's track characteristics, to be honest. I think we didn't change the car massively since in Spa seven days ago," he added. "No new parts for anybody to this race. Just the layout, the characteristics of the circuit is just suiting our car, apparently, and it would be nice to understand this, why the car is operating in this sweet spot here because if we understand that, we can use it in the next few races." Hungarian Grand Prix Qualifying Results Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) Oscar Piastri (McLaren) Lando Norris (McLaren) George Russell (Mercedes) Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) Gabriel Bortoleto (Sauber) Max Verstappen (Red Bull) Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls) Ollie Bearman (Haas) Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) Carlos Sainz (Williams) Franco Colapinto (Alpine) Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) Yuki Tsunoda (Red Bull) Pierre Gasly (Alpine) Esteban Ocon (Haas) Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber) Alex Albon (Williams) For more F1 news, head on over to Newsweek Sports.
Chicago Tribune
39 minutes ago
- Chicago Tribune
Co-living buildings offer ‘attainable luxury' for Chicago's young professionals, students
Nestled in the heart of the Printer's Row district in the South Loop, Straits Row appears like any other high-rise in downtown Chicago. It has a modern interior design and high-end amenities that are standard for luxury housing in the area. But the building has a feature that separates it from most such high rises in the city: Half of its units are co-living apartments, where tenants rent a single bedroom and share a kitchen and living room with other tenants. Rents at co-living buildings are often 20% to 30% below the market rate for a studio or one-bedroom in the same neighborhood. Straits Row, at 633 S. LaSalle St., began leasing in February. The 18-story building has 132 units and 358 beds, with half the units traditional apartments and half co-living apartments. The bedrooms and living rooms are fully furnished, so residents new to the city can move in without bringing furniture. The building's amenities include a workspace, a gym, a pool and lounges. The city has only a handful of co-living buildings, but the trend has grown in recent years, driven by high housing costs in urban areas, according to a report by market consulting firm Grand View Research. The global market size was $7.8 billion in 2024, and is expected to more than double to just over $16 billion by 2030, according to the report. The model allows students and young professionals to live in popular neighborhoods without the high price tag of a traditional apartment or the headache of finding roommates, said Nick Melrose, founder and CEO of Melrose Ascension Capital. Melrose developed the building alongside Q Investment Partners, a Singapore-based firm that bought the site in 2019. At Straits Row, the rent for a single room in a four-bedroom starts at $1,699. That's well below the average studio apartment rent of $2,186 in Printer's Row, according to 'This gives them the option to live in an apartment that is a nice apartment — it gives a luxurious vibe at a lower cost,' said Madison Kerrigan, the building's property manager. The location made it a great spot for co-living, Melrose said. It caters to students at several college campuses within a short radius, including DePaul University's Loop campus, Columbia College Chicago and Roosevelt University. Multiple transit options nearby offer a quick commute for young professionals working downtown. Three miles north in Lincoln Park, Post Chicago offers a similar setup, with 107 units that are mostly co-living. The building, at 853 W. Blackhawk St., is part of the Big Deahl, a 7-acre project by Structured Development that put up residential buildings on a site previously zoned for industrial buildings. The project also includes a 34-unit affordable condo building and a traditional apartment building. J. Michael Drew, founding principal at Structured Development, said the firm pursued a co-living project to offer an affordable option in a hot neighborhood for young professionals. Beyond the standard amenities, Post Chicago also offers weekly cleaning for co-living tenants. 'Lincoln Park is the most desired neighborhood for incoming graduates who are entering the workforce,' he said. 'But it's one of the more expensive neighborhoods to find housing.' For Manuel Carcamo, co-living was an easy choice as a student and when he was just starting his career. Although he lives in a studio now in Straits Row, Carcamo previously lived in two co-living units. The first was as a student at the University of Indiana's Indianapolis campus, renting a room in a four-bedroom, two-bathroom unit. He wanted to live off campus but couldn't afford to live on his own, so co-living was a convenient option. Having roommates helped build social interactions and helped him explore the new city, he said. 'I moved to Indianapolis from Chicago having known nobody there,' he said. 'So moving into a four-bedroom apartment with three strangers, that was kind of daunting, but it did also work out for me, in terms of connecting me with some of my best friends.' Those bonds Carcamo made have remained. This October, he said, he's officiating the wedding of one of his college roommates. After college, Carcamo moved to Columbus, Ohio, and co-living was again a cheaper, convenient way to secure housing. This time, he lived in a two-bedroom, two-bathroom co-living apartment with one roommate. 'I think it's a great opportunity for people that are really looking to put their head down, get their start in their career, and try to figure out the city,' Carcamo said. Now, Carcamo said, he prefers the privacy of a studio apartment. He works from home and having the comfort of his own space is the main reason he chose to live in a studio when he came back to Chicago. But he said he wouldn't rule out co-living again. Melrose has three other buildings in development: A $90 million, 19-story building at 626 S. Wabash Ave. that has some co-living units, and two buildings in Fulton Market that are traditional apartments. Melrose said he wants to ensure all his buildings offer 'attainable luxury,' catering to a middle demographic that would have a hard time renting in much of downtown Chicago. 'We have opened up a demographic that would love to live here that couldn't otherwise afford to do it, until we built something like this,' Melrose said. 'That feels better to me than catering to some lawyer or doctor. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just that's not what drives me.' For developers and building owners, co-living can generate more income than a traditional building with the same number of units. Renting by the room allows developers to charge more per square foot than they could with a usual two- or four-bedroom apartment. According to a 2020 report by Cushman & Wakefield, co-living can increase net operating income by an average of 15% because of the higher density, while offering lower rents. Co-living buildings have slightly higher operating costs than traditional apartments, the report said. They often have shorter lease terms and more turnover, and Drew said having the right management is important to take advantage of those returns. 'As long as you're operating it efficiently and effectively, yes, the returns can be, and are proving to be, better than a conventional' property, he said. But securing financing on a co-living project can be difficult. Straits Row was initially planned as an all-co-living building, and Melrose said there was some hesitancy from institutional lenders to finance the project, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic rocked the housing market. That led the developers to change the building to half co-living and half traditional. 'There's a market for 500 (co-living) beds, but with lenders, especially, who are the most conservative folks in our industry, it was the path of least resistance,' he said of the decision to put fewer co-living units in Straits Row. 'So that got lenders a lot more interested.' Drew said at Post Chicago, there was less hesitancy from lenders about the co-living model. He said the rising rent environment means lenders understand the demand for lower-cost alternatives. 'The attraction to a lender is that they recognize the ability to push rents and to be able to take advantage of a market when you're in a rising rent environment,' he said. Co-living has seen significant growth in the last decade, especially in high-cost cities such as New York and San Francisco. According to the Cushman & Wakefield report, there were fewer than 100 co-living beds available in 2014 in North America. That grew to more than 7,000 by the end of 2019. Gail Lissner, an appraiser and managing director for Integra Realty Resources, said some of the earliest co-living buildings in Chicago were smaller apartment buildings that were repurposed. One example was a three-flat in Lincoln Park that was turned into a 12-bedroom co-living building. As the model gained traction, interest from developers and lenders led to larger, new-construction buildings such as Straits Row and Post Chicago that looked more like luxury housing. Now, renters can find large, modern co-living buildings in Pilsen, the South Loop, the Near West Side, Lincoln Park and elsewhere. Co-living isn't likely to take over the Chicago housing scene, but experts said it's an underserved market that is likely to remain strong as rents continue to rise. Lissner said co-living buildings operate best near big employers and universities. 'I think they belong in certain locations,' she said. 'They belong in the downtown market where you have the employment. They work well where you have universities. So we tend to see them clustered a little bit more there.' Part of the challenge of operating a complex with co-living apartments is making sure renters know about it, Melrose said. It's easier to recruit students, who are used to dorm-style living, but Melrose said he thinks the renter base of young professionals will grow as they become more accustomed to that style of living. Kerrigan, the building's property manager, is active in Chicago housing Facebook groups and online forums to pitch Straits Row to people looking for an affordable option downtown. The complex also partners with universities and corporations to market itself to prospective city residents. 'A lot of it is building partnerships and just making sure that Straits Row is known as the newest co-living spot,' Kerrigan said. 'We do sometimes have to explain what co-living is, but once we explain that, people seem to really like it.'
Los Angeles Times
39 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
It's Trump's economy now. The latest financial numbers offer some warning signs
WASHINGTON — For all of President Trump's promises of an economic 'golden age,' a spate of weak indicators last week told a potentially worrisome story as the effects of his policies are coming into focus. Job gains are dwindling. Inflation is ticking upward. Growth has slowed compared with last year. More than six months into his term, Trump's blitz of tariff hikes and his new tax-and-spending bill have remodeled America's trading, manufacturing, energy and tax systems to his liking. He's eager to take credit for any perceived wins and is hunting for someone else to blame if the financial situation starts to totter. But as of now, this is not the boom the Republican president promised, and his ability to blame his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, for any economic challenges has faded as the world economy hangs on his every word and social media post. When Friday's monthly jobs report turned out to be decidedly bleak, Trump ignored the warnings in the data and fired the head of the agency that produces the report. 'Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can't be manipulated for political purposes,' Trump said on his social media platform, without offering evidence for his claim. 'The Economy is BOOMING.' It's possible that the disappointing numbers are growing pains from the rapid transformation caused by Trump and that stronger growth will return — or they may be a preview of even more disruption to come. Trump's aggressive use of tariffs, executive actions, spending cuts and tax code changes carry significant political risk if he is unable to deliver middle-class prosperity. The effects of his new tariffs are still several months away from rippling through the economy, right as many Trump allies in Congress will be campaigning in the midterm elections. 'Considering how early we are in his term, Trump's had an unusually big impact on the economy already,' said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist at Firehouse Strategies. 'The full inflationary impact of the tariffs won't be felt until 2026. Unfortunately for Republicans, that's also an election year.' The White House portrayed the blitz of trade frameworks leading up to Trump's tariff announcement Thursday as proof of his negotiating prowess. The European Union, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia and other nations that the White House declined to name agreed that the U.S. could increase its tariffs on their goods without doing the same to American products. Trump simply set rates on other countries that lacked settlements. The costs of those tariffs — taxes paid on imports to the U.S. — will be most felt by American consumers in the form of higher prices, but to what extent remains uncertain. 'For the White House and their allies, a key part of managing the expectations and politics of the Trump economy is maintaining vigilance when it comes to public perceptions,' said Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist. Just 38% of adults approve of Trump's handling of the economy, according to a July poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs. That's down from the end of Trump's first term when half of adults approved of his economic leadership. The White House paints a rosier image, casting the economy as emerging from a period of uncertainty after Trump's restructuring and repeating the economic gains seen in his first term before the pandemic struck. 'President Trump is implementing the very same policy mix of deregulation, fairer trade, and pro-growth tax cuts at an even bigger scale — as these policies take effect, the best is yet to come,' White House spokesman Kush Desai said. The economic numbers over the last week show the difficulties that Trump might face if the numbers continue on their current path: — Friday's jobs report showed that U.S. employers have shed 37,000 manufacturing jobs since Trump's tariff launch in April, undermining prior White House claims of a factory revival. — Net hiring has plummeted over the last three months with job gains of just 73,000 in July, 14,000 in June and 19,000 in May — a combined 258,000 jobs lower than previously indicated. On average last year, the economy added 168,000 jobs a month. — A Thursday inflation report showed that prices have risen 2.6% over the year that ended in June, an increase in the personal consumption expenditures price index from 2.2% in April. Prices of heavily imported items, such as appliances, furniture and toys and games, jumped from May to June. — On Wednesday, a report on gross domestic product — the broadest measure of the U.S. economy — showed that it grew at an annual rate of less than 1.3% during the first half of the year, down sharply from 2.8% growth last year. 'The economy's just kind of slogging forward,' said Guy Berger, senior fellow at the Burning Glass Institute, which studies employment trends. 'Yes, the unemployment rate's not going up, but we're adding very few jobs. The economy's been growing very slowly. It just looks like a 'meh' economy is continuing.' Trump has sought to pin the blame for any economic troubles on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, saying the Fed should cut its benchmark interest rates — even though doing so could generate more inflation. Trump has publicly backed two Fed governors, Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman, for voting for rate cuts at Wednesday's meeting. But their logic is not what the president wants to hear: They were worried, in part, about a slowing job market. But this is a major economic gamble being undertaken by Trump and those pushing for lower rates under the belief that mortgages will also become more affordable as a result and boost homebuying activity. His tariff policy has changed repeatedly over the last six months, with the latest import tax numbers serving as a substitute for what the president announced in April, which provoked a stock market sell-off. It might not be a simple one-time adjustment as some Fed board members and Trump administration officials argue. Of course, Trump can't say no one warned him about the possible consequences of his economic policies. Biden, then the outgoing president, did just that in a speech in December at the Brookings Institution, saying the cost of the tariffs would eventually hit American workers and businesses. 'He seems determined to impose steep, universal tariffs on all imported goods brought into this country on the mistaken belief that foreign countries will bear the cost of those tariffs rather than the American consumer,' Biden said. 'I believe this approach is a major mistake.' Boak and Rugber write for the Associated Press.
