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39 minutes ago
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Michael Saylor Amps Up Bitcoin War Chest With $2.8 Billion Sale
(Bloomberg) -- Michael Saylor's one-of-a-kind capital markets machine just got bigger. Trump Awards $1.26 Billion Contract to Build Biggest Immigrant Detention Center in US The High Costs of Trump's 'Big Beautiful' New Car Loan Deduction Can This Bridge Ease the Troubled US-Canadian Relationship? Salt Lake City Turns Winter Olympic Bid Into Statewide Bond Boom As crypto prices continue to boom, Saylor's Bitcoin holding company, Strategy launched a new kind of preferred stock, and then promptly upsized the deal from $500 million to $2.8 billion, according to a person familiar with the transaction who asked not to be identified. The security that priced on Thursday, which the company is calling Stretch, promises buyers a hefty 9% annual payout, with no end date attached — unusual in the arcane world of preferred stock offerings. The deal offered the latest demonstration of Saylor's Wall Street wizardry as he continues his years-long effort to transform a middling software firm, which used to be known as MicroStrategy, into a financial juggernaut obsessed with one goal: raising as much money as possible to acquire as many Bitcoin as possible. Some 600,000 coins, or around $70 billion worth at last count. Since Strategy's first purchase in 2020, Saylor has sold equity, issued various types of debt and layered stacks of preferred shares on top. In the process, he has encouraged a fleet of imitators and spurred a new industry of public companies following a so-called treasury strategy dedicated to buying and holding cryptocurrencies. Many of the previous financial instruments that have fueled Strategy's rise have ended up being more popular than expected, but even against that backdrop the demand for Stretch was notable. The company's common shares rose 0.5% on Wednesday, and are up 43% for the year. In Strategy's complicated and unusual capital structure, the new shares sit above the company's common stock and its other preferred shares — which carry names like 'Strike' and 'Stride' — but remain subordinate to its convertible bonds and a preferred stock known as 'Strife.' Unlike those earlier offerings, Stretch allows Strategy to tweak the dividend. Each month, the firm will set a new payout rate aimed at keeping the share price near $100, raising or lowering the level as needed. It's part pricing model, part trust exercise, and a clear reminder that Strategy creates its own rules. That flexibility may appeal to Saylor's large fan base of retail investors, but it also adds a fresh layer of uncertainty to an already complex capital structure. And there are signs that Saylor's tactics may be hitting up against somewhat diminishing returns. The value of the company, relative to the Bitcoin it owns, has gone down. In its latest offering, Strategy offered the Stretch shares at a discount to win over investors. The shares, which are set to carry an initial dividend of 9%, are being sold for $90 each, the bottom of a marketed range and a discount to their face value of $100, according to the person familiar with the deal. But the outsized demand for the deal provides the latest sign of both Saylor's avid following and the continued speculative fervor running through the markets. Morgan Stanley, Barclays Plc, Moelis & Co. and TD Securities worked on the deal, Bloomberg previously reported. --With assistance from Dave Liedtka and Yiqin Shen. Burning Man Is Burning Through Cash Elon Musk's Empire Is Creaking Under the Strain of Elon Musk It's Not Just Tokyo and Kyoto: Tourists Descend on Rural Japan A Rebel Army Is Building a Rare-Earth Empire on China's Border Confessions of a Laptop Farmer: How an American Helped North Korea's Wild Remote Worker Scheme ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
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Macron Says France to Recognize Palestine State in September
(Bloomberg) -- French President Emmanuel Macron said his country would recognize Palestinian statehood in September amid growing pressure on Israel over the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Trump Awards $1.26 Billion Contract to Build Biggest Immigrant Detention Center in US The High Costs of Trump's 'Big Beautiful' New Car Loan Deduction Can This Bridge Ease the Troubled US-Canadian Relationship? Salt Lake City Turns Winter Olympic Bid Into Statewide Bond Boom 'In keeping with its historic commitment to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, I have decided that France will recognize the State of Palestine,' Macron said in a social media post late Thursday. The official announcement will be made on the sidelines of the next annual gathering of the United Nations General Assembly, in New York, he added. Macron's announcement prompted a harsh response from Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who rejects Palestinian statehood and argues the offensive in Gaza is necessary to topple and disarm Hamas after the group killed 1,200 people and abducted some 250 others in the Oct. 7, 2023, assault on Israel. Of the hostages, 50 are still in Gaza, with roughly 20 thought by Israel to still be alive. 'We strongly condemn President Macron's decision to recognize a Palestinian state next to Tel Aviv in the wake of the Oct. 7 massacre,' Netanyahu said in a social media posting. 'Such a move rewards terror and risks creating another Iranian proxy, just as Gaza became,' he added. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the US and the European Union. Macron has become increasingly angered by the Israeli military's continued attacks in Gaza and Netanyahu's restrictions on allowing humanitarian aid to enter the territory, with reports of emaciated babies, children crammed into soup queues and men tussling over bags of flour. 'The 2.1 million people trapped in the war zone that is Gaza are facing yet another killer on top of bombs and bullets: starvation,' World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said this week. New York Conference Macron has said since last year that France, home to both the largest Jewish and Muslim communities in Europe, could recognize a Palestinian state. He even tried to organize a conference with Saudi Arabia in New York in June to do so, before canceling it following the military clashes between Israel and Iran. French and Saudi officials are now expected to lead a conference at the ministerial level to discuss Palestinian statehood next week in New York. The US won't attend, the State Department said Thursday. The leader of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, was informed of France's decision via a letter from Macron, delivered in person by France's consul in Jerusalem, the French foreign ministry said. While many Western countries have grown increasingly critical of Israel for its actions against civilians in Gaza, no other member of the Group of Seven has taken the step of recognizing Palestine as a nation. Spain, Ireland and Norway are among Western countries that do recognize Palestine. Macron's announcement puts pressure on UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who is facing a push from senior members of his own government, to potentially follow suit. The British leader said Thursday that 'statehood is the inalienable right of the Palestinian people' and that a ceasefire would put the UK 'on a path' to recognition, but stopped short of committing to a timeframe. Talks for a ceasefire in Gaza broke down on Thursday, with the US and Israel withdrawing their negotiating teams. Burning Man Is Burning Through Cash Elon Musk's Empire Is Creaking Under the Strain of Elon Musk It's Not Just Tokyo and Kyoto: Tourists Descend on Rural Japan A Rebel Army Is Building a Rare-Earth Empire on China's Border Confessions of a Laptop Farmer: How an American Helped North Korea's Wild Remote Worker Scheme ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Sign in to access your portfolio
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an hour ago
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DeepSeek, Trump's Plan Steer Agenda at China's Premier AI Forum
(Bloomberg) -- Star founders, Beijing officials and deep-pocketed financiers converge on Shanghai by the thousands this weekend to attend China's most important AI summit. At the top of the agenda: how to propel Beijing's ambitions to leapfrog the US in artificial intelligence — and profit off that drive. Trump Awards $1.26 Billion Contract to Build Biggest Immigrant Detention Center in US The High Costs of Trump's 'Big Beautiful' New Car Loan Deduction Can This Bridge Ease the Troubled US-Canadian Relationship? Salt Lake City Turns Winter Olympic Bid Into Statewide Bond Boom The World Artificial Intelligence Conference, which has featured Elon Musk and Jack Ma in years past, was devised to showcase the cutting-edge of Chinese technology. This year's attendance may hit a record as it's taking place at a critical juncture in the US-Chinese tech rivalry. This week, US President Donald Trump unveiled his so-called AI Action Plan — a sort of call to arms to ensure the country keeps its lead in the post-ChatGPT epoch. At the same time, the emergence of DeepSeek in January galvanized a generation of Chinese developers to ride a nationwide investment and innovation wave. From Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. to fledgling firms such as Minimax, the country's AI aspirants have since moved aggressively to try and close the gap with the likes of OpenAI and Google. 'While many recognize DeepSeek's achievements, this represents just the beginning of China's AI innovation wave,' said Louis Liang, an AI sector investor with Ameba Capital. 'We are witnessing the advent of AI mass adoption, this goes beyond national competition.' The Shanghai conference rundown for now remains largely unknown — as it has in years past just days before kickoff. Chinese Premier Li Qiang will attend, and tech leaders from Tencent Holdings Ltd. to ByteDance Ltd. and startups like Zhipu AI and Moonshot are likely to turn out in force. Here's what we can expect from the summit starting Saturday. DeepSeek's Aura Neither the startup nor its reclusive founder Liang Wenfeng feature in the advance literature for the event. And yet, the two-year-old firm is likely to be one of the topics du jour. Since its low-cost, high-performance AI model humbled much of Silicon Valley, the industry has watched China closely for another seismic moment. In a field notorious for splashing billions of dollars on Nvidia Corp. chips and data centers, DeepSeek's no-frills approach inspired a re-think of traditional models. And it challenged what till then was unquestioned US supremacy in bleeding-edge technology: Xi Jinping himself turned out in public in February to congratulate Liang and his fellow tech entrepreneurs. China craves another big breakthrough. Downloads and usage of DeepSeek models have slowed, as has the pace of new model rollouts that peaked over the spring at once every few days. Now, much of the industry talk centers on why DeepSeek's R2 — the followup to its seminal R1 — hasn't yet emerged. Local media have blamed everything from Liang's perfectionist streak to performance glitches. Trump's, and Xi's, Ambitions The conference gets underway days after the US leader signed executive orders to loosen regulations and expand energy supplies for data centers. 'From this day forward, it'll be a policy of the United States to do whatever it takes to lead the world in artificial intelligence,' Trump told executives and lawmakers at a DC event. Among the attendees was Jensen Huang, whose Nvidia is one of the companies at the heart of the global AI movement. Much has been made in Washington of China's seemingly meteoric ascent in AI, with observers saying the country is now perhaps just months behind the US in terms of AI sophistication. That's a wafer-thin margin compared with sectors such as semiconductors, where America is regarded as many years or even generations ahead. Trump's newly announced action plan is likely to spur Chinese companies into accelerating their own plans to go global, in part by aggressively open-sourcing their AI platforms. Beijing wants AI to become a $100 billion industry by 2030. At the Communist Party's April Politburo study session, Xi emphasized that China must push for breakthroughs in critical areas like high-end chips and AI research. Rise of the Robots Chinese humanoid makers are expected to showcase their most advanced models. Last week, UBTech posted a video of its Walker S2 humanoid walking to a battery station, removing the pack from its back, placing it on the recharge pad before fitting itself with a new battery. While obviously edited and choreographed, it encapsulated the advances that Chinese firms have made in a wide-open field — and their lofty ambitions. Unitree teased a bargain-basement price of under $10,000 for its androids. It joins the likes of AgiBot and UBTech in collectively driving a promising field in which American companies have so far failed to stake out a clear lead, despite decades of effort. The Chinese companies 'are targeting hundreds to thousands of units to be delivered this year, racing to establish the ecosystem,' Morgan Stanley analyst Sheng Wong said in a note this week. Show the Money Venture capitalists and deal-makers will be hunting for emerging tech leaders. And not all of them are Chinese. China's largest venture capital houses are tapping the market for at least $2 billion in new funds. At least six of the country's most prominent VC firms — including Lightspeed China Partners and Monolith Management — are creating dollar-denominated funds designed to allow overseas investors to pool bets on Chinese companies. That's a wave of fundraising that hasn't been seen among Chinese VCs for years. It's unfolding as global investors reassess the country's startup landscape and economy, which are showing signs of revival after years of Covid-era stagnation and regulatory headwinds. Organizers promise a breakout event that will feature startup pitches and live demos for dealmakers. Startups by the hundreds are expected to fill a 70,000 sq-meter exhibition hall, showing off everything from autonomous delivery drones to machines that dispense toilet paper. Missing Global Touch Attendees are unlikely to spot US companies — at least not in major fashion. In 2024, Tesla Inc. popped up with its Cybertruck and Optimus robot. This year's speaker lineup doesn't (yet) include Musk but does list Yoshua Bengio, the Canadian scientist who pioneered artificial neural networks. With the US-China tech rivalry accelerating, many American companies remain wary of drawing the spotlight. Still, Beijing is likely to take the opportunity to continue pushing its international agenda. One of the conference centerpieces is a 'High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance' to discuss the challenges in deploying AI responsibly. To many observers, it's also emblematic of China's overarching goal of setting global standards. 'Since 2018, China has used WAIC to stake its claim on global AI technical and political leadership,' said Tom Nunlist, associate director of the Beijing-based consultancy Trivium. 'With the race to AI now neck and neck between the US and China, that play is more compelling than ever.' --With assistance from Vlad Savov. Burning Man Is Burning Through Cash Elon Musk's Empire Is Creaking Under the Strain of Elon Musk It's Not Just Tokyo and Kyoto: Tourists Descend on Rural Japan A Rebel Army Is Building a Rare-Earth Empire on China's Border Confessions of a Laptop Farmer: How an American Helped North Korea's Wild Remote Worker Scheme ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
