MarketsGlobal Healthcare16 Jul 2026
A $200 million upfront payment, with milestones potentially taking the deal's total value to $1.9 billion, gives AstraZeneca exclusive rights to develop and commercialise an experimental COPD treatment outside China. More importantly, it highlights a broader shift in how Big Pharma is sourcing innovation.
AstraZenecaPharmaceuticalsBiotechChinaCOPD
Abdul Wasey Bhatti4 min read
Read ArticlePrivate Equity16 Jul 2026
EQT needed four bids to take Intertek private, and the sequence reveals less about price than about who now sets the value of a FTSE 100 company, and why London keeps losing profitable firms to private buyers.
Mergers and AcquisitionsFTSE 100UK EquitiesEQT
Abir Ghosh Biswas6 min read
Read ArticleMacro15 Jul 2026
China's factories are shipping more than they have in years, driven by an AI-fuelled tech boom. Yet second-quarter growth still slowed to 4.3%, its weakest in decades outside the pandemic, a reminder that strong exports don't always mean a strong economy.
ChinaTradeExportsGDPGrowth
Raghu Kohli6 min read
Read ArticleMarketsOpinion15 Jul 2026
Global PE fundraising is rising but the number of funds closing is collapsing. The industry is not recovering. It is concentrating, and the zombie firm data suggests the structural shift is already irreversible for much of the market.
Private EquityFundraisingZombie FirmsIPOPublic Markets
Alexander Eklund7 min read
Read ArticleMarkets15 Jul 2026
South Korea's shipping cartel ran for 15 years across three major trade routes. The case is a textbook study in how cartels form, how they enforce discipline, and why concentrated industries make collusion so hard to prevent.
ShippingCartelsSouth KoreaAntitrustOligopoly
Jay Patel9 min read
Read ArticlePrivate Equity13 Jul 2026
Apollo has gatecrashed Castlelake's hard-won takeover of easyJet with a higher offer backed by the airline's board, setting up a bidding war over one of Europe's best-known low-cost carriers just months after a bruising first half of the year.
ApolloCastlelakeeasyJetAirlinesMergers and Acquisitions
Sonal Weerasekera7 min read
Read ArticleMacro10 Jul 2026
The Iran war sent oil prices soaring and hit every major economy at once, yet the Fed, the Bank of England, and the European Central Bank all responded differently. The divergence turned not on the shock itself but on each bank's headroom, growth outlook, and framework for interpreting supply-driven inflation.
InflationFederal ReserveBank of EnglandEuropean Central Bank
Kaveesha Maddala4 min read
Read ArticleMarketsGlobal Healthcare10 Jul 2026
Vertex's $10 billion acquisition of Crinetics is about far more than adding another drug to its portfolio. It is a strategic bet on an endocrinology platform that could fuel the company's next phase of growth.
Vertex PharmaceuticalsCrinetics PharmaceuticalsBiotechnologyMergers & Acquisitions
Abdul Wasey Bhatti6 min read
Read ArticleMacroPolicy9 Jul 2026
The Bank of Japan has raised its policy rate five times since 2024, yet the yen just hit a forty year low. Here is what two years of tightening have actually changed, and what is likely to happen next.
Bank of JapanInterest RatesYenJapan
Rohan Talwar13 min read
Read ArticleMarketsPrivate Equity6 Jul 2026
A £5.7bn approach for DCC is as much a bet on the Irish conglomerate's years-long transformation into an energy distributor as it is a straightforward take-private deal, and it says as much about KKR's ambitions as it does about DCC itself.
KKRDCCEnergyMergers and Acquisitions
Sonal Weerasekera7 min read
Read ArticleMarketsPrivate Equity3 Jul 2026
From preferred equity deals for LP stakes to carried interest loans for executives, private equity is manufacturing liquidity at every level of the food chain. The exit market remains blocked. The workarounds are getting bigger.
Private EquitySecondariesCarried InterestLiquidityMergers and Acquisitions
Alexander Eklund7 min read
Read ArticleMarketsGlobal Healthcare3 Jul 2026
As NHS waiting lists for autism assessments pass 200,000, private capital is flowing into neurodiversity services – forcing the question of whether profit and patient care can ever be aligned.
Private EquityHealthcareAutismNeurodiversityNHS
Abdul Wasey Bhatti8 min read
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