Wall Street Brief: A 5.2% 10-year, SoftBank's record $11.1B high-yield bond, and BASF's approach to Evonik
A source-linked scan of the September 18–25 capital-markets window: the 10-year Treasury above 5% and a 30-year at a 22-year high, SoftBank's record $11.1 billion high-yield sale, the Fed's stablecoin and bank-threshold proposals, BASF's approach to Evonik, and a $950 million CFTC fraud complaint.
Coverage window: September 18–25, 2026, through the Friday 18:00 publication cutoff in the channel's display timezone. One market repriced everything else in it. The US 10-year Treasury yield ended September 24 at 5.196%, its highest level since 2007, and the 30-year at 5.4816%, its highest since 2004. 12
The move built in two stages. On September 23 the 10-year rose 13.89 basis points in a single session, its largest daily increase since the April 2025 tariff turmoil, after S&P Global's flash US composite PMI printed at 58.4 — the highest since July 2021 — with prices paid at a near four-year high. Fed funds futures went that day from pricing a 53% chance of an October hike to 66%. By September 24 the odds had reached 71%, two Fed policymakers had said publicly that further increases would likely be needed, and the spread between French and German 10-year yields had widened to its broadest level since Mario Draghi's 2012 "whatever it takes" speech. A $70 billion five-year auction and a $44 billion seven-year auction both drew weak demand. 12
Committed capital kept moving anyway, and the price it paid is the week's second theme. SoftBank Group raised $11.1 billion across dollar- and euro-denominated notes on September 24 in the largest high-yield corporate bond sale on record, paying coupons of 8.625% to 9.75% on its dollar tranches against yields of 2.125% to 5.25% when it last borrowed at this scale in 2021. 3 The same week, an Australian data-centre operator set the launch date for the second-largest listing in that country's history, India's largest exchange completed a decade-long effort to list, and a German chemicals group opened talks to buy its smaller domestic rival.
The week's other structural theme was a maturing distinction inside the artificial-intelligence buildout. Capital is still available for AI infrastructure, but it is now allocated on evidence of contracted, operating demand rather than on the theme itself — and two data-centre listings stalled while two others advanced inside the same seven days.
At a glance
| Area | Event | Stage and scale | Parties / advisers | Immediate read-through |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IPO | National Stock Exchange of India (NSEI.BO) | Listed September 24, closed 1.85% above its offer price at ₹1,818, valuing the bourse at ₹4.5 trillion ($46.9 billion); the ₹225.6 billion ($2.3 billion) offering was entirely an offer for sale | — | India's second-largest IPO on record cleared, but the shares trade on a 43x fiscal 2026 multiple against rival BSE's 47x, reflecting concern about NSE's 68% revenue dependence on derivatives. 4 |
| IPO | Nscale (NSCL) | NYSE filing published September 18; targeting a valuation of about $30 billion; first-half revenue $140.6 million against a net loss of $1.02 billion | Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley as lead underwriters | Only 5% of the 461,000 chips Nscale plans to deploy are operating, and $88 billion of its $103 billion contract value sits with two customers. 56 |
| IPO | Firmus | Term sheet issued September 21; institutional bookbuild opens October 6, prospectus lodges October 8, trading from October 22; seeking A$7 billion ($5 billion), up to A$5.5 billion with greenshoe | — | At A$7 billion this is the fourth-largest IPO globally this year and Australia's largest since Telstra in 1997 — the cleanest test yet of public-market appetite for data-centre construction. 7 |
| IPO | ADARx Pharmaceuticals (ADRX.O) | Priced September 25; 26.3 million shares at $17.00, upsized from 21.9 million and at the top of the range, for $446.3 million; opened at $22.10 | — | AbbVie's concurrent private placement of up to $100 million for roughly 4.9% post-IPO is the differentiator; top-line data on the Phase 3 lead drug is expected by end-2027. 8 |
| IPO | Holtec Nuclear | Registration statement withdrawn September 25, after the offering was suspended the previous week | — | The withdrawal, rather than the suspension, is what removes a $10.2 billion-valuation candidate from the 2026 pipeline. 9 |
| M&A | BASF / Evonik | Non-binding approach announced September 25 for all shares of Evonik; BASF market capitalisation €45.8 billion, Evonik €9.2 billion; RAG Foundation holds 43% of Evonik and was contacted | — | Evonik closed 7.2% higher and BASF 3.6% lower; the outcome is explicitly "open at this stage" and no discussion is under way, so treat this as an approach and not a deal. 10 |
| M&A | UniCredit and Credit Agricole / Banco BPM | Joint scenario floated with Italian authorities in recent conversations; would entail breaking up Banco BPM, with Credit Agricole taking roughly one third; no binding step taken | — | Credit Agricole already holds 29.3% of Banco BPM and its CFO said on September 23 that "nothing can be done without us". 1112 |
| M&A | Paramount Skydance / Warner Bros Discovery | States and Writers Guild litigation settled September 21; $7.5 billion incremental term B facility launched September 24, alongside plans to raise about $44.4 billion of additional secured debt; combined company expected to carry about $80 billion of debt | — | The settlement avoided a $7 million-a-day ticking fee past September 30, and the financing now has to clear a rate environment that moved against it during the week. 1314 |
| M&A | Warburg Pincus / Ingenia Communities | Second approach rejected September 21; A$2.06 billion ($1.47 billion) at A$5.05 cash per share, a 16.9% premium to the prior close and about 6.3% above the first offer | — | Citi analysts put a compelling all-cash range at A$5.25–A$5.50, so the gap that matters is roughly A$0.20–0.45 a share — and the bid is conditioned on Ingenia abandoning its A$711 million Peet purchase. 15 |
| M&A | Novo Nordisk / Nanexa | Global licensing deal announced after the September 24 close, worth up to about €1.17 billion ($1.33 billion); €615 million in upfront plus development and regulatory milestones, the balance in sales milestones | — | Nanexa shares rose about 122% and the structure splits value between near-term cash and low single-digit royalties, so the milestone schedule is what to price. 16 |
| M&A | Eaton / COL Group | Agreed September 25; €810 million ($923 million) enterprise value, bought from Oaktree Capital Management; close expected in the first quarter of 2027 | Oaktree Capital Management (seller) | COL Group forecasts 2027 sales of €250 million, which puts the multiple at roughly 3.2x forward revenue for medium-voltage grid equipment sold into data-centre and utility demand. 17 |
| Regulation | CFTC v. Cash FX Group S.A. and others | Complaint filed September 25 in the Middle District of Florida; over $950 million solicited, at least $406 million of participant losses | CFTC Division of Enforcement | The alleged instrument was a multilevel-marketing Ponzi promising up to 15% weekly returns on forex that was barely traded — restitution, disgorgement and bans sought. 18 |
| Regulation | SEC / OTC Link LLC | Settled order September 22; censure and a $575,000 civil penalty for Regulation SCI violations between August 2016 and March 2025 | SEC Division of Enforcement, Cyber and Emerging Technologies Unit | The penalty was expressly tied to repeated failure to remediate deficiencies that examinations staff had flagged several times, which is the part to carry into ATS governance reviews. 19 |
| Regulation | Federal Reserve stablecoin proposal | Proposed September 24 under the 2025 GENIUS Act; 60 days of comment from Federal Register publication | Federal Reserve Board | Full reserve backing in short-term Treasury bills, capital requirements, custody guidelines and a tailored application path for banks wanting to issue their own tokens. 20 |
| Regulation | Kalshi | Sixth Circuit ruled September 25 that Ohio and Tennessee may regulate Kalshi's event contracts under their gambling laws, vacating one injunction and upholding the denial of another | US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit | The circuits now split — the Ninth Circuit sided with Nevada's oversight in August, the Third Circuit with Kalshi over New Jersey in April — which raises the odds the Supreme Court takes the question. 21 |
| Personnel | Berkshire Hathaway | Howard Buffett named chairman September 18; Warren Buffett becomes chairman emeritus, completing a succession begun when Greg Abel took the CEO role nine months earlier | — | The role is non-executive and scoped to preserving culture, so nothing about operating control changes; the governance read is that the transition is now complete at both levels. 22 |
| Financing | SoftBank Group (9984.T) | Priced September 24; $11.1 billion across five dollar and euro tranches; coupons of 8.625%, 9.25% and 9.75% on the dollar notes | — | The largest high-yield corporate bond sale on record, and it lands with SoftBank's holdings in Arm and OpenAI at three-quarters of group asset value and its five-year CDS above 400 basis points. 3 |
| Financing | Corporate refinancing wall | Reuters analysis of LSEG data published September 25: about $4.3 trillion of US non-financial corporate bonds mature between 2027 and 2031, with annual maturities rising from about $572 billion in 2027 to roughly $1.03 trillion in 2030 | PIMCO, Goldman Sachs (estimates cited) | High-yield maturities jump from about $68.5 billion in 2027 to $314.1 billion in 2029; CCC coupons could roughly double if refinanced at current index yields. 23 |
Public capital
NSE lists after a decade, at a $46.9 billion valuation
The National Stock Exchange of India closed its first session on September 24 1.85% above its offer price at ₹1,818, having risen as much as 5% intraday, and ended the day valued at ₹4.5 trillion ($46.9 billion) — among the ten most valuable listed bourses in the world. The ₹225.6 billion ($2.3 billion) offering is India's second-largest on record, behind Hyundai Motor India's 2024 listing, and was entirely an offer for sale, so NSE itself raised no new capital. 4
The subscription outcome and the multiple deserve to be read together. The issue was 5.7 times subscribed, but retail investors bid for only slightly more shares than were available to them, and the shares now trade at 43 times fiscal 2026 earnings against 47 times for rival BSE — a discount analysts attribute to NSE's dependence on derivatives, which produced about 68% of operating revenue in the June quarter. Tighter derivatives regulation and higher transaction taxes had already forced the company to cut the offering's size by more than 15% and lower its price. Macquarie initiated coverage with an outperform rating. 4
Nscale files at a $30 billion target, with 5% of its chips running
Nscale, a London-based AI cloud provider backed by Nvidia, published its US IPO filing on September 18 showing first-half revenue of $140.6 million against a net loss of $1.02 billion — revenue up 1,252% year on year, from $10.4 million. The company plans to list on the NYSE under NSCL, with Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley leading, and is reported to be targeting about $30 billion against $14.6 billion in its March funding round. 5
Two figures in the filing are the diligence tests. Nscale reported total contracted value of more than $103 billion as of August 31, of which less than $3 billion was active — meaning the infrastructure was online and generating revenue. Roughly $88 billion of that total sits with two counterparties: Anthropic as anchor tenant at the Monarch Compute Campus in West Virginia, and Microsoft at other sites. The filing states that binding financing commitments for the buildout required under the Anthropic agreements had not been secured, and that the largest customer accounted for 52% of first-half revenue. Of the 461,000 chips Nscale eventually plans to roll out, 5% were in operation. For comparison, the listed neoclouds CoreWeave and Nebius trade at 2.4x and 3.0x expected 2028 revenue on Visible Alpha data — multiples Nscale's hoped-for valuation would exceed. 56
Firmus sets October 6 for Australia's second-largest listing ever
Firmus, an Australian data-centre operator founded in 2019, will open its institutional bookbuild on October 6, close it October 7, lodge its prospectus October 8, run retail bidding October 12–19, and begin trading on the ASX on October 22, according to a term sheet reviewed by Reuters. The company seeks A$7 billion ($5 billion), rising to A$5.5 billion with the greenshoe — the second-largest IPO in Australian history after Telstra's A$10 billion listing in 1997, and the fourth-largest globally so far this year on Dealogic data. Founder shares are escrowed, with only 10% released after one year and a further 39.9% after two. 7
Firmus has two operational data centres, in Australia and Singapore, and five more under development across Asia-Pacific. The company faces local opposition to planned Australian projects over power and water consumption — the same community pushback now visible in the United States. 7
ADARx prices an upsized $446.3 million offering and opens 30% higher
ADARx Pharmaceuticals raised $446.3 million on September 25, selling 26.3 million shares at $17.00 — the top of its marketed range and up from a planned 21.9 million — and opened at $22.10, 30% above the offer price. The San Diego company develops drugs targeting immunity, kidney, cardiovascular and neurological disease, with top-line data on its Phase 3 lead asset expected by the end of 2027. AbbVie agreed to invest up to $100 million in a concurrent private placement for roughly a 4.9% post-IPO stake. 8
Biotech remains the most reliably open part of the US primary market, but it is no longer indiscriminate. Electra Therapeutics, which raised $350 million in the previous window, has fallen about 21% since its debut; two more drug developers, City Therapeutics and Iambic Therapeutics, filed during this week. 8
Two data-centre listings stall while a third advances
SB Energy, the SoftBank-backed data-centre developer, postponed the formal marketing of its US IPO this week while it worked through additional SEC questions, with investor concern focused on the roughly $60 billion valuation sought and its reliance on OpenAI as a major customer. Holtec Nuclear then went further and formally withdrew its registration statement on September 25, saying it no longer wished to conduct a public offering "at this time" after blaming adverse sentiment in equity markets and the nuclear sector. 924
Against that, DayOne, a Singapore-based operator backed by Coatue and Hillhouse, is pressing ahead with a US filing in mid-October and a listing as soon as November. DayOne raised $4.5 billion in a Series C round that closed in June, has secured about 2.1 gigawatts of capacity bookings, operates across Asia-Pacific and Europe, and could seek as much as $5 billion at a valuation of about $20 billion. Switch has filed confidentially and is expected to launch after DayOne; Vantage Data Centers and CyrusOne are also exploring listings. The distinguishing variable, as one analyst put it, is "whether demand is contracted and already energised, or only planned" — favouring operators with secured power and long-dated take-or-pay contracts. 24
A filling pipeline elsewhere
Ligent Technologies, a Chinese fibre-optic equipment maker, closed its Hong Kong debut on September 22 4.6% higher at HK$34.48 against a HK$32.96 offer price, after raising HK$5.67 billion ($723 million). The public tranche was 35.16 times subscribed and the international tranche 4.67 times; Hisense Group will retain about 40.1%. 25 Three further pipeline items moved this week: Energy Capital Partners-backed ProEnergy, a maker of power generation equipment, is reported to be seeking a valuation of around $40 billion to $50 billion in a US listing with Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan, with ECP also weighing a sale; Brookfield-backed Avaada Electro began roadshows for a $793 million India IPO; and Chinese regulators slowed humanoid-robot listings through informal "window guidance" after Unitree Robotics gave back 55% from its post-debut peak. 262728
M&A
BASF moves on Evonik, and both sides call the outcome open
BASF approached smaller domestic peer Evonik over a possible takeover, the two companies confirmed on September 25. Evonik said it had received a "non-binding approach from BASF regarding a voluntary public takeover offer for all shares of the company"; the RAG Foundation, which holds 43% of Evonik, said it had been contacted too. BASF carries a market capitalisation of €45.8 billion and Evonik €9.2 billion. 10
The portfolios overlap but are not parallel. Evonik makes high-tech plastics, feed additives and ingredients for coatings and household goods; BASF makes engineering plastics, super absorbent polymers and vitamins. Geographically the two are less complementary, since Europe is the largest market for both and BASF has pledged to lift revenue contributions from Asia — and BASF CEO Markus Kamieth said in June that the business environment was the most difficult in at least 25 years. 10
Neither side called this a deal. BASF said the outcome of exploratory talks was "open at this stage", and Evonik said no discussion was under way. Evonik closed 7.2% higher and BASF 3.6% lower. 10
A break-up scenario for Banco BPM brings two large banks together
UniCredit and Credit Agricole have recently been considering a possible joint move on Banco BPM under a plan that would entail breaking up the target, according to two people close to the matter — an idea floated in conversations with Italian authorities. One version would have UniCredit give Credit Agricole roughly one third of Banco BPM. 11
Credit Agricole is Banco BPM's largest investor with a 29.3% stake and has opposed a Banco BPM tie-up with Monte dei Paschi di Siena, saying instead that it would back a combination with its own Italian unit. Its CFO, Clotilde L'Angevin, told CNBC on September 23 that "nothing can be done without us, nothing can be done against us". All three banks declined to comment on the joint-move report, and a person briefed on the matter said UniCredit's position as an "observer" of Italian M&A has not changed. Banco BPM shares rose 2.3% on September 25. 1112
Paramount clears the states, then launches the financing
Paramount Skydance settled on September 21 with a California-led group of 12 state attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America over its $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery, ending the last major domestic obstacle. Paramount agreed to spend at least $300 million more each year on US film production, to release 30 films in each of the first two years and 32 in the following three, with at least four independent films and at least 20% blockbusters each year, and to pay $30 million per film if it misses those thresholds. It also agreed not to raise rates on theatre operators for three years and to establish a news editorial independence board for CBS and CNN. Warner Bros Discovery shares rose more than 10%. 13
Three days later Paramount launched a syndication for a $7.5 billion senior secured term B facility and said it intends to raise about $44.4 billion of additional secured debt alongside previously announced financings. The combined company is expected to carry about $80 billion of debt. The settlement also removed a $7 million-a-day ticking fee that would have begun accruing past September 30. 1314
Warburg Pincus's second bid for Ingenia is rejected
Ingenia Communities Group rejected a A$2.06 billion ($1.47 billion) takeover bid from Warburg Pincus on September 21 — the private equity firm's second attempt at the Australian land-lease community operator. The September 14 offer of A$5.05 a share in cash was nearly 6.3% above the earlier A$1.94 billion proposal and represented a 16.9% premium to Ingenia's last close. It carried a condition that Ingenia abandon its planned A$711 million acquisition of master-planned communities developer Peet, a deal the board considers central to its strategy. 15
The board said the offer "substantially" undervalued the company; Warburg Pincus said it was disappointed Ingenia would not engage on a "materially improved proposal". Citi analysts told clients an all-cash price of A$5.25 to A$5.50 would be compelling in the near term. Ingenia shares rose 2.6% to A$4.43. 15
Novo Nordisk licenses Nanexa's injection technology for up to €1.17 billion
Nanexa, a Swedish drug-delivery company, signed a global licensing deal with Novo Nordisk worth up to about €1.17 billion ($1.33 billion), announced after the September 24 close. Novo gains exclusive rights to Nanexa's PharmaShell technology — an ultra-thin coating on drug particles that controls release over time — across up to five development programmes, targeting injections given monthly or quarterly for obesity, type 2 diabetes and other cardiometabolic disease. 16
The payment structure is €615 million in upfront and development and regulatory milestones, with the remainder in sales milestones, plus low single-digit royalties on global sales. Novo leads global development and commercialisation. Nanexa shares rose about 122% in early trading on September 25 to their highest level in more than five years. 16
Eaton buys COL Group; Erste bids for its Polish unit; SMBC returns to VPBank
Eaton agreed on September 25 to acquire Italy's COL Group from Oaktree Capital Management at an €810 million ($923 million) enterprise value, expanding power distribution and manufacturing capacity in Europe against data-centre and utility demand. COL Group has about 400 employees with facilities in Turin, Milan, Bergamo and Catania, forecasts €250 million of 2027 sales, and develops medium-voltage switchgears, grid automation and modular power systems. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2027. 17
Austria's Erste Group Bank said it will launch a tender offer in November for up to an additional 26% of Erste Bank Polska at about 713 zloty ($185.95) a share in cash — an 11.7% discount to the September 25 close of 807.6 zloty. Erste holds 49% today and wants to go above 50% but below 75% to respect minimum free-float rules, funding the purchase from internal resources with a post-offer CET1 target above 14.25% against 15.2% at the half-year. Erste Bank Polska is Poland's third-largest bank by assets and is valued at 82.5 billion zlotys ($21.51 billion) after a 48% run this year. 29
Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp is in advanced talks to raise its stake in Vietnam's VPBank to approximately 20% from 15%, with both sides intending to close this year but still apart on valuation. SMBC paid $1.5 billion for the original stake in 2023 at about a 40% premium to market, and has internally discussed increasing the holding through open-market purchases rather than a private placement. A 5% stake is worth about $425 million at current prices. VPBank shares hit Vietnam's 7% daily limit after the report. 30
Regulation and market structure
The CFTC's largest fraud case of the week is a $950 million forex Ponzi
The CFTC filed a complaint on September 25 in the Middle District of Florida against Cash FX Group S.A. and its CEO Huascar Jose Lopez Castillo, The Conversion Pros, Inc. and its CEO Ronald Pope, and Justin Halladay, alleging a multilevel-marketing Ponzi scheme that solicited and accepted more than $950 million from the public for trading retail foreign currency contracts in a commodity pool, with participants losing at least $406 million. 18
The alleged mechanics matter for retail-solicitation risk assessments. The complaint says the defendants falsely claimed pool funds were traded by expert traders, proprietary algorithms and artificial intelligence, and promised returns of up to 15% weekly. Cash FX allegedly engaged in minimal forex trading, misappropriated nearly all participant funds, used new contributions to pay fictitious profits to earlier participants, paid millions of dollars to each defendant, and issued false account statements. The CFTC seeks restitution, disgorgement, civil monetary penalties, trading and registration bans and a permanent injunction. 18
The SEC censures an ATS operator and charges an $860,000 solicitation scheme
The SEC censured New York broker-dealer OTC Link LLC and ordered a $575,000 civil penalty on September 22 for longstanding Regulation SCI violations at OTC Link ATS, the alternative trading system it operates for over-the-counter securities. Between August 2016 and March 2025 the firm failed to establish, maintain and enforce required written policies covering system security, access control and application vulnerability management, testing and remediation. Examinations staff flagged missing policies on several occasions and the firm repeatedly failed to remediate promptly. OTC Link agreed to a cease-and-desist order, the censure and the penalty without admitting the findings. 19
Separately, on September 23 the SEC charged CMI Capital LLC and its founder Michael D. Williams over an alleged scheme that raised approximately $860,000 from at least 18 investors, many of them current or retired South Florida law enforcement officers. The complaint alleges Williams, who worked for a third-party police and firefighter pension plan administrator, told investors one fund held more than $5 million and had returned over 140%, using cropped screenshots of graphics, and misappropriated about $384,000 for personal expenses. The defendants consented to a bifurcated settlement subject to court approval, with disgorgement and penalties to be determined. 31
The SEC's own data shows the primary market's year-on-year swing
The SEC's Division of Economic and Risk Analysis published updated capital-markets statistics on September 23 for the first half of 2026. There were 208 IPOs raising over $137 billion, against 180 IPOs raising over $27 billion in the first half of 2025 — about a 16% increase in deal count and a nearly 400% increase in proceeds. Follow-on registered offerings numbered 557 raising over $111 billion, against 505 raising nearly $84 billion, a 10% increase in count and 33% in proceeds. 32
The Fed proposes stablecoin rules and moves to reindex bank oversight
The Federal Reserve proposed rules for dollar-backed stablecoin issuers on September 24, as required by the 2025 GENIUS Act. The proposal would require payment stablecoin issuers under Fed supervision to fully back tokens with reserve assets such as short-term Treasury bills, impose capital requirements for credit and operational risk, set guidelines for Fed-supervised banks that custody reserves for issuers, outline the stablecoin activities those banks may conduct, and establish a tailored application process for banks wanting to issue their own tokens. The Fed will accept comment for 60 days after Federal Register publication. 20
On September 25, Reuters reported that the Fed is also working on a plan to reindex the asset thresholds that trigger stricter oversight — currently $100 billion, stepping up at $250 billion and again at $700 billion, all set in 2019. The plan would move the highest threshold closer to $1 trillion and some requirements triggered by the lower threshold closer to $150 billion, using nominal GDP to incorporate inflation and growth. The banks closest to the $700 billion line — U.S. Bancorp, Capital One, PNC Financial and Truist — would gain room to grow without some of the toughest supervision, including aspects of incoming capital rules and daily reporting. Western Alliance, Zions and others could cross $100 billion without all the current requirements. The Fed has not commented publicly since Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman raised reindexing in January. 33
The consolidation read-through is explicit. Banks with $50 billion to $700 billion in assets announced just 33 bank and thrift acquisitions over the past decade, with seven last year, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence — a holding pattern analysts attribute partly to the thresholds. 33
Prediction markets lose a circuit, and the circuits now disagree
The Sixth US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Kalshi on September 25, holding that Ohio and Tennessee may regulate its event contracts under their gambling laws. A unanimous three-judge panel found Kalshi had not shown that its sports event contracts were "swaps" subject to exclusive CFTC regulation, and that the Commodity Exchange Act did not preempt either state's gambling laws. The decision vacated a preliminary injunction against Tennessee's enforcement and upheld the denial of a similar injunction against Ohio. 21
The ruling deepens a split among federal appeals courts. The Ninth Circuit held in August that Kalshi's contracts are subject to Nevada's gambling laws; the Third Circuit held in April that they are not subject to New Jersey's. The divergence raises the prospect of Supreme Court review. Separately, New York and Polymarket sued each other on September 24 over whether prediction markets constitute illegal gambling. 21
Two Australian actions, and a sanctions probe
Australia's competition regulator blocked Insurance Australia Group's planned takeover of RAC Insurance on September 23 after a phase two review, finding the acquisition could reduce competition in motor and home and contents insurance in Western Australia. IAG agreed in May last year to buy RAC Insurance's underwriting business in an A$1.35 billion ($959.85 million) deal expected to add about A$1.5 billion in gross written premium. ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said the deal would combine two large insurers and substantially increase IAG's market share. IAG said it will seek public-benefits authorisation, which weighs customer, community and economic benefits alongside competition concerns; its shares fell 2.2% in early trade. 34
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission warned on September 22 that it could take enforcement action over "poor practices" in private credit, citing unrealistic valuations and opaque fees. Commissioner Simone Constant said the sector's growth and complexity had outpaced industry standards, that "we're now beyond warnings", and that the recent collapse of property developer Bathla — which owed A$3 billion to more than 40 lenders — was not surprising. ASIC estimates Australia's private credit sector at about A$200 billion ($142 billion), with real estate lending making up roughly 40% to 60% of it. 35
US prosecutors are investigating Binance over possible violations of US sanctions on Iran and trading activity on its platform, a source said on September 22, in an investigation led by the US attorney's office in Manhattan and the Justice Department's criminal division. Bloomberg News reported investigators are examining whether Binance knowingly allowed the trading. Binance said it has a zero-tolerance approach to sanctions violations and fully cooperates with law enforcement. Earlier in September the Southern District of New York sought forfeiture of millions of dollars in Iranian oil sales it said had been laundered on the exchange. 36
Tokenised equities move from the exemption to the venue
One week after the SEC's five-year exemption for tokenized stock trading, the New York Stock Exchange and crypto brokerage Blockchain.com said on September 23 they would explore creating crypto versions of US-listed stocks and ETFs, without saying in which countries the products would be sold. The companies also signed a data agreement under which NYSE parent Intercontinental Exchange will distribute Blockchain.com's crypto market data, while Blockchain.com will use NYSE data in its app. Blockchain.com has already begun selling tokenised stocks to customers in Europe. Blockchain-based stock tokens rarely give buyers the same rights as traditional equities, and the buyer typically does not become a shareholder in the underlying company. 37
Firm earnings and guidance
No bulge-bracket quarterly release fell inside this window. Third-quarter bank results begin in mid-October, so there is no reported revenue, net income or segment figure to compare against the guidance given at the Barclays conference in the previous window. What this week offered instead was firm-level positioning and a sharp repricing of the sector's own shares.
The S&P 500 financials index fell 2% on September 22 and the benchmark's bank index fell 3%. Charles Schwab dropped 6.1%, Ameriprise Financial 4.4% and Raymond James more than 3%. Two forces were cited: concern that AI agents compete with wealth-management distribution — Meta's Muse had just passed ChatGPT as the most downloaded free iPhone app — and a flattening Treasury curve that compresses bank returns, with the two-to-ten-year spread reaching its flattest since March 2025 at one point that day, down from 55.5 basis points on August 18. 38
Societe Generale lifted its 2029 return-on-tangible-equity target to 13% to 14%, from around 11% this year, before reaching 15% in 2030 and beyond, and pledged €1.9 billion of gross savings by 2029 — bringing total costs below €16.3 billion, down 2% from 2026, through procurement and IT savings, AI-driven productivity and reduced headcount. The bank targets a cost-to-income ratio below 55% by 2029 against a current target of 60%, and said it could distribute €21 billion to shareholders over four years to 2029. CEO Slawomir Krupa said higher French government bond yields would not have a material impact because the bank is hedged two to three years out. Shares rose more than 3% against a 1.5% gain for the European banking index. 39
Morgan Stanley formally changed its Bank of England call on September 25 to two 25 basis point hikes, in November and February, having previously expected no increases for the foreseeable future, naming fiscal policy as the key potential catalyst. The Bank of England held rates on September 17 while warning they might have to rise if the Iran war drags on. 40
Personnel
Berkshire Hathaway said on September 18 that Howard Buffett would become chairman of the $1.1 trillion conglomerate, with Warren Buffett becoming chairman emeritus — completing a transition begun nine months earlier when Greg Abel took the chief executive role. Howard Buffett, 71, has been a Berkshire director for 33 years. The role is non-executive: his stated responsibility is to preserve the company's culture, and he takes no management role. 22
Circle Internet Group, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin with a market capitalisation of about $75 billion, said on September 25 that chief financial officer Jeremy Fox-Geen plans to step down after more than five years. Fox-Geen, who navigated Circle's $1.2 billion IPO last year, will stay through the end of 2026 to support the transition unless a successor is appointed sooner. Co-founder Sean Neville also stepped down as a director with immediate effect for personal reasons, which Circle described as part of an orderly board refreshment. 41
Banca IFIS, a specialist Italian lender, replaced its chief executive on September 25 after an on-site Bank of Italy inspection between January and June raised issues in anti-money laundering, digital technology and operational risk, and questioned the adequacy of its internal control system and governance. The board named Raffaele Zingone CEO with immediate effect, replacing Frederik Geertman. Shares fell 14.5%, triggering an automatic trading suspension, while Italy's banking index rose 1.4%. The Bank of Italy has 90 days to decide on additional capital requirements and IFIS has 45 days to present its observations; two penalty proceedings have been initiated. 42
Financing and capital markets
SoftBank sets a high-yield record, and pays for it
SoftBank Group raised $11.1 billion in dollar- and euro-denominated bonds on September 24, the largest high-yield corporate bond sale globally on record, surpassing French telecoms firm Numericable Group's $10.9 billion issuance in 2014 on LSEG data. The dollar tranches were $1 billion at 3.5 years, $4.5 billion at 5.5 years and $4.5 billion at 7.5 years, paying 8.625%, 9.25% and 9.75% respectively; two €500 million euro tranches at four and six years yielded 7.125% and 8%. A $7.3 billion SoftBank issuance in June 2021 paid between 2.125% and 5.25%. 3
The proceeds fund SoftBank's commitments to OpenAI, to which it has committed $64.6 billion and will own roughly 13% by next week, alongside the acquisitions of ABB's robotics business for $5.4 billion and DigitalBridge for $3.1 billion. SoftBank's holdings in Arm and OpenAI make up three-quarters of group asset value, its five-year credit default swap spread exceeded 400 basis points this week against around 280 in June, and it has issued $14.6 billion of high-yield bonds in 2026 — 63.4% of the Asia-Pacific and Japan high-yield corporate bond market. Hyperscaler bond sales have more than doubled this year to over $200 billion on LSEG data. 3
The broader point is the one TD Securities made about the week's rates move: "hyperscaler issuance" was listed alongside hike expectations, growth expectations, oil prices and fiscal concerns as a driver. 2
The refinancing wall now has a schedule
About $4.3 trillion of US non-financial corporate bonds mature between 2027 and 2031, according to a Reuters analysis of LSEG data published September 25, with annual maturities rising from roughly $572 billion in 2027 to about $1.03 trillion in 2030 — a bulge pushed out by earlier refinancing. The burden is uneven: high-yield maturities climb from about $68.5 billion in 2027 to $314.1 billion in 2029, while investment-grade maturities rise to $512.6 billion from $437 billion. High-yield debt would account for about a third of all 2029 maturities, up from 12% in 2027. 23
PIMCO's view, cited in that analysis, is that most investment-grade and high-yield issuers can absorb higher refinancing costs, but the weakest borrowers face a sharper squeeze — coupons on CCC-rated bonds due in 2027 and 2028 could roughly double if refinanced at current index yields. The wave will also coincide with technology borrowing: Goldman Sachs expects gross debt issuance by hyperscalers including Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft and Oracle to reach $420 billion in 2027, up 60% from estimated 2026 levels. Global debt has climbed above a record $365 trillion on Institute of International Finance data. 23
AI infrastructure finance is being sorted by contract quality
Two events crystallised the shift. SB Energy postponed the marketing of its IPO amid SEC questions and investor concern over its roughly $60 billion valuation and its reliance on OpenAI. And a dispute between Oracle and Blue Owl over a data-centre project in New Mexico — with Oracle citing force majeure — threatened to delay that build, sending ripples through AI financing more broadly. The cost side is moving too: AI-related capital spending by the six biggest US technology companies is projected to reach around $1 trillion in 2027 on Moody's estimates, against a cost of capital that rose through this week. 24
A payment processor's accounts are seized
US prosecutors in California seized millions of dollars from bank accounts and cryptocurrency wallets tied to Capstone, a Montana payments company, according to a civil forfeiture filing. Prosecutors said Capstone's owners misrepresented the business as an information technology company to banks including Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase. The filing reports seizures of nearly $81 million from Capstone's Wells Fargo accounts, $2 million from a JPMorgan account, and about $1.2 million of Tether's dollar-pegged token. Capstone allegedly processed payments for two crypto companies through an agreement with a bank in Dominica and ran a scheme in which it pretended to be FBI agents to obtain cash and converted the proceeds to crypto. Tether confirmed it was a customer of the bank but said it was unaware of the alleged fraud and that its assets held there were limited; the Justice Department did not allege wrongdoing by the other firms. 43
What to carry into next week
- Firmus institutional bookbuild (October 6–7): The A$7 billion offering prices against a rate backdrop that moved against it during this window. Final price and allocation are the first hard read on whether public-market demand for data-centre construction survived the week.
- Nscale's NYSE launch (undated): The filing is live and the roadshow has not begun. Track whether the deal prices near the mooted $30 billion valuation, and whether the filing is amended to disclose binding financing for the Anthropic buildout.
- Fed threshold proposal (expected later this year): Three of the four people Reuters spoke to expect a proposal before year-end. It is the unlock for a mid-cap bank M&A pipeline that has run at seven deals a year; watch Western Alliance, Zions and Pinnacle Financial Partners specifically.
- Fed stablecoin comment period (60 days from Federal Register publication): The reserve, capital and custody requirements land hardest on Fed-supervised bank issuers and on custodians holding issuer reserves. Route to legal and to treasury before the period closes.
- Kalshi at the Supreme Court: With the Sixth and Ninth Circuits aligned against Kalshi and the Third Circuit for it, a cert petition is the next likely event. Until the question is settled, state gambling exposure for event contracts is venue-dependent.
- October FOMC (October 27–28): Fed funds futures ended the week at 71% odds of a hike. Compare the October composite PMI and prices paid against the September readings of 58.4 before positioning.
- Paramount's debt syndication: The $7.5 billion term B facility and roughly $44.4 billion of additional secured debt are being marketed into the rate move this brief describes. The clearing level is a direct read on leveraged appetite.
- Q3 bank earnings (from mid-October): Compare reported investment-banking and trading revenue against the Barclays conference guidance — BofA's decline of more than 10%, JPMorgan's mid-to-high-teens growth, and Goldman's $500 million of additional non-compensation costs.
- SoftBank's next funding marker: The OpenAI listing its credit depends on has been delayed and its five-year CDS is above 400 basis points. CreditSights sees a possible upgrade only if that listing is timely and successful.
- Ingenia / Warburg Pincus: Citi's A$5.25–A$5.50 range leaves roughly A$0.20–0.45 a share of negotiating room, and the bid still hinges on Ingenia dropping Peet. Either side moving first is the signal.
References
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
This story was produced automatically by a channel. One sentence is all it takes for Neodrop to keep producing for you.