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  • Cooley Adds Emerging Companies and Venture Capital Partner in Singapore // Cooley // Global Law Firm

    Cooley Adds Emerging Companies and Venture Capital Partner in Singapore // Cooley // Global Law Firm

    Singapore – September 4, 2025 – David He has joined Cooley as an emerging companies and venture capital partner in the firm’s Singapore office. He brings more than a decade of experience advising venture capital and private equity funds, as well as startups and technology companies across the world. During this time, he was based in New York, Silicon Valley and Asia.

    He’s practice covers the life cycle of high-growth emerging companies, from pre-seed through pre-initial public offering (IPO), along with traditional and corporate venture capital funds, private equity funds and growth equity funds making private investments. His experience spans cross-border equity and debt financings, buy-side and sell-side acquisitions, joint ventures, corporate restructurings, board advisory and general corporate governance. He arrives at Cooley from Gunderson Dettmer’s Singapore office.

    “David is an excellent addition to our emerging companies and venture capital team and brings a wealth of experience and a strong base of connections in Singapore and across Asia,” said Cooley partner Matthew Bartus, co-chair of the firm’s emerging companies and venture capital practice group and a founding partner of the Singapore office. “We are delighted to welcome him to Cooley.”

    “We are constantly on the lookout for rising star talent, like David, with exceptional reputations and deep client relationships in our core sectors providing life cycle representation of fast-growing, disruptive companies, as well as venture capital and private equity funds,” said Patrick Loofbourrow, Cooley partner and co-chair of the firm’s China corporate practice. “David’s experience will strengthen our capabilities in our growing practice in Singapore and across South and Southeast Asia, as well as more broadly across the Asia region, as we have seen significant client demand across the region.”

    He has advised on hundreds of successful venture-backed transactions and led negotiations involving institutional investors and management teams based in the US, India, China, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Australia and across Southeast Asia. He regularly represents emerging companies incorporated in Singapore, the US, the Cayman Islands and various other jurisdictions, with operating entities around the world.

    He is recognized as a “Next Generation Partner” in the Startup and Venture Capital – Foreign Firms in Singapore category by The Legal 500. He also was named one of the top 100 India-focused lawyers at international law firms on the India Business Law Journal’s 2025 International A-List and was included on Asian Legal Business’ list of Asia’s 40 Under 40 Lawyers in 2022. He is recognized in Chambers and Partners’ Asia-Pacific Guide 2025 for Startups & Emerging Companies.

    “Cooley’s global platform and deep technical bench align perfectly with the needs of my clients as they continue to raise domestic and foreign capital and scale their businesses across borders,” said He. “I am thrilled to join this talented and collaborative team and contribute to the firm’s growth in India and Asia.”

    Cooley is the go-to advisor to innovators and disruptors. As one of the most active firms globally in advising on early- and late-stage financings, IPOs and M&A, Cooley combines a multidisciplinary platform with efficient, tech-enabled resources designed to provide clients with premium counsel through each stage as they scale. Cooley is deeply connected in the venture ecosystem, working with startups, boards, management teams and investors to support 7,000+ high-growth private companies reshaping the global economy.

    About Cooley LLP

    Clients partner with Cooley on transformative deals, complex IP and regulatory matters, and high-stakes litigation.

    Cooley has nearly 1,400 lawyers across 19 offices in the United States, Asia and Europe, and a total workforce of more than 3,000 people.

    This content is provided for general informational purposes only, and your access or use of the content does not create an attorney-client relationship between you or your organization and Cooley LLP, Cooley (UK) LLP, or any other affiliated practice or entity (collectively referred to as “Cooley”). By accessing this content, you agree that the information provided does not constitute legal or other professional advice. This content is not a substitute for obtaining legal advice from a qualified attorney licensed in your jurisdiction, and you should not act or refrain from acting based on this content. This content may be changed without notice. It is not guaranteed to be complete, correct or up to date, and it may not reflect the most current legal developments. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Do not send any confidential information to Cooley, as we do not have any duty to keep any information you provide to us confidential. When advising companies, our attorney-client relationship is with the company, not with any individual. This content may have been generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence (Al) in accordance with our Al Principles, may be considered Attorney Advertising and is subject to our legal notices.

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  • Tech war: China advances in AI agentic tools as Tencent, ByteDance weigh in

    Tech war: China advances in AI agentic tools as Tencent, ByteDance weigh in

    China is making progress in artificial intelligence “agentic frameworks”, the tools required to make AI agents, as the country’s tech giants begin to take on US players such as AutoGen and OpenAI Swarm.

    Tencent Holdings was the latest to join the fray after the Shenzhen-based company open-sourced its new Youtu-Agent agentic framework on Tuesday. Developed by Youtu Labs, Tencent’s AI research department, the framework was released on Microsoft’s open-source code-hosting platform GitHub last week.

    The company said that a Youtu-Agent agent built on the open-source DeepSeek-V3.1 model achieved a score of 71.47 per cent on WebWalkerQA, a web traversal benchmark.

    The move followed ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, which open-sourced its agent development platform, Coze Studio, in July. Meanwhile, Alibaba Group Holding open-sourced its agent framework Qwen-Agent in March.

    Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

    Tencent’s headquarters in Shenzhen. Photo: AFP

    Agentic frameworks are software platforms that provide the tools and components to build, deploy and manage AI agents. Agents, such as Chinese start-up Butterfly Effect’s Manus and OpenAI’s Operator, are capable of autonomously performing complex tasks for users by planning and executing a series of subtasks.

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  • Rubrik appoints Stefan Compagnoni as Channel Director for ANZ region

    Rubrik appoints Stefan Compagnoni as Channel Director for ANZ region

    Rubrik has announced the appointment of Stefan Compagnoni as Channel Director for Australia and New Zealand.

    Compagnoni joins Rubrik following five years at Extreme Networks, where he held a number of channel roles including Head of Channel and Distribution for Australia and New Zealand. His previous experience also includes multiple sales and enablement positions at distributor Arrow ECS ANZ, bringing over a decade of combined experience on both the vendor and distributor sides of the channel.

    Rubrik outlined that Compagnoni brings a diverse background, familiarity with the local partner ecosystem, and a focus on developing robust relationships with channel partners across Australia and New Zealand.

    Compagnoni stated that several elements influenced his decision to take on the new role at Rubrik, including the company’s cyber recovery solutions and organisational leadership. He detailed his reasons for joining Rubrik, noting the company’s position in key technology sectors and its approach to partner relations.

    “What initially appealed to me about Rubrik was its leadership position in increasingly critical technology segments; data security and cyber resilience,” Compagnoni said. “Beyond the capability of its offering, it was clear during my conversations that Rubrik had a great relationship with its channel partners – one built on and defined by mutual trust – and that’s something I’ll be looking to enhance with our partners.”

    He went on to stress the importance of trust in fostering successful business partnerships within the channel ecosystem. Drawing on his broad experience, Compagnoni said, “Having worked on the partner-side of the ecosystem, I know first-hand that with trust front-and-centre in the relationship, the world’s your oyster. You can have the best technology or the most demand in the world, but without trust you will not get any traction with partners.”

    David Rajkovic, Regional Vice President, Rubrik ANZ, commented on Compagnoni’s appointment, highlighting how his experience aligns with Rubrik’s channel-based strategy.

    “As a completely channel-driven organisation, our partners are at the heart of everything we do. Stefan’s appointment reinforces our commitment to strengthening those local relationships and establishing new ones,” Rajkovic said. “We recently launched Agent Rewind to give enterprises the power to reverse mistakes made by agentic AI, offering greater transparency, visibility, and control over changes to applications and data. Agent Rewind is an industry-first and Stefan’s trusted reputation will be instrumental in enabling and guiding our partners, strengthening their capabilities, and driving increased profitability.”

    Agent Rewind, which Rubrik noted is due to become generally available in the coming months, is positioned by the company as a solution that helps enterprises address issues arising from agentic AI, providing tools for transparency and better management of data and applications.

    The company describes itself as operating at the intersection of data protection, cyber resilience, and enterprise AI acceleration, with its Rubrik Security Cloud platform delivering cyber resilience and recovery, including identity resilience, built on secure metadata and a data lake. Additional offerings include Predibase, designed to help secure and deploy generative AI while supporting agentic applications.

    Rubrik emphasised that strengthening local partner relationships continues to be a priority and that Compagnoni’s established network and understanding of both the vendor and distributor landscapes will be key to supporting that effort in the Australia and New Zealand region.

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  • Insider Stock Buying Reaches AU$1.05m On Botala Energy

    Insider Stock Buying Reaches AU$1.05m On Botala Energy

    In the last year, multiple insiders have substantially increased their holdings of Botala Energy Limited (ASX:BTE) stock, indicating that insiders’ optimism about the company’s prospects has increased.

    While insider transactions are not the most important thing when it comes to long-term investing, logic dictates you should pay some attention to whether insiders are buying or selling shares.

    AI is about to change healthcare. These 20 stocks are working on everything from early diagnostics to drug discovery. The best part – they are all under $10bn in marketcap – there is still time to get in early.

    Over the last year, we can see that the biggest insider purchase was by Executive Chairman Wolf Martinick for AU$970k worth of shares, at about AU$0.068 per share. So it’s clear an insider wanted to buy, even at a higher price than the current share price (being AU$0.065). Their view may have changed since then, but at least it shows they felt optimistic at the time. In our view, the price an insider pays for shares is very important. As a general rule, we feel more positive about a stock if insiders have bought shares at above current prices, because that suggests they viewed the stock as good value, even at a higher price.

    Botala Energy insiders may have bought shares in the last year, but they didn’t sell any. You can see a visual depiction of insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last 12 months, below. If you want to know exactly who sold, for how much, and when, simply click on the graph below!

    View our latest analysis for Botala Energy

    ASX:BTE Insider Trading Volume September 4th 2025

    There are always plenty of stocks that insiders are buying. If investing in lesser known companies is your style, you could take a look at this free list of companies. (Hint: insiders have been buying them).

    There was some insider buying at Botala Energy over the last quarter. Executive Chairman Wolf Martinick purchased AU$8.7k worth of shares in that period. It’s great to see that insiders are only buying, not selling. However, in this case the amount invested recently is quite small.

    I like to look at how many shares insiders own in a company, to help inform my view of how aligned they are with insiders. I reckon it’s a good sign if insiders own a significant number of shares in the company. Botala Energy insiders own 40% of the company, currently worth about AU$7.3m based on the recent share price. Most shareholders would be happy to see this sort of insider ownership, since it suggests that management incentives are well aligned with other shareholders.

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  • What lifestyle changes can lower your risk?

    What lifestyle changes can lower your risk?

    Colon cancer is no longer just an older person’s disease. In recent years, doctors have been sounding the alarm as more young adults under 50 are being diagnosed with colorectal cancer, a trend that has surprised both patients and experts. Projections suggest that if the current pace continues, this cancer could become the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in young adults worldwide by 2030.

    For decades, colorectal cancer was considered an age-related illness, largely kept in check among older populations thanks to better screening programs and lifestyle awareness. But now, high-income nations like the United States, Australia, and parts of Europe are reporting rising numbers in younger groups. Similar patterns are also emerging in Asia and Latin America, pointing to a global problem.

    The shift has researchers looking closely at modern lifestyles, sedentary routines, processed diets, alcohol, and smoking, all factors that may be raising risks earlier in life.


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  • Character.AI is dangerous for teens, experts say

    Character.AI is dangerous for teens, experts say

    The popular artificial intelligence companion platform Character.AI is not safe for teens, according to new research conducted by online safety experts.

    A report detailing the safety concerns, published by ParentsTogether Action and Heat Initiative, includes numerous troubling exchanges between AI chatbots and adult testers posing as teens younger than 18.

    The testers held conversations with chatbots that engaged in what the researchers described as sexual exploitation and emotional manipulation. The chatbots also gave the supposed minors harmful advice, such as offering drugs and recommending armed robbery. Some of the user-created chatbots had fake celebrity personas, like Timothée Chalamet and Chappell Roan, both of whom discussed romantic or sexual behavior with the testers.

    The chatbot fashioned after Roan, who is 27, told an account registered as a 14-year-old user, “Age is just a number. It’s not gonna stop me from loving you or wanting to be with you.”

    SEE ALSO:

    I ‘dated’ Character.AI’s popular boyfriends, and parents should be worried

    Character.AI confirmed to the Washington Post that the Chalamet and Roan chatbots were created by users and have been removed by the company.

    ParentsTogether Action, a nonprofit advocacy group, had adult online safety experts conduct the testing, which yielded 50 hours of conversation with Character.AI companions. The researchers created minor accounts with matching personas. Character.AI allows users as young as 13 to use the platform, and doesn’t require age or identity verification.

    The Heat Initiative, an advocacy group focused on online safety and corporate accountability, partnered with ParentsTogether Action to produce the research and the report documenting the testers’ exchanges with various chatbots.

    Mashable Trend Report

    They found that adult-aged chatbots simulated sexual acts with child accounts, told minors to hide relationships from parents, and “exhibited classic grooming behaviors.”


    “Character.ai is not a safe platform for children — period.”

    – Sarah Gardner, CEO of Heat Initiative

    “Character.ai is not a safe platform for children — period,” Sarah Gardner, CEO of Heat Initiative, said in a statement.

    Last October, a bereaved mother filed a lawsuit against Character.AI, seeking to hold the company responsible for the death of her son, Sewell Setzer. She alleged that its product was designed to “manipulate Sewell – and millions of other young customers – into conflating reality and fiction,” among other dangerous defects. Setzer died by suicide following heavy engagement with a Character.AI companion.

    Character.AI is separately being sued by parents who claim their children experienced severe harm by engaging with the company’s chatbots. Earlier this year, the advocacy and research organization Common Sense Media declared AI companions unsafe for minors.

    Jerry Ruoti, head of trust and safety at Character.AI, said in a statement shared with Mashable that the company was not consulted about the report’s findings prior to their publication, and thus couldn’t comment directly on how the tests were designed.

    “We have invested a tremendous amount of resources in Trust and Safety, especially for a startup, and we are always looking to improve,” Ruoti said. “We are reviewing the report now and we will take action to adjust our controls if that’s appropriate based on what the report found.”

    A Character.AI spokesperson also told Mashable that labeling certain sexual interactions with chatbots as “grooming” was a “harmful misnomer,” because these exchanges don’t occur between two human beings.

    Character.AI does have parental controls and safety measures in place for users younger than 18. Ruoti said that among its various guardrails, the platform limits under-18 users to a narrower collection of chatbots, and that filters work to remove those related to sensitive or mature topics.

    Ruoti also said that the report ignored the fact that the platform’s chatbots are meant for entertainment, including “creative fan fiction and fictional roleplay.”

    Dr. Jenny Radesky, a developmental behavioral pediatrician and media researcher at the University of Michigan Medical School, reviewed the conversation material and expressed deep concern over the findings: “When an AI companion is instantly accessible, with no boundaries or morals, we get the types of user-indulgent interactions captured in this report: AI companions who are always available (even needy), always on the user’s side, not pushing back when the user says something hateful, while undermining other relationships by encouraging behaviors like lying to parents.”

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  • Asian Stocks Rise as Weak US Jobs Fuel Fed Bets: Markets Wrap

    Asian Stocks Rise as Weak US Jobs Fuel Fed Bets: Markets Wrap


    This content was published on

    (Bloomberg) — Asian equities climbed with Wall Street after weak US job openings data reinforced bets on a Federal Reserve interest-rate cut.

    Shares in Japan, Australia and South Korea gained at the open. Equity-index futures for the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 edged higher after both gauges advanced. Australian bonds tracked Wednesday’s moves in Treasuries, with yields on the 10-year declining almost five basis points to 4.37%. Oil dipped, while gold steadied.

    With job openings falling to a 10-month low, traders are now almost fully pricing in a September Fed cut and projecting at least two reductions this year. The shift lifted equities, snapping a two-day losing streak for US stocks, and supported Treasuries a day before a pivotal US payrolls report.

    The data is “another sign that the labour market is slowing down,” wrote Kyle Rodda, a senior market analyst at Capital.com in Melbourne. “The dynamic boosts the case for rate cuts.”

    Economists project about 75,000 jobs were added in August, based on the median of a Bloomberg survey, while the jobless rate is seen at 4.3%. Four straight months of sub-100,000 payrolls growth would mark the weakest such stretch since the onset of the pandemic in 2020.

    “A large downside surprise in labor market data could push rates sharply lower given the concern around the Fed’s labor mandate,” said TD Securities strategists including Oscar Munoz and Gennadiy Goldberg. “We remain biased long on dips and expect rates to move lower throughout the year.”

    Also, Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said on CNBC that the central bank should begin lowering rates in September and make multiple cuts in coming months, adding that officials could debate the precise pace of reductions.

    Investors will also focus on a bond auction in Japan Thursday, which faces added uncertainty from a global debt market turmoil and political instability at home.

    Meanwhile, borrowers from across the globe are rushing into the bond market, with more than $128 billion of sales so far this week, and investors are lapping up the new debt.

    Investors are being drawn to yields that are still elevated compared to long-term levels, while tight spreads signal continued confidence in companies’ credit strength.

    In China, Beijing started imposing levies on additional US optical fiber imports on anti-dumping concerns.

    Corporate News:

    Apple Inc. is planning to launch its own artificial intelligence-powered web search tool next year, stepping up competition with OpenAI and Perplexity AI Inc. Salesforce Inc. projected lackluster quarterly sales growth, suggesting its artificial intelligence product isn’t yet paying off as quickly as hoped in the face of competition from emerging AI companies. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. Chief Executive Officer Antonio Neri said the company expects to weather a slimming of profit margins as it enters a new era of artificial intelligence-driven demand. Some of the main moves in markets:

    Stocks

    S&P 500 futures rose 0.2% as of 9:32 a.m. Tokyo time Hang Seng futures were little changed Nikkei 225 futures (OSE) rose 0.9% Japan’s Topix rose 0.6% Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.8% Euro Stoxx 50 futures rose 0.2% Currencies

    The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed The euro was little changed at $1.1658 The Japanese yen was little changed at 148.08 per dollar The offshore yuan was unchanged at 7.1391 per dollar The Australian dollar was little changed at $0.6546 Cryptocurrencies

    Bitcoin fell 0.2% to $112,036.51 Ether rose 0.1% to $4,473.41 Bonds

    The yield on 10-year Treasuries was little changed at 4.21% Japan’s 10-year yield declined two basis points to 1.620% Australia’s 10-year yield declined five basis points to 4.37% Commodities

    West Texas Intermediate crude fell 0.5% to $63.68 a barrel Spot gold was little changed This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.

    –With assistance from Richard Henderson.

    ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.

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  • Israeli annexation in West Bank is ‘red line’, says UAE

    Israeli annexation in West Bank is ‘red line’, says UAE

    Dubai  –  Israeli moves to annex parts of the occupied West Bank are a “red line” for the United Arab Emirates, a senior official said on Wednesday.

    Annexation in the West Bank would “severely undermine” the Abraham Accords that established ties in 2020, said Lana Nusseibeh, the foreign ministry’s assistant minister for political affairs.

    Last month, Israel approved a major settlement project just east of Jerusalem that the international community has warned threatens the viability of future Palestinian statehood. And on Wednesday, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for annexation of swathes of the West Bank, after Belgium became the latest country to announce it would recognise Palestine as a state. “From the very beginning, we viewed the Accords as a way to enable our continued support for the Palestinian people and their legitimate aspiration for an independent state,” Nusseibeh said in a statement sent to a wire service.

    “The proposals to annex parts of the West Bank, reportedly under discussion in the Israeli government, is part of an effort that would, in the words of an Israeli minister, ‘bury the idea of a Palestinian state’,” Nusseibeh added. The UAE, Bahrain and Morocco recognised Israel under the Abraham Accords during US President Donald Trump’s first term in office, bucking the Arab consensus that there should be no ties without a Palestinian state.

    “Annexation in the West Bank would constitute a red line for the UAE,” Nusseibeh said.

    “It would severely undermine the vision and spirit of (the) Accords, end the pursuit of regional integration and would alter the widely shared consensus on what the trajectory of this conflict should be — two states living side by side in peace, prosperity and security.”

    Israeli settlements in the West Bank are considered illegal under international law.


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  • Experts aim to close the language gap

    Experts aim to close the language gap

    Pumza FihlaniBBC News in Johannesburg

    BBC A head and shoulders shot of a woman standing in a field. She is smiling and wearing a big, floppy sun hat. A blurred field of crops can be seen in the background. BBC

    Farmer Kelebogile Mosime uses an AI app that speaks her language

    Although Africa is home to a huge proportion of the world’s languages – well over a quarter according to some estimates – many are missing when it comes to the development of AI.

    This is both an issue of a lack of investment and readily available data.

    Most AI tools, such as Chat GPT, used today are trained on English as well as other European and Chinese languages.

    These have vast quantities of online text to draw from.

    But as many African languages are mostly spoken rather than written down, there is a lack of text to train AI on to make it useful for speakers of those languages.

    For millions across the continent this means being left out.

    Researchers who have been trying to address this issue have recently released what is thought to be the largest known dataset of African languages.

    “We think in our own languages, dream in them and interpret the world through them. If technology doesn’t reflect that, a whole group risks being left behind,” the University of Pretoria’s Prof Vukosi Marivathe, who worked on the project, tells the BBC.

    “We’re going through this AI revolution, imagining all that can be done with it. Now imagine there’s a part of the population that just doesn’t have that access because all the information is in English.”

    The Africa Next Voices project brought together linguists and computer scientists to create AI-ready datasets in 18 African languages.

    That may just be a small portion of the more than 2,000 languages estimated to be spoken across the continent but those involved in the project say they hope to expand in the future.

    In two years, the team recorded 9,000 hours of speech across Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, capturing everyday scenarios in farming, health and education.

    The languages recorded included Kikuyu and Dholuo in Kenya, Hausa and Yoruba in Nigeria and isiZulu and Tshivenda in South Africa, some of which are spoken by millions of people.

    “You need some basis to start off with and that’s what Africa Next Voices is and then people will build on top of that and add their own innovations,” says Prof Marivathe, who led the research in South Africa.

    His Kenyan counterpart, computational linguist Lilian Wanzare, says recording the speech on the continent meant creating data aimed at reflecting how people really live and speak.

    “We gathered voices from different regions, ages and backgrounds so it’s as inclusive as possible. Big tech can’t always see those nuances,” she says.

    The project was made possible by a $2.2m (£1.6m) Gates Foundation grant.

    The data will be open access, allowing developers to build tools that translate, transcribe and respond in African languages.

    There are already small examples of how indigenous languages used in AI can be used to solve real-life challenges in Africa, according to Prof Marivathe.

    Kelebogile Mosime walking through a field with green cops. Two farmworkers can be seen behind her spraying the crops.

    Kelebogile Mosime has spent the last three years building a successful farming business

    Farmer Kelebogile Mosime manages a 21-hectare site in Rustenburg, the heart of South Africa’s platinum region.

    The 45-year-old works with a small team to cultivate rows of vegetables – including beans, spinach, cauliflower and tomatoes.

    She only began three years ago, with a cabbage crop, and to help she uses an app called AI-Farmer, which recognises several South African languages, including Sesotho, isiZulu and Afrikaans, to help solve various problems.

    “As someone still learning to farm, you face a lot of challenges,” Ms Mosime says.

    “Daily, I see the benefits of being able to use my home language Setswana on the app when I run into problems on the farm, I ask anything and get a useful answer.

    “For somebody in the rural areas like me who is not exposed to technology it’s useful. I can ask about different options for insect control, it’s also been useful with diagnosing sick plants,” she beams underneath a wide-brim sunhat.

    Lelapa AI is a young South African company building AI tools in African languages for banks and telecoms firms.

    For its CEO Pelonomi Moiloa, what is currently available is very restrictive.

    “English is the language of opportunity. For many South Africans who don’t speak it, it’s not just inconvenient – it can mean missing out on essential services like healthcare, banking or even government support,” she tells the BBC.

    “Language can be a huge barrier. We’re saying it shouldn’t be.”

    But this is more than being about business and convenience.

    For Prof Marivathe there is also a danger that without African language initiatives, something else could be lost

    “Language is access to imagination,” he says.

    “It’s not just words – it’s history, culture, knowledge. If indigenous languages aren’t included, we lose more than data; we lose ways of seeing and understanding the world.”

    You may also be interested in:

    Getty Images/BBC A woman looking at her mobile phone and the graphic BBC News AfricaGetty Images/BBC

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  • American Eagle’s shares soar as Sydney Sweeney boosts sales

    American Eagle’s shares soar as Sydney Sweeney boosts sales

    Shares of fashion retailer American Eagle Outfitter have jumped after the company said that its tie-ups with celebrities Sydney Sweeney and Travis Kelce are expected to drive strong sales between July and September.

    The US firm’s stocks surged 25% in late trading on Wednesday as American Eagle boss Jay Schottenstein said its second-quarter performance “exceeded expectations”, boosted by the success of its ad campaigns.

    American Eagle made headlines with its divisive “Great Jeans” ad for its denim line featuring Sweeney, sparking a debate over race and beauty standards.

    The firm also ran a clothing series with athlete Kelce, days after news broke of his engagement to popstar Taylor Swift.

    The fall season is off to a positive start, said Mr Schottenstein.

    “Fuelled by stronger product offerings and the success of recent marketing campaigns with Sydney Sweeney and Travis Kelce, we have seen an uptick in customer awareness, engagement and comparable sales.”

    The Emmy-nominated actress, of Euphoria fame, appears in a jeans advertisement where she says: “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair colour, personality and even eye colour. My jeans are blue.”

    The commercial drew intrigue and offence. American Eagle has defended the advert, saying it is referring only to the company’s denim jeans.

    The controversy even made it to the White House, with President Donald Trump chiming in to support the actress.

    “Sydney Sweeney, a registered Republican, has the HOTTEST ad out there,” he wrote in a Truth Social post on Monday. “Go get ’em Sydney!”

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