Category: 3. Business

SEOUL – JULY 28, 2025 – Blackstone today announced that Blackstone Real Estate Partners (“Blackstone”) has acquired through QUBE Industrial Asset Management funds a high-quality, last-mile logistics portfolio in the Seoul Metropolitan Area.
 
The portfolio comprises two modern, Grade A logistics centers spanning 1.3 million square feet in Gimpo and Namyangju, which are among Greater Seoul’s most sought-after infill markets. Tenants include some of the largest local and global corporations in e-commerce and logistics.
 
Chris Kim, Head of Blackstone Real Estate – Korea, said: “This is a continuation of our commitment to investing in prime Korean assets in fast-growing sectors. Logistics is one of our highest conviction investment themes in real estate globally and a focus for us in South Korea, particularly in the Seoul Metropolitan Area where last-mile new supply remains extremely limited and vacancy for such assets is at a low 4% range. We are pleased to bring together our global expertise and scale in the sector, asset management capabilities, and local insights, to continue to grow the platform for long-term success.”
 
Blackstone has been an active investor in Korean real estate since establishing the team three years ago. Last year, it completed three major transactions, including investing in a large multi-story logistics asset in Gimpo; buying an office building in Seoul’s Gangnam district to convert into a select-service hotel in partnership with Travelodge Asia; and closing the landmark sale of Arc Place after years of work to transform the asset into a premier office building in Seoul.
 
About Blackstone Real Estate
Blackstone is a global leader in real estate investing. Blackstone’s real estate business was founded in 1991 and has US $320 billion of investor capital under management. Blackstone is the largest owner of commercial real estate globally, owning and operating assets across every major geography and sector, including logistics, data centers, residential, office and hospitality. Our opportunistic funds seek to acquire undermanaged, well-located assets across the world. Blackstone’s Core+ business invests in substantially stabilized real estate assets globally, through both institutional strategies and strategies tailored for income-focused individual investors including Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust, Inc. (BREIT). Blackstone Real Estate also operates one of the leading global real estate debt businesses, providing comprehensive financing solutions across the capital structure and risk spectrum, including management of Blackstone Mortgage Trust (NYSE: BXMT).
 
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The fuel cells offer Oracle an energy solution that minimizes environmental impact, delivering power with almost zero air pollution and no water consumption

In sum – what you need to know:

Fast deployment for AI growth – Bloom will deliver fuel cell systems to Oracle data centers in just 90 days to support high-performance AI workloads.

Clean, scalable power – The fuel cells provide low-emission, water-free electricity, enhancing OCI’s sustainability and reliability.

Proven data center supplier – Bloom has deployed over 400 MW globally and powers sites for Equinix, AEP, and Quanta Computing.

Oracle has teamed up with Bloom Energy to deploy fuel cell systems across select Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) data centers in the U.S., aiming to meet the rising power demands of artificial intelligence workloads, the latter said in a release.

Under the partnership, Bloom Energy says it will supply on-site fuel cell systems capable of powering entire data centers within just 90 days. The systems are designed to provide reliable, scalable, and low-emission electricity for OCI’s growing AI infrastructure needs, according to Bloom.

“We continue to see strong global demand for OCI services across our entire data center portfolio including our large gigawatt AI data centers,” said Mahesh Thiagarajan, executive vice president of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. “Customers expect to run their AI workloads and new AI applications at peak performance. Bloom’s fuel cell technology will join OCI’s extensive energy portfolio, further supporting our cutting-edge AI infrastructure with reliable, clean power that can be quickly deployed and easily scaled.”

The fuel cells offer Oracle an energy solution that minimizes environmental impact, delivering power with almost zero air pollution and no water consumption—aligning with Oracle’s broader sustainability goals.

“Oracle Cloud Infrastructure requires power solutions engineered to meet the performance and reliability demands of today’s most advanced AI and compute workloads,” said Aman Joshi, chief commercial officer at Bloom Energy. “This significant collaboration provides Oracle with ultra-reliable, clean, and cost-efficient power that supports its growth strategy with the speed and certainty it needs.”

Bloom Energy has already installed over 400 MW of power capacity for data centers worldwide and maintains similar energy agreements with major players like Equinix, American Electric Power, and Quanta Computing.

Oracle recently announced plans to invest $3 billion over five years in cloud and AI infrastructure across the Netherlands and Germany, expanding its European footprint amid rising demand for sovereign AI and data services..

In the Netherlands, the company will invest $1 billion to expand capacity in the so-called Amsterdam region. The company says the expansion will add to its Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and enable local organizations—including startups and public institutions—to access AI infrastructure and sovereign cloud services.

Separately, Oracle will invest $2 billion in its Frankfurt cloud region over the same five-year period. The U.S. company stated that the investment in Germany is intended to support public and private sector organizations looking to adopt AI and cloud computing, including those in highly regulated industries.

Earlier this week, Oracle and OpenAI announced plans to expand Stargate — OpenAI’s large-scale AI infrastructure project — with an additional 4.5 GW of data center capacity in the U.S.

The expansion is expected to create over 100,000 jobs across construction, operations, manufacturing, and services, adding that this estimate includes direct full-time jobs needed to operate Stargate data centers, short-term construction roles, and indirect jobs like manufacturing and local service roles.

At its core, the Stargate scheme plans to build a network of AI data centers across the United States. The initiative aims to provide sufficient capacity to meet growing demand for AI across several sectors including scientific research, healthcare, automation, defense, and finance.

One in eight (12%) people with a salary over £100,000, but with no parental wealth to fall back on, feel “trapped” by their current financial commitments, a survey has found.

More than two-fifths (44%) do not feel that they are able to comfortably meet their financial commitments each month, according to the research commissioned by wealth manager Killik & Co.

Despite their high salaries, nearly a fifth (18%) of high earners in this group admit that their financial commitments are causing them stress and anxiety.

Over a quarter (28%) said that the cost of supporting loved ones is reducing their financial savings while 26% said their own personal financial commitments are impacting their financial cushion.

The most common monthly financial commitment, aside from household expenses and utility bills, was insurance (66%), including health, home and car cover.

Nearly half (47%) of those surveyed have commuting costs, and 45% have private healthcare or other medical expenses. Over a third (36%) have credit card debt to pay.

This group is also largely focused on the short term, the research indicated, with the majority (56%) thinking only a year ahead when planning finances and only 3% planning more than five years in advance.

Will Stevens, head of wealth planning, Killik & Co said: “A high tax burden, loss of free childcare, family dependants and mortgage costs all stack up and make it difficult for even those on the highest salaries to build up financial resilience.

“If they are not due an inheritance, it’s clear even those on six figures and above are struggling to build up savings to ensure longer-term financial stability for their family.

“Provided money is managed carefully, this doesn’t need to be the case. Upweighting pension contributions, managing salary increases and childcare support, and seeking financial advice to ensure your estate is well structured from a tax perspective, can all help high earners avoid the common traps which block them from accumulating wealth.”

More than 2,000 people across the UK who are earning £100,000 or more and do not stand to inherit money from parents and whose parents cannot support them financially were surveyed by Censuswide for the research carried out in April and May.

By Mike Murphy

U.S. stock futures rose late Sunday, as a busy week for markets kicked off with the U.S. and the European Union agreeing to the framework of a trade deal, avoiding the risk of an all-out transatlantic trade war.

President Donald Trump announced the agreement Sunday after talks with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, saying it will result in 15% tariffs on most European imports to the U.S.

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures (YM00) rose more than 160 points, or 0.4%, Sunday evening. S&P 500 futures (ES00) rose 0.3% and Nasdaq-100 futures (NQ00) advanced 0.4%.

U.S. stocks closed higher Friday, with the S&P 500 ending the week by notching a fifth straight record high. The S&P 500 SPX climbed 1.5% on the week, while the Nasdaq COMP rose 1% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA advanced 1.3%.

Trump has set an Aug. 1 deadline for his administration’s global tariffs to take effect unless new deals are reached, and had originally threatened the E.U. with tariffs of 50%, though that was later lowered to 30%. Japan, the U.K. and other countries have already made deals, but the clock is still ticking for some of America’s largest trading partners, including Mexico, Canada and China, which faces an Aug. 12 deadline.

As the trade-deal deadline looms, the U.S. and China are expected to resume talks Monday, amid a report by the South China Daily News that the two sides may extend their tariff pause for another 90 days.

Experts see the puzzle pieces beginning to fall into place. “When Japan broke down and made a deal, the E.U. had little choice,” Jamie Cox, managing partner for Harris Financial Group, said in a note Sunday. “The biggest piece in the trade deal puzzle still remains, and the Chinese are unlikely to be as willing to fold. The next big durable theme in markets is security, and the E.U. deal only accelerates it.”

For markets, Sunday’s deal “not only removes a key left tail risk that the market had been concerned about, but also yet again reiterates that the direction of travel remains away from punchy rhetoric and towards trade deals done,” Michael Brown, senior research strategist at Pepperstone, wrote in a note Sunday. “Rumors that the U.S.-China trade truce will be extended for a further 90 days will also help on this front.”

Brown added that the big winners from the deal include the European auto industry – as the 15% tariffs puts them on equal footing Japanese automakers – and U.S. defense and energy companies, after the E.U. committed to billions in additional spending.

Investors will also be eagerly awaiting the results from this week’s meeting of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s interest-rate-setting committee. Fed Chair Jerome Powell will speak Wednesday, after the two-day meeting’s conclusion. The Fed has stayed pat on interest rates for their past five meetings, and though Trump has turned up the pressure for the Fed to cut rates soon, it’s seen as more likely that a rate cut won’t come until their September meeting.

Read more: Investors face a week rife with risks, as worries about stock-market euphoria mount. Here’s what to watch.

This week will also see the release of key inflation and jobs data, and it’s the busiest week of earnings season, with 163 S&P 500 companies set to report this week, including Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Meta Platforms Inc. (META), Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN).

-Mike Murphy

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