Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC has partnered with private equity to take a minority stake in Klick Health, valuing the healthcare marketing agency that worked on this year’s Super Bowl commercial for Aspirin at almost $2.5bn.
Under the terms of the deal, GIC, one of the world’s biggest institutional investors, and healthcare-focused private equity group Linden Capital Partners will buy out a minority stake owned by rival firm GTCR, two people briefed on the matter said. Klick’s two Canadian co-founders will retain a controlling shareholding in the company.
The agreement is the latest in a string of private equity-backed healthcare deals, which has proven to be a busy sector for mergers and acquisition activity this year despite a wider slowdown in mid-market private equity transactions.
GIC and Chicago-based Linden’s deal values the Toronto-based business at nearly $2.5bn, or around 18 times earnings, which amount to more than $130mn a year, the people said. Klick confirmed the minority stake sale to the Financial Times after being approached for comment.
Founded in 1997, Klick has helped a large roster of drugmakers including pharmaceutical group Bayer and biotech Biohaven develop launch strategies and marketing campaigns for new medicines. Most recently, Klick worked on Bayer’s Super Bowl TV commercial for aspirin, which aimed to address denial among Gen Xers and millennials over heart disease.
Despite the top US health official Robert F Kennedy Jr’s expressed desire to ban pharmaceutical advertising and the chaos he has created within the Food and Drug Administration, the US medicines regulator, private equity-backed companies serving the pharmaceutical industry have been a popular target for deals.
Earlier this year, Siemens bought research and development software maker Dotmatics from private equity group Insight Partners for $5.1bn. Private equity group New Mountain Capital in April struck a $3.1bn change of control deal for Real Chemistry, another healthcare marketing group, which brought in Coller Capital as the largest shareholder.
GIC, which has about $800bn of assets under management, and Linden, which has $12.5bn of assets under management, are among the investors that have continued to be aggressive in the healthcare sector. The exit also marks yet another win for GTCR, which earlier this year agreed to sell its majority stake in Worldpay to Global Payments after owning it for less than two years.
In the first half of this year, there were a total of $67bn of healthcare deals in the Americas region, up from $58bn worth of deals in the second half of 2024. That is down, though, on the $99bn of deals in the first half of that year, according to a PwC analysis of LSEG data.
Microsoft’s decision to shut down operations in Pakistan is a troubling sign for our economic future. I vividly recall February 2022, when Bill Gates visited my office. On behalf of the people of Pakistan, I had the honor of conferring the Hilal-e-Imtiaz on him for his remarkable… pic.twitter.com/T4SMkp6Mn0
Susanne Wiegand has more than two decades of experience in leading functions with international listed and family-owned companies in the defense, engineering and shipbuilding industries. She is highly experienced and has considerable expertise in growth strategies, IPOs, transformation and industrial markets, as well as in risk management, compliance and export control. Ms. Wiegand is to chair the Audit Committee of the Supervisory Board.
Axia Vegetable Seeds, headquartered in the Netherlands, is a leading breeding company of high-quality tomato seeds for greenhouses globally. The acquisition marks a significant step in DENSO’s strategic expansion into the AgriTech sector.
By combining Axia’s strengths with DENSO’s automation and environmental-control technologies to industrialize farming, the partnership aims to develop and globally deploy innovative solutions for stable food production and supply. The acquisition is DENSO’s second investment in the agriculture sector in the Netherlands, following its earlier acquisition of a Dutch enterprise specializing in horticultural facility management.
Moving forward, DENSO and Axia Vegetable Seeds will collaborate to combine industrial technology with seed development to create high-quality seeds suitable for automated farming approaches and climate adaptation. Additionally, by leveraging DENSO’s image recognition and AI technologies, the two companies aim to shorten the development period of new seeds and bring higher value-added seeds to market more quickly.
“We are proud to have supported Axia Vegetable Seeds in this transaction. The deal reflects the growing convergence of agriculture and advanced technology, and we are excited to see the innovation this partnership will bring to the global food system,” says Mo Almarini, lead of the Baker McKenzie team.
The Baker McKenzie team, led by Corporate M&A partner Mo Almarini, included Laila Kouchi, Max Nederlof, Alexis Gavriilidis, Frederique Peeters, Koen Bos, Willem Jan Treuren and Anastasia Boonen-Vaes, with valuable support from Carolina Cordero di Vonzo (Baker McKenzie Italy) bringing specific expertise in Plant Variety Rights and other colleagues in Chicago, Istanbul, Rome, Madrid, Mexico City and New York..
Further information is available on the respective websites: DENSO: DENSO Acquires Axia Vegetable Seeds to Realize Sustainable Agriculture | Newsroom | News | DENSO Global Website
About Axia Vegetable Seeds Axia Vegetable Seeds is an independent seed breeding company based in the Netherlands, specializing in the breeding and development of high-quality vegetable varieties with a strong focus on tomato. With a strong foundation in R&D and deep understanding of growers’ needs, Axia Vegetable Seeds delivers innovation to the greenhouse horticulture industry worldwide.
About DENSO CORPORATION DENSO is a global automotive parts manufacturer that provides advanced automotive technologies, systems, and products. Leveraging the core technologies it has developed through its experience in automotive components, DENSO is expanding the scope of its value offerings to include factory automation, food distribution, agriculture, and more. Through automated harvesting using robots equipped with sensing technologies and through digital-based cultivation environment control, DENSO is working toward the industrialization of farms.
Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) – MDEP publishes workshop report on safety of high temperature gas-cooled reactors
The Multinational Design Evaluation Programme (MDEP) has published the proceedings of the International Brainstorming Workshop on High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor (HTGR) Safety, which took place in March 2024.
The event convened regulatory authorities, technical experts and industry representatives from around the world, as well as from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Generation IV International Forum (GIF). Participants exchanged of views on the safety challenges and regulatory considerations associated with HTGR technologies.
The report outlines key outcomes and recommendations from the workshop, including:
benchmarking approaches for verification and validation (V&V) of computational codes;
fuel safety and qualification strategies;
research priorities to support HTGR development;
probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) of first-of-a-kind (FOAK) designs;
application of Defence-in-Depth (DiD) principles tailored to HTGRs;
selection and qualification of materials for high-temperature reactor systems; and
considerations for adapting regulatory frameworks to address HTGR-specific safety issues
From herb boxes and flower pots to washing lines and hanging baskets, residents of Madrid, Berlin and other European cities are well versed at making the most of their compact balconies – even generating power for wifi, the kettle and the TV.
“Balcony solar” allows urbanites to install a small number of panels in the tight space outside apartments, which then generates electricity that can be used for the household. Soon flat owners and renters in the UK could be able to use the same “plug-in” technology, which is currently prohibited here.
The DIY systems which have grown in popularity in countries such as France, Italy, the Netherlands and Germany are typically plugged straight into the home’s power sockets, saving money on electricity bills and allowing people access to a new source of power.
So why can’t balconies in the UK simply have the same systems installed? Regulations around solar systems and wiring here mean that professionals must be involved in their installation and the panels cannot simply be plugged into the mains like a toaster.
In some European countries, where electrical systems are different to the UK, residents are allowed to put in place their own small systems – such as a few panels being hung off a balcony.
Thomas Newby of the Leeds-based engineering company Morgan & Newby says this difference in regulation means the technology has grown in popularity. In Germany, Balkonkraftwerk (balcony power plant) systems are now installed at 1.5m apartments.
“Various countries permit systems limited in output to 800W to be connected via a standard appliance plug to a socket-outlet,” he says. “As a result of this lower cost entry point, well suited to apartments where the solar modules can be hung or positioned on the balcony, uptake has increased significantly of late.”
This week the government said it would launch a safety study “with the aim of unlocking opportunities for plug-in solar over the next few years” as part of a new plan to triple the UK’s solar capacity by 2030.
In theory, this could mean people in flats would have a much cheaper way to access solar energy as the cost of labour is taken off the bill. And renters could take the systems with them when they move from flat to flat. This would give people who usually do not have access to cheap power a way to reduce their energy bills.
Newby said a typical kit containing two solar panels, a battery to store energy and the plugs needed to convert it to the household electrics would cost about £2,000. Batteries are used to store energy which is generated and not used immediately in the home, especially on sunny days such as those experienced last month, when temperatures reached 33C.
The study by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero will look at whether the plug-in systems would be safe to use in the UK, where the electricity supply system is significantly different to countries such as Germany.
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Solar Energy UK, the trade body for the industry, said the installation of plug-in solar panels is not allowed under building regulations or planning policy.
“This is due to a range of considerations including aesthetics, structural/building safety and consumer safety. There are other practical considerations including the location of electric sockets and cable protection – we do not tend to have electrical sockets installed on balconies in this country,” said Gemma Grimes, director of policy.
“The installation of all electrical equipment comes with risks, and it is important that any risks are fully understood prior to widespread rollout. We are aware of examples on the continent – including Germany – and are keen to learn from their experience.”
AI Act rules applicable to ‘general purpose’ AI (GPAI) models are due to take effect on 2 August 2025. A highly anticipated code of practice to support compliance with those rules, which was supposed to be published by the AI Office in early May this year, has yet to be finalised and published. Further AI Act rules applicable to ‘high-risk’ AI systems will take effect in August 2026.
Both sets of rules should be postponed, to allow for “innovation-friendly” changes to, and simplification of, the rules to be considered, a group of 50 European business leaders have said. They warned that the “Europe’s AI ambitions” are “at risk” as a result of “unclear, overlapping and increasingly complex EU regulations”. The group includes senior leaders from AI trade associations as well as companies such as Airbus, BNP Paribas, Mercedes Benz, and Phillips.
The group’s call, made in an open letter to senior EU officials, coincided with a report by Politico which suggested that the European Commission is considering delaying implementation of the GPAI code to the end of 2025.
According to Politico, the Commission will also decide by the end of August whether to delay implementation of the rules on ‘high-risk’ AI. That decision, according to Politico’s report citing an interview with EU commissioner Henna Virkkunen, will be influenced by whether new standards, being designed to support compliance with the ‘high-risk’ AI regime, have been finalised.
“We welcome recent discussions considering the need to postpone the enforcement of the AI Act as relevant guidelines and standards continue to be developed, and as various industries work together to find solutions that work for everyone,” the business leaders said.
“To address the uncertainty this situation is creating, we urge the Commission to propose a two-year ‘clock-stop’ on the AI Act before key obligations enter into force, in order to allow both for reasonable implementation by companies, and for further simplification of the new rules. This should apply both to obligations on e.g. high-risk AI systems, due to take effect as of August 2026, and to obligations for general-purpose AI models (GPAI), due to enter into force as of August 2025 while the corresponding and much anticipated code of practice has yet to be released,” they said.
“This postponement, coupled with a commitment to prioritise regulatory quality over speed, would send innovators and investors around the world a strong signal that Europe is serious about its simplification and competitiveness agenda. In the context of the broader review of EU digital rules you have announced, it would also create the room needed to develop an innovation-friendly implementation strategy and identify pragmatic avenues for regulatory simplification, covering both GPAI models and high-risk AI systems as well as broader digital regulations. We have developed detailed proposals and are ready to work hand in hand with the Commission,” the group added.
“It is a remarkable letter”, said Dr. Nils Rauer, expert in AI law and regulation at Pinsent Masons. “It is important to note that the authors do not call into question the overall need for a sound regulatory framework for AI – their concern is legal certainty. AI, if used in a false manner, can become poisonous.”
“All new laws initially come with some level of uncertainty,” added Anna-Lena Kempf, also of Pinsent Masons. “There are no court decisions or administrative orders yet which could provide steer on how the legal provisions are to be understood and applied.”
EU proposals for “simplification” of the EU’s digital policy rulebook are expected to be published in the autumn. That Commission package is anticipated in response to increasing industry and political pressure to reduce regulatory burdens in digital markets. The US government, for example, has called on the EU to do more to support technological innovation by companies, with many US-headquartered technology companies operating in the EU market, while Mario Draghi, the former European Central Bank president, in a report into EU competitiveness, last year urged action to reduce regulation – particularly for tech companies.
Earlier this summer, EU law makers at the Council of Ministers were presented with wide-ranging proposals for digital regulatory reform. Those proposals, drafted by the Polish government, including potentially using ‘stop the clock’ legislative instruments to delay the effect of legislative provisions that have already been finalised – including the enforcement provisions in the AI Act – in the same way that has happened already in the context of EU sustainability-related due diligence and disclosure obligations.
Last month, the Commission open a consultation regarding implementation of the AI Act’s rules on ‘high-risk’ AI systems. According to the consultation, some changes to those rules are under Commission consideration – including in relation to the classification of high-risk AI systems and the obligations associated with providing, deploying, importing or distributing those systems. The consultation closes on 18 July 2025.
Rauer said: “It is no secret that the EU AI Act is a highly complex piece of legislation. The European legislator is trying to build a regulatory framework both for AI systems and AI models with distinguished obligations for providers, deployers, importers etc. In this context, it is a challenge for businesses to define their own role and to make sure their own products are compliant by design and by default.”
Out-Law revealed in April that the mainstream emergence of DeepSeek – the Chinese open source AI tool developed at a fraction of the cost of other LLMs on the market, and without access to the same computing power – has spurred discussions within the Commission around classification of GPAI models in the context of the scope of rules applicable to GPAI models under the AI Act.
