Category: 3. Business

LONDON, Dec 2 (Reuters) – Billionaire investor Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management started the final month of the year with positive returns in several funds, a person familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.

The $179 billion hedge fund finished November 0.4% largely flat in its multi-strategy fund, Apex Strategy. It had generated a 16.2% return from the start of the year to November 30, the source said.

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The fund posted a 3.1% return for the month in its AQR Delphi Long-Short Equity Strategy, bringing the overall performance to a positive 16.4% for the year. AQR’s Managed Futures Full Volatility Strategy lost 0.4% for the month of November but is still up 19.2% year-to-date.

The hedge fund’s Helix Strategy, which follows trends in a diverse set of harder-to-access markets, returned 0.7% in November and is up 13.7% for the year to date.

All returns listed were net of fees.

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Billionaires Michael and Susan Dell pledged $6.25bn Tuesday to provide 25 million American children under 10 an incentive to claim the new investment accounts for children created as part of Donald Trump’s tax and spending legislation.

The historic gift has little precedent, with few single charitable commitments in the past 25 years exceeding $1bn, much less multiple billions. Announced on GivingTuesday, the Dells believe it’s the largest single private commitment made to US children.

It is also unusual in that it will operate through investment accounts set up by the US Department of the Treasury that will be managed by private companies. Dubbed “Trump Accounts,” the program has not yet launched but was passed into law on 4 July as part of the president’s signature legislation.

“We believe that if every child can see a future worth saving for, this program will build something far greater than an account. It will build hope and opportunity and prosperity for generations to come,” said Michael Dell, the founder and CEO of Dell Technologies whose estimated net worth is $148bn, according to Forbes.

Through their gift, the Dells will deposit $250 into each qualified child’s investment account, which they said the treasury plans to launch on 4 July 2026. Dell said they wanted to mark the 250th anniversary of US independence.

Under the new law, the treasury will deposit $1,000 into the accounts of children born between 1 January 2025 and 31 December 2028 and the funds must be invested in an index fund, which tracks the overall stock market.

But it will be up to the families of other children to put money into the accounts. When the children turn 18, they can withdraw the funds to put toward their education, to buy a home or to start a business.

The Dells hope their gift will encourage families to claim the accounts and deposit more money into it, even small amounts, so it will grow over time along with the stock market. They also hope companies and other philanthropists will donate to these accounts.

In 2024, about 13% of children and young people in the US lived in poverty, according to the Annie E Casey Foundation, and experts link the high child poverty rates to the lack of social supports for new parents, like paid parental leave.

The Dells will put money into the accounts of children who live in zip codes with a median family income of $150,000 or less.

While the funds in the Trump Accounts may help young adults whose families or employers can contribute to them over time, they won’t immediately help to diminish childhood poverty. Cuts to Medicaid, food stamps and child care that were also included in the spending package are likely to reduce the support children from low-income families receive.

Michael Dell said they had not initially envisioned committing so much to boost the child investment accounts, but Susan Dell said over time, they decided to increase the size of their commitment.

“We’re thrilled to be spearheading this in the philanthropy sector and are so excited because we know that more people are going to jump on board because really, we can’t think of a better idea and better way to help America’s children,” she said.

By Stephen Nellis

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 2 (Reuters) – Axiado, a Silicon Valley-based startup that is making a chip designed to ​save space and power in artificial intelligence servers, said on Tuesday it has ‌raised $100 million in fresh capital.

Inside AI data centers, thousands of powerful servers must work together in concert to ‌train models. Doing so requires coordination over an internal network, and all servers contain a handful of chips whose job it is to handle those instructions and manage the server’s circuit board while keeping it secure from hackers.

Those board management chips tend to use older technologies, ⁠and Axiado is working to consolidate ‌all of them into a single, smaller chip. At a time when major chip firms such as Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices are ‍working to pack as many of their graphics processing units into servers as possible and data centers are trying to make room for liquid cooling equipment, saving space counts.

“Real estate is really valuable there,”​ Andrew Homan, managing partner at Maverick Silicon, which led the funding round,‌ told Reuters. “If you can open up footprint, that’s a huge value-add to any of the big incumbents that are building these systems.”

But Axiado’s chip also employs AI on its own. The chip can learn what normal behavior from a server looks like when a given software program is running on the server.

Using that knowledge,⁠ the Axiado chip can check for any divergences ​from normal behavior that might represent a cybersecurity threat. ​Axiado’s chip can also learn to control the server’s cooling system, dialing it up and down, saving up to 50% of ‍the energy used in ⁠cooling.

“Our AI engine learns the behavior. Based on the behavior itself, I can tell that particular load will take a certain level of capacity of the ⁠GPU, so you don’t need to run if you had a full scale,” Gopi Sirineni,‌ founder and CEO of Axiado, told Reuters.

(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in ‌San Francisco; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)

The meeting will provide a platform for bipartite dialogue between GAPKI and JAPBUSI under JAGASAWITAN to address their achievements and problems in OSH in the palm oil industry, particularly on the gender-responsive OSH theme.

Outputs

• Improve understanding on gender responsive OSH in the palm oil sector.
• Feedback and recommendations from relevant stakeholders in OSH in the palm-oil sector.

Agenda

Dec 2 (Reuters) – Automated digital wealth management firm Wealthfront is targeting a valuation of up to $2.05 billion in its U.S. initial public offering, it said on Tuesday, becoming the latest to test a trend of strong investor appetite for fintech listings.

The Palo Alto, California-based company plans to raise as much as $485 million by selling 34.6 million shares, including stock offered by existing shareholders, at a price range of $12 to $14 each.

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Lukas Muehlbauer, a research analyst at IPOX, said Wealthfront is positioning itself at the intersection of artificial intelligence and fintech, allowing it to “ride the current high-valuation wave for AI-adjacent technologies.”

The U.S. IPO market has recovered after a slowdown fueled by trade policy uncertainty, as rising odds of a Federal Reserve interest rate cut have boosted investor demand for fresh offerings.

“Demand for new listings remains high, but a bad news cycle can still dampen sentiment, as seen several times this year,” Muehlbauer said.

Wealthfront, founded in 2008, provides automated tools and software for cash accounts, low-cost loans and investing in ETFs and bonds, as well as planning tools tailored to Millennial and Gen Z clients.

Funds run by BlackRock and Wellington Management indicated an interest in buying up to $150 million of IPO shares, according to the filing.

Wealthfront intends to list on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the “WLTH” symbol. Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and Citigroup are among the underwriters for the offering.

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