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It is a common sight on construction sites across the world: the diesel-powered electricity generator. For one UK construction services business, there was a commercial opportunity in jettisoning these noisy, dirty machines and providing a sustainable alternative. 

Nixon Hire, based in Newcastle, north-east England, has in the past two years sold its business renting out construction equipment such as diggers and telehandler lifting machines, allowing it to invest in more environmentally friendly products.

The diesel generators have been swapped for batteries or hybrid devices comprising solar panels, a battery and a generator that runs on hydrogenated vegetable oil, a less polluting alternative. The company has also switched from supplying welfare vans (customised vehicles that provide site workers with kitchen or office space) to portable modular buildings.

The shift has been driven by customer demand for lower fuel consumption and carbon emissions, particularly public sector contractors, which are often required to factor in emissions when tendering for business.

The shift was not universally well received, however, with a more conservative portion of the construction marketplace questioning the benefits of renewable energy over the fossil fuel equivalent, according to Brian Cornett, the company’s recently appointed chief executive. 

“We set up sites for sceptical customers to try for free for a week, to break those barriers to entry, the conservative mindset, and fixed ideas about value for money,” says Cornett, who joined the company from rival Speedy Hire. “We’re having to do that much less now, but originally there was such an amount of pushback.” 

In August, Cornett took over from Graham Nixon, the architect of the changes who served as chief executive for 10 years after taking over from his father, John Nixon. Graham Nixon remains the company’s majority shareholder.

“The redesign of the company started with the customer, and we used that to reshape our operational dynamics, spending six months in the boardroom and out within our network,” Cornett says.

Convincing staff was also challenging at times. “The biggest challenge to Nixon Hire’s transformation was changing the company culture itself,” Cornett says. “The reality is that not everyone was on [the same] page. So we wished them well and looked after them [financially].”

Another barrier to reinvention, according to Cornett, was a reactive customer services operation. It was using technology that was unable to capture and analyse customer data in a way that allowed the company to foresee and respond quickly to demand. Last year, therefore, the company invested in a bespoke system that can remotely track and report on every aspect of customer interaction and key metrics associated with using Nixon Hire’s services. 

The information gleaned from this also provides a new service — data on the sustainability of the construction site, which clients can use to help them win contracts for which sustainability and evidence of carbon reduction is a requirement.

Nixon Hire is also focusing on longer-term contracts, of a year or more, to reduce customer churn and gain more insights; these in turn enable the provision of other “wraparound” services such as security or project consultation. 

Turnover rose 8.6 per cent to £108.3mn last year while operating profit rose 6.3 per cent to £7.8mn.

Allan Wilen, economics director at construction market intelligence company Glenigan, says trends in the construction industry are playing to Nixon Hire’s new strengths. There is significant demand for refurbishing or replacing older buildings in order to improve energy efficiency, he adds. 

According to Glenigan data, an estimated £129bn worth of construction plans in the UK were approved but not started in the year immediately before chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Spring Statement in March, when she pledged a total of £113bn in capital spending over this parliament.

“With the extra funding kicking in from April — increased capital funding for health, education, increased investment into the civil engineering side into renewables, upgrading the transmission networks and the water industry spend, it’s a massive increase they’ve been given for the five-year period,” Wilen adds. “It is going to be both politically and environmentally high on the agenda.”

A 2023 parliamentary environmental audit committee report said the built environment was responsible for a quarter of all UK carbon emissions, with construction accounting for about a fifth of that, according to industry body UKGBC. While much of that was due to the carbon-intensive production of materials such as concrete and steel, the emissions on construction sites also play a role and Nixon Hire can claim to have reduced these for its customers in a measurable way. 

“The next generation is already passionate about sustainability and the environment. It’s reshaping the UK, and we want to play our part in that,” says Cornett.

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Martin Mulyadi is a professor of accounting and Yunita Anwar is an assistant professor of accounting, both at Shenandoah University, Winchester, Virginia.

In late September, First Brands Group, a privately held US auto parts company, filed for bankruptcy protection. The petition listed total liabilities of $10-50bn. FBG and related entities carried more than $8bn of secured corporate borrowings and inventory-backed financing. In the wake of the company’s collapse, investigations of its off-balance-sheet financing arrangements have highlighted the limits of what can be learned from public financial records alone.

In FBG’s case, the central issue was its use of multiple forms of working capital financing, including leasing structures that were not clearly disclosed to other lenders. Rating agencies had already noted an increase in factoring, through which a company sells its unpaid invoices to a third party. Rating agencies said they were including off-balance-sheet factoring and parts of supply-chain finance in their own debt calculations.

This highlighted the fact that much of the company’s working capital finance lay outside reported debt, much of which was based on receivables. Because factoring is usually structured as a sale rather than a loan, this did not add debt to FBG’s balance sheet, even though rating agencies treated them as debt-like when assessing its leverage.

Inventory-backed funding was also used. Utah-based leasing firm Onset Financial, which had originally loaned equipment to FBG, became its largest creditor, asserting a claim of about $1.9bn, and says it is the rightful owner of leased inventory and equipment and told the Financial Times that senior executives and independent inspectors visited facilities as part of diligence.

These arrangements, while economically debt-like, were made through leasing structures that were not clearly disclosed to other lenders, many of whom were unaware of them until the bankruptcy filings. Separately, some prospective inventory-finance providers reported proposals for repo-style monetisation — which involves selling existing inventory to the provider and then buying it back later — at fees in the mid-teen percentages, which were unusual compared with the 5 to 8 per cent typically expected. Providers cited urgency as a concern and several declined to participate.

Several off-balance-sheet financing entities tied to FBG entered bankruptcy shortly before the company itself. These entities raised funds through high-yield, short-term instruments linked to FBG’s inventory and receivables.

An FT Alphaville review indicated coupons of 14 percentage points over the three-month Secured Overnight Financing Rate, the loan market’s commonly used floating-rate benchmark (about 19 per cent) and Level-3 fair-value classifications (where a market price is not used to determine their valuation), signalling both high returns and limited transparency.

After the filing, asset-backed lenders sought to trace cash movements among operating companies, special-purpose entities and segregated accounts. Counsel asked whether receivables and inventory had been pledged more than once or commingled. Such questions went to the core of how the structures operated day-to-day, rather than how totals appeared on a balance sheet.

As a private company, FBG was not required to publish its accounts, so stakeholders relied on confidential lender presentations, rating agency reports and limited borrower-provided information. The type of financing techniques FBG used are generally not included in a company’s debt figures and are sometimes treated as off-balance sheet. Because they are not counted in the “headline debt” total on the balance sheet, simple leverage ratios based on that figure can understate how much financing the company is actually using. This reporting convention helps explain why rating agencies said they adjusted debt to incorporate such programmes.

Until the week of bankruptcy filing, many lenders were also unaware that FBG had billions of dollars in inventory-backed loans via off-balance-sheet special purpose entities. After the filing, one asked how much of the almost $2bn advanced to FBG remained in a supposedly segregated account and was told: “$0”.

FBG’s financing mechanisms raise other questions. For example, some FBG executives invested in Onset-linked leasing deals that charged FBG double-digit rates. Onset said most of its earnings were reinvested in future transactions and in court filings asserted that it was the rightful owner of leased inventory and equipment. Without alleging wrongdoing, such arrangements raise standard audit committee and lender questions about decision-making incentives and disclosures when the operating company is also a borrower to a vehicle in which insiders have interests.

Research has found that when off-balance-sheet items are brought on to the books, overall financial reporting quality tends to improve while greater transparency on use of certain forms of debt financing is helpful to lenders.

Across the filings and reporting, three features stand out:

• Significant use of receivables and inventory funding, some through special purpose entities and leasing vehicles, alongside traditional loans

• A rapid liquidity squeeze, including a seized transfer and queries about segregated accounts showing $0.

• Disclosures in the petition of more than $8bn of secured and inventory-backed obligations, plus a $1.1bn lifeline and a special committee to examine off-balance-sheet arrangements.

Rating-agency adjustments for factoring, the prevalence of Level 3 valuations and high coupons in fund filings and the pause of a $6bn refinancing are signals a diligent reader might have been able to spot. But given the private-company context, classification of supplier finance and contract-level cash controls and collateral-priority questions, only clarified after filings, the accounts could only reveal so much.

Recent FT reporting that a small group of lenders refused credit, exited positions or shorted FBG debt after identifying anomalies in fees, deal structure and reported performance suggests that warning signs were visible. Yet they did so only after field examinations, collateral reviews and direct meetings, pointing to limits in what can be inferred by outsiders from public financial records alone. What, if anything, could have been legible in FBG’s accounts?

President Donald Trump’s attacks on US universities have opened up a rare opportunity for European business schools to attract talent once bound for elite American campuses.

The continent is drawing students and faculty from around the world who are unsettled by political turbulence in the US and the Trump administration’s policies, deans say. Washington has cut research funding and tightened student and work visa rules, while proposing limits on diversity programmes and international enrolments.

A “Trump bump” has been felt from Barcelona to Berlin. Reasons vary but overall applications to European business schools excluding the UK rose 11 per cent this year, while those to US programmes slipped by 1 per cent, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC). UK schools have seen a sharp slowdown in international enrolments after the British government introduced visa changes.

European business school deans say that among the increased numbers they are attracting more students deterred from study in the US, including from other European countries, America and China. High tuition fees and doubts around post-graduation work options have also weakened the appeal of the US.

The GMAC survey, conducted between June and August 2025, came before uncertainty around recent visa policy changes, which analysts say could weigh more heavily on US demand in the months ahead. The proposed $100,000 H-1B work visa fee initially caused alarm, but the US government later confirmed that it will not apply to international students already in the country switching from F-1 study visas.

Even before President Trump’s return to power, the prospect of a second term was enough to sway some prospective students. Luis Dominguez, a Mexican former consultant who had MBA offers in the US from Dartmouth College and Georgetown University, opted instead for HEC Paris last year.  

“I would have hated to study in the US if Trump was president,” Dominguez says, pointing to visa uncertainty and the president’s barbs against universities, including Harvard. The president’s pushback against diversity programmes also hit home for Dominguez, who is part of the LGBT+ community and worked on diversity initiatives at his former employer, EY. “It feels scary to think of being in the US right now during this war against DEI,” he says. 

For French schools, the influx has brought new pressures. “It was a very competitive environment in France [this year]. There was aggressive discounting and students shopping around,” says Mark Smith, dean of programmes at EMLyon Business School. The school’s intake levelled off this year at 1,500 masters students after an admissions season in which applications rose but conversion rates dipped, flattening growth.

It feels scary to think of being in the US during this war against DEI

To the south in Italy, Milan’s Polimi Graduate School of Management saw student numbers rise 20 per cent this year. “We are seeing a clear shift: Europeans are more interested in staying in Europe than before,” says Sergio Terzi, associate dean for international relations, linking the change to waning enthusiasm for US study options.

Europe’s business school origins go back to the 1800s, but the US has long defined modern business education, pioneering the MBA and case-study method. That hierarchy is now under strain. “The US was a lighthouse — but less and less,” Terzi adds. 

The latest Business of Branding survey by education consultancy CarringtonCrisp shows the world’s largest economy slipping to third place among preferred study destinations, behind the UK and Germany.

“The US is expensive, that’s the issue,” says Andrew Crisp, the British consultancy’s owner. “You might in the past have said it’s affordable because I’ll get a good job in the States and the salaries help me repay that. If that is not possible, the maths changes.” 

The cooling US job market has made it harder to secure high-paying roles, raising fresh questions about the investment case for an American MBA.

“Historically, the top seven US MBA programmes have been the most preferred options because of their career outcomes and the enduring appeal of the American dream,” says US-based admissions consultant Stacy Blackman, noting that European graduates earn less on average, even as top schools edge closer to US pay levels. 

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Fresh competition from other regions is also growing. According to GMAC, overseas applications rose 26 per cent in India this year, and 42 per cent across east and south-east Asia.

Among those looking beyond the US is Jackie Dong, a Chinese MBA student at Germany’s ESMT Berlin, who previously studied in Boston and Los Angeles. She was discouraged from returning to the US by the political climate and growing unease over the treatment of Chinese students. US secretary of state Marco Rubio has pledged to “aggressively” revoke Chinese student visas.

“The US-China relationship has become increasingly tense,” Dong says. “The US is scrutinising international students more closely, because of their so-called political activity, or simply for being Chinese and seen as an outsider. They might even think you’re a spy.” 

Some Americans are also looking at options outside the US. “We’ve observed a steady increase in US students opting to study in Europe, many citing the open, more international environment as a key factor,” says Marc Badia, deputy dean of Iese Business School in Barcelona. Iese’s MBA intake rose by a fifth to 421 students last year, a level the school has maintained, with 88 per cent of the class international.

Rising interest does not always translate into enrolments. Nalisha Patel, regional director for Europe at GMAC, says: “We see the increase in applications, but it will be interesting to see what that means in terms of bums on seats.” 

Even so, the trend prompts the question of whether the centre of gravity in business education is starting to shift eastward from the US.

David Bach, president of IMD in Switzerland, says turning the recent surge in demand into lasting market share will require Europe to boost its economic competitiveness, a gap that has long persisted with the US. “If that happens, then indeed this could be a real structural [re]alignment in global management education,” he says. 

Even so, Bach, who spent several years at Yale, says Europe’s progress rests on foundations laid by the US. “It’s actually an opportunity because European institutions and those elsewhere have become quite strong,” he says. “We’ve grown up.”

• Wondering if Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is really worth the buzz? You are not alone, and digging into the stock’s valuation could reveal some surprises.

• AMD’s share price has soared an impressive 77.6% year-to-date despite some choppiness, including a 4.2% dip over the past week and a 17.5% pullback in the last month.

• Much of this recent volatility comes in the wake of industry news about surging demand for AI-focused chips, as well as chip supply chain developments grabbing headlines. These factors have sparked lively debates about whether AMD’s growth story is only just getting started or if the stock is becoming riskier for new investors.

• Right now, AMD scores 2 out of 6 on our undervaluation checks, meaning there is more to explore in how investors are thinking about fair value. We will compare several valuation methods next, and stick around because we will show you an even better way to evaluate what the market may be missing.

Advanced Micro Devices scores just 2/6 on our valuation checks. See what other red flags we found in the full valuation breakdown.

A Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model estimates what a company is worth by taking its expected future cash flows and discounting them back to today’s value. For Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), this involves projecting the company’s future free cash flow (FCF) and determining the present value of that stream of cash.

Currently, AMD generates $5.6 billion in free cash flow. Analysts predict strong growth over the coming years, projecting FCF to rise to $30.9 billion by 2029. The projection extends over the next decade, with Simply Wall St extrapolating AMD’s FCF up to $79.8 billion by 2035. Analyst estimates are more concentrated in the upcoming five years, with the remainder of projections based on continuing trends.

Based on the DCF model, AMD’s intrinsic value is assessed at $397.54 per share. This is about 46.1% higher than its current market price, which may suggest the stock is significantly undervalued according to cash flow projections.

Result: UNDERVALUED

Our Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) analysis suggests Advanced Micro Devices is undervalued by 46.1%. Track this in your watchlist or portfolio, or discover 926 more undervalued stocks based on cash flows.

Head to the Valuation section of our Company Report for more details on how we arrive at this Fair Value for Advanced Micro Devices.

The Price-to-Earnings (PE) ratio is a widely used valuation metric for profitable companies like Advanced Micro Devices because it measures how much investors are willing to pay for each dollar of company earnings. For established tech businesses, the PE ratio helps capture both current profitability and future growth expectations in a single number.

A higher PE ratio typically reflects optimism about stronger earnings growth, while a lower PE can indicate either lower growth prospects or higher perceived risk. Comparing a company’s PE to its industry average and similar peers can help gauge whether it is trading at a premium or discount. However, this does not account for company-specific factors such as margin strength or risk profile.

Currently, AMD’s PE ratio is 111.4x, substantially above the semiconductor industry average of 35.8x and its peer group average of 65.4x. Simply Wall St’s proprietary “Fair Ratio” provides another perspective by estimating what a reasonable PE should be for AMD, taking into account the company’s earnings growth, industry dynamics, profit margins, market capitalization, and specific risk factors. For AMD, the Fair Ratio is calculated at 63.3x. This tailored measure is considered more precise than straightforward industry or peer comparisons because it reflects key fundamentals and the unique risk profile of AMD today.

Comparing AMD’s actual PE ratio (111.4x) to its Fair Ratio (63.3x) indicates that AMD’s shares are trading richly relative to what would be considered fair value given its profile and prospects.

Result: OVERVALUED

PE ratios tell one story, but what if the real opportunity lies elsewhere? Discover 1434 companies where insiders are betting big on explosive growth.

Earlier, we mentioned there is an even better way to understand valuation, so let’s introduce you to Narratives. A Narrative is a story investors construct about a company’s future, combining not only their estimates for revenue, profit margins, and fair value, but also the “why” behind those numbers. This reflects unique perspectives on industry trends, leadership, and risks beyond what a spreadsheet can capture.

Narratives link a company’s story to its projected financials and ultimately its fair value, transforming cold data into a living outlook you can actually test. On Simply Wall St’s Community page, millions of investors use these Narratives daily. No complex financial modeling is required, making them a smart, user-friendly tool for all levels of experience.

What makes Narratives especially powerful is that they update dynamically as new information comes in, like earnings surprises or shifting AI regulations. This helps you see instantly how the story and fair value change in real time. You can compare your Narrative’s fair value with the share price to decide whether it’s time to buy or sell.

For example, recent Narratives for Advanced Micro Devices range from a bullish view with a fair value of $230 per share, pricing in surging AI adoption and significant margin expansion, to a more cautious take at $136, highlighting export risks and margin challenges. Wherever you fall, Narratives help you anchor your decisions in your own perspective, not just the latest headline.

For Advanced Micro Devices, here are previews of two leading Advanced Micro Devices Narratives:

🐂 Advanced Micro Devices Bull Case

Fair Value: $276.76

Undervalued by: 22.7%

Revenue Growth Forecast: 32.9%

• Analyst consensus is that AMD has substantial tailwinds in AI, data centers, and adaptive computing. Recent partnerships and product momentum are boosting future prospects.

• Rising analyst price targets reflect optimism. However, potential challenges include regulatory risk, competition from Nvidia, and integrating acquisitions like Xilinx.

• Estimated fair value is significantly above today’s share price. Achieving this value requires strong revenue and margin expansion to materialize amid execution and macro risks.

🐻 Advanced Micro Devices Bear Case

Fair Value: $193.68

Overvalued by: 10.6%

Revenue Growth Forecast: 18.8%

• AMD’s growth in CPUs, GPUs, and AI chips drives its promise, but it still faces strong competition from Nvidia and Intel, as well as cyclical and macroeconomic risks in the semiconductor sector.

• Execution challenges, reliance on external manufacturers like TSMC, and geopolitical issues present meaningful near-term threats to growth and profitability.

• The narrative suggests the current market price may reflect over-optimism, especially if AMD cannot capitalize on projected AI and data center opportunities as swiftly or profitably as markets expect.

Do you think there’s more to the story for Advanced Micro Devices? Head over to our Community to see what others are saying!

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

Companies discussed in this article include AMD.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com