Activist investor Standard Investments has halved its stake in London-listed Johnson Matthey after a six-month campaign to overhaul the company.
Based in New York, Standard Investments is the investment arm of Standard Industries, a privately held industrial company that owns the specialty chemicals company W.R. Grace.
Standard began agitating late last year by publishing an open letter accusing Johnson Matthey’s board of presiding over “sustained underperformance” that had wiped out shareholder value.
Activist investor Standard Investments has halved its stake in London-listed Johnson Matthey after a six-month campaign that forced the British specialty chemicals company into a major overhaul. Standard’s total holding fell to 4.75% from a previously disclosed 9.52%, regulatory filings showed. The investment firm has sold into a share price rally that has recovered to over £18 ($24.50), up more than 35% from a low of around £13.52 when its public pressure campaign began in December 2024. Standard Investments’ remaining position consists of a 1.77% holding in direct shares and nearly 3% held through cash-settled equity swaps, the filing showed. Based in New York, Standard Investments is the investment arm of Standard Industries, a privately held industrial company. The firm derives its credibility in the chemicals sector from its $7 billion takeover of specialty chemicals company W.R. Grace , which it acquired in 2021, part financed by private equity firm Apollo. Standard began agitating late last year, when at the time it was Johnson Matthey’s largest shareholder with an 11% stake. The firm’s co-CEOs, David Millstone and David Winter, published an open letter accusing the board of presiding over “sustained underperformance” that had wiped out shareholder value. They highlighted that investors had lost 53% during the Johnson Matthey chairman’s six-year tenure. The pressure prompted Johnson Matthey to directly address two of the activists’ demands in January, announcing it would form a new board investment committee to oversee ” investment strategies and capital allocation ” and would cease investing in its Hydrogen Technologies business. A board overhaul followed in February, with chair Patrick Thomas, who was singled out for criticism by the Standard, set to leave in July. In May, the British company announced it had agreed to sell its catalyst technologies business to Honeywell for £1.8 billion. The company said the deal would create a “highly streamlined group” and would return £1.4 billion of the proceeds to shareholders. Investors welcomed the deal, with shares surging 30% after the announcement. Analysts praised the move, calling it a “surprise value unlock.” JMAT-GB YTD line “For management who has been under pressure from activists since late 2024, this marks a potential turning point demonstrating strong execution,” Tristan Lamotte, equity analyst at Deutsche Bank, said at the time. The sale price was far above market expectations and prompted analysts at JPMorgan and Berenberg to raise their price targets. “The decision to divest for a multiple higher than the group may not only benefit JMAT’s valuation directly, but it also removes the narrative dissonance caused by growth-oriented and cash-cow businesses being housed in the same company,” said Berenberg’s Sebastian Bray in a note to clients on May 28. Standard Investments declined to comment. Johnson Matthey did not immediately respond to CNBC’s query.
Plans for a solar farm in Kent’s Green, near Newent, have been rejected
Planning permission for a solar farm bigger than 130 football pitches has been refused due to fears Gloucestershire would become “Solarshire”.
Forest of Dean District Council has rejected Elgin Energy’s application to install solar panels on 162 acres of land at Moat Farm in Kent’s Green, near Newent.
The council’s development management committee heard the site would create a corridor of one million solar panels between Newent and Gloucester, due to other already approved solar farms.
Elgin Energy said its proposals were in line with planning and renewable energy policies, which were created after a climate emergency was declared.
Newent councillor Gill Moseley said the development management committee must not overlook the impact of an approved solar farm which covers 28 fields nearby, the Local Democracy Reporting Service reports.
“The cumulative impact of that would almost make us into ‘Solarshire, not Gloucestershire’,” she said.
FoDDC/Elgin Energy EsCo Limited
The red area marks the proposed solar farm site, while the yellow lines are roads
Hartpury, Rudford and Highleadon parish councils said if the application was approved, it would mean at least 700 acres of farmland would be dedicated to solar farms within a five to 10-mile (eight to 16km) radius.
The councils added that each of the three solar farms proposed in the Newent area would be among the largest five in England.
Newent Town Council raised concerns about overdevelopment, overshadowing of properties, road safety, and the installation of solar panels on land successfully used to grow crops for more than 25 years.
The committee voted to reject the proposals by eight votes to one with one abstention.
LONDON, UK and NEW YORK, US – 10 July 2025 – Today, Legal & General (L&G, LSE:LGEN) and Blackstone (NYSE:BX) are announcing a long-term strategic partnership that combines the strength of L&G and Blackstone’s respective credit platforms to enhance L&G’s competitive advantage in annuities and bolster its asset management proposition in key geographies and channels.
L&G’s annuities business will leverage Blackstone’s private credit origination platform to access a pipeline of diversified investment-grade assets, predominantly from the US. This partnership will complement L&G’s existing capabilities to gain competitive advantage, enhanced returns, and support its growth ambitions. L&G will invest up to 10% of anticipated annuities new business flows. This will add to the $237 billion in third-party insurance assets Blackstone manages across investment-grade private credit, liquid credit, and other strategies.[1]
Additionally, L&G’s asset management business will develop public/private hybrid credit solutions that combine Blackstone’s leading private credit platform with L&G’s best-in-class active fixed income capabilities. This will accelerate L&G’s ambitions to expand into highly attractive global wealth and wholesale channels.
The partnership combines L&G’s leading positions in pension risk transfer and asset management – comprising a $122.5 billion (£92 billion) annuities book and $1.4 trillion (£1.1 trillion) in assets under management[2] – with the strength and scale of Blackstone’s $465 billion credit platform.
Antonio Simões, Group CEO, L&G said: “Today’s announcement marks another important step in delivering our strategy for focused, sustainable growth and enhanced shareholder returns. Complementing L&G’s own insurance, investment and asset origination capabilities, our partnership with Blackstone will further cement our market leading position in pension risk transfer, and enable us to address growing demand for public-private hybrid investment products. L&G will benefit from a more diverse pipeline of assets for our annuity book, and growth in asset management as we develop more sophisticated investment solutions for clients around the world.”
Jon Gray, President and Chief Operating Officer, Blackstone said: “We’re thrilled to partner with L&G, a world-class firm with strong performance that we have long admired. Blackstone has been a pioneer in bringing the benefits of private markets investing to insurance companies, individuals and institutional investors. Together, our two firms’ unmatched scale and expertise should drive innovative solutions in the private credit market.”
Eric Adler, CEO, Asset Management, L&G said: “In June, we set out our vision as a leading global investor innovating to solve client challenges, using the power of L&G. This partnership brings together the combined strengths of L&G and Blackstone’s respective credit businesses, to offer new, innovative investment solutions and extend our international reach. I am especially energised by the potential of our alliance to advance our proposition in global wealth and wholesale channels, and deepen the capabilities we can draw upon to support our institutional clients.”
Philip Sherrill, Global Head of Insurance, Blackstone said: “We believe this partnership shows the best of what Blackstone can offer to our insurance company clients. The breadth of our capabilities allows us to support our partners across their businesses – originating assets, working together to identify investment opportunities, and designing products that meet the needs of both institutional clients and individual investors.”
About Blackstone Credit & Insurance Blackstone Credit & Insurance (“BXCI”) is one of the world’s leading credit investors. Our investments span the credit markets, including private investment grade, asset-based lending, public investment grade and high yield, sustainable resources, infrastructure debt, collateralized loan obligations, direct lending and opportunistic credit. We seek to generate attractive risk-adjusted returns for institutional and individual investors by offering companies capital needed to strengthen and grow their businesses. BXCI is also a leading provider of investment management services for insurers, helping those companies better deliver for policyholders through our world-class capabilities in investment grade private credit.
About L&G Established in 1836, L&G is one of the UK’s leading financial services groups and a major global investor, with £1.1 trillion in total assets under management (as at FY24) of which c. 44% (c. £0.5 trillion) is international.
We have a highly synergistic business model, which continues to drive strong returns. We are a leading player in Institutional Retirement, in Retail Savings and Protection, and in Asset Management through both public and private markets. Across the Group, we are committed to responsible investing and dedicated to serving the long-term savings and investment needs of customers and society.
Forward-Looking Statements This release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, which reflect Blackstone’s current views with respect to, among other things, its operations, taxes, earnings and financial performance and the strategic partnership referred to herein. You can identify these forward-looking statements by the use of words such as “outlook,” “indicator,” “believes,” “expects,” “potential,” “continues,” “may,” “will,” “should,” “seeks,” “approximately,” “predicts,” “intends,” “plans,” “scheduled,” “estimates,” “anticipates,” “opportunity,” “leads,” “forecast,” “possible” or the negative version of these words or other comparable words. Such forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Accordingly, there are or will be important factors that could cause actual outcomes or results to differ materially from those indicated in these statements. Blackstone believes these factors include but are not limited to those described under the section entitled “Risk Factors” in its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2024, as such factors may be updated from time to time in its periodic filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), which are accessible on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. These factors should not be construed as exhaustive and should be read in conjunction with the other cautionary statements that are included in this release and in its other periodic filings. The forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this release, and Blackstone undertakes no obligation to publicly update or review any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise.
FURTHER INFORMATION:
Blackstone Felix Lettau [email protected] +44 20 7104 4562
L&G Sneha Patel [email protected] +44 75536 04804
Headland Consultancy Lucy Legh [email protected]
[1] As of March 31, 2025 [2] FX conversion rate as at YE 2024
In high-tech labs, robots are now being trained to poke, prod, and measure materials just like human experts. These robotic systems can test how materials respond to light, a property called photoconductance, which is key for developing things like solar cells and sensors.
But here’s the twist: instead of relying on tons of labeled data or pixel-perfect precision, the MIT team created a self-supervised system. That means the robot learns on its own, using smart algorithms to copy how scientists work; no hand-holding is required.
The result? A fully autonomous robot that can quickly and reliably test materials, boosting both speed and accuracy in self-driving labs. It’s like giving your lab assistant a PhD and a pair of laser-focused eyes.
By blending expert knowledge with machine learning, the team taught a robotic probe how to smartly choose the best spots on a material to measure its photoconductance, and how well it responds to light. A clever planning system also helps the robot move quickly and efficiently between those points.
In a 24-hour test run, this self-driving lab assistant took over 125 precise measurements per hour, outperforming other AI methods in both speed and accuracy.
Why does this matter? Because faster, smarter testing means scientists can discover better semiconductor materials more quickly, paving the way for more powerful, efficient solar panels and a brighter, greener future.
Earlier research focused on quickly creating and imaging new perovskite materials to study their properties. But when it comes to measuring photoconductance and how materials respond to light, nothing beats a hands-on approach: placing a probe, shining light, and recording the electrical reaction.
To make this process both fast and accurate, researchers had to come up with a solution that would produce the best measurements while minimizing the time it takes to run the whole procedure. Doing so required the integration of machine learning, robotics, and material science into one autonomous system.
Here’s how it works:
The robot system starts by taking a photo of a printed perovskite sample. Using computer vision, it slices the image into segments. These segments are analyzed by a custom neural network trained with insights from chemists and materials scientists. This lets the robot think like a human expert, identifying the best spots to probe based on shape and composition.
A path planner then maps out the fastest route for the robotic probe to hit all the key points. Surprisingly, adding a bit of randomness to the algorithm helped it find even shorter paths.
The neural network is self-supervised; it doesn’t need labeled data to learn. That means it can adapt to all kinds of optimal contact points directly on a sample image.
As Professor Buonassisi puts it, “It’s almost like measuring snowflakes.” No two samples are the same, but this robot can handle them all, quickly, precisely, and with a scientist’s intuition.
After assembling their robotic system from scratch, MIT researchers put it to the test, and the results were nothing short of impressive.
The system’s custom neural network outperformed seven other AI models, finding better probe contact points with less computing time. Its path-planning algorithm also beat the competition, consistently charting shorter, more efficient routes.
In a 24-hour fully autonomous run, the robot made over 3,000 unique photoconductance measurements; that’s more than 125 per hour, without any human help. This high-speed precision allowed researchers to spot both high-performing hotspots and areas of material degradation in the samples.
“Gathering such rich data so quickly, without human guidance, opens the door to discovering new high-performance semiconductors,” said researcher Siemenn. This is especially promising for sustainable tech, like next-gen solar panels.
The team now aims to expand this system into a fully autonomous lab, one that could revolutionize how we discover and develop materials for a cleaner, more energy-efficient future.
Journal Reference:
Alexander Siemen, Basita Das, Kangyu Ji, et al. A self-supervised robotic system for autonomous contact-based spatial mapping of semiconductor properties. Science Advances. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adw7071
Even in moderation, consumption of ultra-processed foods is linked with measurable increases in risk for chronic diseases such as diabetes and cancers, according to research.
The study showed that low but regular intake of processed meat, sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), and trans fatty acids (TFAs) can increase the risk of diseases like Type 2 diabetes, ischemic heart disease (IHD), and colorectal cancer.
While the risks have long been known, systematic characterisation of the dose-response relationships between these foods and health outcomes is limited, said the researchers from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.
In the paper published in the journal Nature Medicine, the team showed that consumption of processed meat between 0.6 grams and 57 grams daily can raise the risk of type 2 diabetes by at least 11 per cent compared with no consumption.
For colorectal cancer, the risk was 7 per cent higher for consumption between 0.78 grams per day and 55 grams per day. The relative risk of IHD was estimated at 1.15 at 50 grams per day intake.
Further, an intake of sugar-sweetened beverage intake between 1.5 and 390 grams daily was found to raise the average risk of type 2 diabetes by 8 per cent.
Intake between 0 and 365 grams per day was associated with a 2 per cent higher average risk of IHD.
“The new analysis supports dietary guidelines to reduce the consumption of processed meat, sugar-sweetened beverages and trans-fatty acids — highlighting the need for a collaborative, meticulous health assessment framework for ultra-processed foods,” said the researchers in the paper.
The findings showed that the risk increased continuously at every level of consumption, with the steepest increases occurring at low habitual intake, approximately equivalent to one serving or less daily.
Several previous studies have linked ultra-processed foods, particularly processed meats, sugar-sweetened beverages, and trans fatty acids, with elevated chronic disease risks.
Estimates suggest that diets high in processed meat contributed to nearly 300,000 deaths worldwide in 2021, while diets rich in sugar-sweetened beverages and trans fats accounted for millions of disability-adjusted life years.
It is because processed meats preserved through smoking, curing, or chemical additives often contain compounds such as N-nitroso agents, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and heterocyclic amines — compounds implicated in tumour development, explained the researchers.
Walk through any trendy suburb and you might find a new “wellness” studio offering ice baths or “” (a sauna and ice bath combo).
Scroll social media, and you’re likely to come across with cult-like zeal.
Ice baths have . Initially practised mainly among , cold water immersion is now a booming business model: sold as recovery, discipline and therapy all in one.
But the benefits and, importantly, ice baths can have – particularly for people who have limited experience using them.
From Roman times to today
Cold water immersion isn’t a new concept.
The “” – a room with a cold plunge pool or bath – was a feature in most Roman bathhouses.
For decades, athletes have used , such as swims in cold water, for recovery.
But in recent years, with the proliferation of , there’s been an explosion in people using ice baths recreationally.
Many people are even setting up their own ice baths at home. The was valued at close to US$338 million in 2024 and is projected to reach nearly $483 million by 2033.
Social media shows serene influencers meditating through the pain, claiming it boosts mental health, serotonin, testosterone, and their metabolism. But does the evidence stack up?
Ice baths can reduce muscle soreness after intense training, however the .
shows cold water immersion can improve mood after a single exposure in young, healthy people, but doesn’t find these benefits.
Most claims about mental health, testosterone and weight loss aren’t backed by strong evidence. Rather, they’re anecdotal and .
Houses and cars are partially submerged in flood waters in an aerial view near Kerrville, Texas, July 4. — Reuters
Workers in central Texas continue to comb through piles of muddy debris.
Death toll rises to 119 with over 160 people still reported missing.
Tragedy “as horrific as it is, could have been so much worse,” says official.
HUNT: The Texas flash floods death toll rose to 119 on Wednesday, as worries grew that the figure could more than double with over 160 people still reported missing.
Workers in central Texas continued to comb through piles of muddy debris from the July 4 floods as Governor Greg Abbott ordered flags to be lowered to half-staff over the tragedy.
Officials in Kerr County, the epicentre of the flooding, on Wednesday confirmed 161 people were known to be missing in the county.
Part of a Hill Country region in central Texas known as “Flash Flood Alley,” Kerr County suffered the most damage, with at least 95 fatalities including 36 children, Sheriff Larry Leitha told reporters.
Among them, counselors and 27 girls at a summer camp who went missing early Friday when the Guadalupe River burst its banks.
Five campers and one counselor from Camp Mystic were still missing as of Wednesday, along with another child not associated with the camp, Leitha said.
Two dozen other people have been confirmed dead elsewhere in the state, according to an AFP tally of official reports.
More than 2,000 rescue personnel, police and experts have descended on the flood zone in what Leitha described as an “all hands on deck” operation.
Ben Baker, with the Texas Game Wardens, said search and rescue efforts involving helicopters, drones and dogs were difficult because of the water, mud and debris.
“When we´re trying to make these recoveries, these large piles can be very obstructive, and to get in deep into these piles, it’s very hazardous,” Baker said.
Meanwhile, questions intensified over whether US President Donald Trump´s government funding cuts had weakened warning systems, and over the handling of the rescue operation.
During sometimes tense news conferences Tuesday and Wednesday, officials skirted questions on the speed of the emergency response.
“There´s going to be an after-action” review of what happened, Sheriff Leitha said, adding “those questions need to be answered.”
But officials stressed that the immediate focus was on locating the missing and reuniting families.
‘Door to door’
Kerrville police officer Jonathan Lamb spoke of heroic rescues by authorities and volunteers who evacuated hundreds of people from their homes or vehicles.
Officers went “door to door, waking people up” in Kerr County early Friday and in some cases “pulling them out of windows” of flooding homes and trailers, Lamb told reporters.
The tragedy, “as horrific as it is, could have been so much worse,” he added.
The National Weather Service (NWS) has forecast scattered storms on Wednesday in the Hill Country, including isolated pockets of heavy rain.
In the neighboring state of New Mexico, flash flooding left three people dead Tuesday in Ruidoso, the village website said in a statement, adding the Ruidoso River rose to a record-breaking 20 feet (six meters).
Bodies in the mud
In the Texas town of Hunt, an AFP team saw recovery workers combing through piles of debris with helicopters flying overhead.
Javier Torres, 24, was digging through mud as he searched for his grandmother, after having located the body of his grandfather.
He also discovered the bodies of two children, apparently washed up by the river.
Trump is due to visit Texas on Friday with First Lady Melania Trump.
“We brought in a lot of helicopters from all over… They were real pros, and they were responsible for pulling out a lot of people,” Trump said of the response.
Shel Winkley, a weather expert at the Climate Central research group, blamed the extent of the disaster on geography and exceptional drought, when dry soil absorbs less rainfall.
“This part of Texas, at least in the Kerr County flood specifically, was in an extreme to exceptional drought…. We know that since May, temperatures have been above average,” Winkley told reporters.
