Ford in Talks with Xiaomi for U.S. Market Entry
Catch up on the weekend's top five stories with this list compiled by The Fly: 1) Ford (F) held discussions with Xiaomi (XIACF) over a partnership to help Chinese carmakers gain a foothold in the U.S., Demetri Sevastopulo, Christian Davies, Kana Inagaki, and Gloria Li of The Financial Times reports, citing four people familiar with the matter. During preliminary discussions, Ford explored forming a joint venture with Xiaomi to create EVs in the U.S., the sources added. Ford has also discussed with BYD (BYDDF) about a potential U.S. collaboration. 2) Oracle (ORCL) announced its full calendar year 2026 plan to fund the expansion of its Oracle Cloud Infrastructure business. Oracle is raising money in order to build additional capacity to meet the contracted demand from its largest Oracle Cloud Infrastructure customers. Oracle expects to raise $45 to $50 billion of gross cash proceeds during the 2026 calendar year. The company plans to achieve its funding objective by using a balanced combination of debt and equity financing to maintain a solid investment-grade balance sheet. 3) Pharming (PHAR) announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, FDA, has issued a Complete Response Letter, CRL, to its supplemental New Drug Application, sNDA, for Joenja, an oral, selective phosphoinositide 3-kinase delta inhibitor, as a treatment for children aged 4 to 11 years with activated phosphoinositide 3-kinase delta syndrome, APDS, a rare primary immunodeficiency. The FDA raised an issue with the potential for underexposure in lower weight pediatric patients. As a result, the FDA has requested additional pediatric pharmacokinetic data to reassess the proposed pediatric doses and confirm that children in the lower weight dose groups can achieve exposure levels comparable to the approved adult and adolescent regimen. The letter also identified an issue with one of the analytical methods used for production batch testing, and the FDA requested additional data and clarification on this point. 4) Carlyle (CG) has started exploratory talks with UAE investors to bring in partners should its agreement to purchase Lukoil's international assets proceed, Shadia Nasralla and Anna Hirtenstein of Reuters reports, citing three sources with knowledge of the process. 5) Bain Capital (BCSF) has finalized plans to acquire FineToday in a deal set to be worth $1.29B, Reuters reports, citing Nikkei. CVC Capital Partners intends to divest all of FineToday's shares.
