Business & Markets

NEW YORK — Private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice is reportedly pursuing a buyout of payments processor Global Payments with GTCR, the company's largest shareholder. The Financial Times reported the bid on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. Global Payments has an enterprise value of about $40 billion, made up of a market value near $23 billion and roughly $17 billion of net debt. Its shares rose about 11% in afternoon trading. Talks are continuing and a deal may not materialize, the FT said. No price has been reported. GTCR sold Worldpay to Global Payments in a deal valued at more than $24 billion in 2025. Investors criticized that purchase, and activist fund Elliott later built a stake in the company. Neither Global Payments nor the bidders have confirmed the report.

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Marvell Technology is in advanced talks to buy Lumentum, which makes lasers and optical parts used in AI data centers, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. The deal would be paid in stock. Lumentum's market value is about $83 billion to $85 billion, and Marvell's is roughly $196 billion to $221 billion. An announcement could come as soon as the week of Nov. 3, though the report said talks could still end without a deal and the timing could change. Neither company has confirmed the talks. Investors reacted badly for Marvell. Its shares fell 13% on Thursday on dilution worries and slipped further in Friday premarket trading. Lumentum rose almost 9% on the news. Nvidia holds a stake in Lumentum and is also a customer, which adds a competitive wrinkle for rival chip designers.

SAN RAMON, Calif. — Cooper Companies, the contact-lens and fertility-products maker, said CEO Albert White is leaving effective immediately. White spent eight years as CEO and 20 years at the company. He will stay on as a strategic adviser through April 1. Walter Rosebrough Jr., an independent director, becomes executive chair and will oversee day-to-day operations until a permanent chief executive is chosen. The company also proposed a reshaped board. The moves come weeks after activist investor Jana Partners called for an immediate external CEO search and a new board chair. Rosebrough said in a statement that the board believes decisive action is needed for the company to reach its long-term potential. Cooper did not name a successor.

On October 30 Google announced plans to support a shared AI training control in robots.txt, based on work by the IETF's AIPREF working group. The signal would let a site state its AI-training preference to multiple providers at once instead of listing each crawler. Google says it will support the control, alongside other AI providers, in 2027. Existing company-specific controls such as Google-Extended keep working, and Google's separate Search Console opt-out for Search generative AI remains. MLex reports that Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic are adopting the proposal too. Microsoft says it is also offering separate preferences for training and for grounding, and that sites stay eligible for Bing results. The IETF specification is still a draft. Commentators note a preference signal does not by itself enforce anything.

Search Engine Roundtable reported on October 30 that Bing is showing ads within its AI Overviews, extending sponsored placements into generated answers. The report came in a week when Google said ads in its AI Mode earn less than traditional search ads, which slowed Search ad growth. Microsoft's quarterly results, as summarized by the same outlet, showed Bing ad revenue up 12% while overall revenue rose 19%. Google's ad revenue rose 10.5%, with overall revenue up 25%. Roundtable also logged Bing tests of a get-phone-number option and a QR code to scan, and a wider ad format in ChatGPT. Details on how Bing's AI ads are targeted and priced were not given in the coverage.

Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange by volume, suspended withdrawals after attackers drained more than $6 billion from its wallets on Thursday. That is the largest crypto theft on record, well above the roughly $1.5 billion Bybit heist of February 2025. Tether, Circle and others froze about $3 billion of the funds. Researchers at TRM Labs judge that about $2.4 billion in bitcoin and ether will probably never be recovered. Co-CEO Richard Teng said only corporate holdings were hit and that Binance, not users, will bear the loss. It has a reserve of more than $1 billion and is setting aside another $6 billion. Bitcoin fell as much as 5% to below $76,000. U.S. officials say they are working with Binance on the investigation. The cause and the attackers have not been officially established.

Oil rose more than 2% on Friday and settled at its highest level since late April. Brent's December contract finished at $117.64 a barrel and U.S. West Texas Intermediate at $104.12. For October, Brent gained 13.6% and WTI 15.2%, the fourth straight monthly rise of more than 10%. A small boat attached explosive devices to a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, UKMTO said. Traders are also weighing reports that U.S. officials briefed President Trump on military options for Iran, with strikes possible after Tuesday's midterms. Qatari mediators returned to Tehran for talks on a U.S.-Iran deal. Gulf export volumes have recovered, and Kpler tracked Hormuz crude exports near 11.1 million barrels a day in October. Futures for October 2027 delivery trade above $90.

The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate fell to 7.24% this week from 7.32%, Freddie Mac reported Thursday. It was the second straight weekly decline and the lowest reading this month. The 15-year rate averaged 6.60%. Rates are down from a 7.40% peak earlier in October but remain well above the start of the year, when the 30-year average was below 6.2%. Mortgage rates track the 10-year Treasury yield, which closed Friday near 4.92% to 4.94%, after a tech-led flight to safety. Next week's calendar includes JOLTS job openings on Tuesday and the October payrolls report on Friday. The Mortgage Bankers Association's chief economist has said he does not expect significant relief in mortgage rates over the forecast period.

WASHINGTON — The Senate is set to hold a cloture vote on Nov. 9 on the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (S. 5653). Senators Capito, Lee, Whitehouse and Heinrich introduced the bill Sept. 30. It would set decision deadlines for federal permits, narrow court challenges and give approved projects more protection against revocation. On the grid, it would require interregional planning with consistent cost allocation. It would let FERC issue permits for lines of 230 kV or more when states fail to act within a year. It would also require data centers of 20 MW or more to bear their transmission costs. Heatmap reported Friday that the transmission section is the one part of the bill drawing broad support. Environmental groups, tribes and some Democrats object to other provisions, and large utilities are divided. Amendments are expected, and any Senate-passed bill must still clear the House.

WASHINGTON — Constellation Energy has a conditional agreement for a Department of Energy loan of up to $5 billion. The money would support power uprates at eight nuclear plants in Illinois, Maryland and Pennsylvania. Constellation and the department's Office of Energy Dominance Financing announced the deal Tuesday. Uprates raise the output of existing reactors through equipment and licensing changes, without new reactor sites. The agreement is conditional, so final terms and closing remain ahead. The loan arrives amid a run of nuclear announcements this month. These include the Amazon, AEP and X-energy plan for a 960 MW project in Indiana and the Navy's pick of Radiant Industries for a microreactor at Naval Weapons Station Crane. The NRC also finalized a rule on reusing federal test data. Uprate and loan details beyond the headline figures were not disclosed in the announcement summary.