19/02/2026

BIZ & FINANCE THURSDAY | FEB 19, 2026

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UK manufacturers struggle under sky-high energy bills

GLENCORE BACK IN THE BLACK, POSTS

Group raises bid for Australia’s BlueScope Steel SYDNEY: A US-Australian consortium said yesterday it has raised its takeover bid for Australia’s BlueScope Steel, valuing the company at A$15 billion (RM41.5 billion). US firm Steel Dynamics and Australian industrial, energy and media company SGH said it was their “best and final” joint offer to buy 100% of BlueScope Steel. The bid offers a “compelling value proposition” for BlueScope share holders, they said in a statement. BlueScope’s board last month unanimously rejected their previous bid, which offered a total equity value of A$13.2 billion. Melbourne-based BlueScope is now “considering and evaluating” the latest takeover offer and its conditions in light of the“fundamental value”of the firm, it said in a statement. Steel Dynamics, based in Fort Wayne, Indiana, has been involved in three previous failed attempts to take over BlueScope’s US steelmaking operations. Under the latest takeover proposal, SGH would acquire all shares in BlueScope. SGH would then sell the North American operations to Steel Dynamics while retaining the rest of BlueScope’s global steel-making business for itself. – AFP FRANKFURT: Bayer said on Tuesday its Monsanto unit had reached an agreement worth as much as US$7.25 billion (RM28.27 billion) to resolve tens of thousands of current and future lawsuits claiming that its Roundup weedkiller caused cancer. The move marks a major step for the German firm, which has spent years tackling legal risks tied to Roundup, acquired as part of its US$63 billion purchase of agro chemical company Monsanto in 2018. The German company said the proposed nationwide settle ment, filed on Tuesday in state court in St Louis, Missouri, would establish a long-term claims pro gramme funded by capped annual payments over up to 21 years. The company is facing claims over Roundup from approximately 65,000 plaintiffs in US state and federal courts. – Reuters US$363M PROFIT IN 2025 ZURICH: Swiss resources giant Glencore said yesterday that it returned to profit last year and insisted its “standalone investment case is strong”, two weeks after dropping a merger plan with British-Australian miner Rio Tinto. Full-year profit reached US$363 million (RM1.4 billion) after a loss of US$1.6 billion posted in 2024, in what CEO Gary Nagle called “a year of significant progress”. He did not directly mention the failed Rio deal, but said Glencore would focus on “successfully progressing our organic production growth options”. On top of a 2025 dividend payout of US$0.10 per share, Glencore will also recommend an exceptional payout of US$0.07. – AFP BAYER’S US$7.25B PLAN TO SETTLE LAWSUITS RELATED TO ROUNDUP

BR I E F S

last power station switched on to meet demand sets the price for all generators, and in the UK, that station is usually gas-powered. “In France, nuclear sets the price fairly often and nuclear is cheaper ... so it’s not always the same expensive gas that sets the price,” Sam Frankhauser, professor of economics and climate change policy at Oxford University, told AFP. In other countries “there’s moments in the day where somebody cheaper sets the price and in the UK, those moments don’t exist” as it is almost always a natural gas plant setting the price, he added. At Encirc’s Elton factory, where bottles clatter along the conveyor belts to be filled and labelled, executives say energy prices are inseparable from the push to decarbonise. By the end of the decade, “we’re going to be producing glass bottles that are 80 percent reduced carbon,“ said Harry. “The UK managed to decarbonise the grid phenomenally because of the exit of coal,“ said Gregor Singer, professor at the London School of Economics. “It’s really unfortunate that this gas price shock came now, exactly at that point where you sort of exited coal but you don’t quite have enough renewables yet.” “In the medium to long run ... it’s almost guaranteed that prices are coming down,” he said. – AFP

o Electricity is so expensive in the country largely because more than a quarter of its power still comes from gas

ELTON (UK): Molten glass drops through chutes before being blown into bottles at manufacturer Encirc’s northwest England plant, where intensive operations are under strain from exorbitant energy prices weighing on Britain’s heavy industry. “We’re paying a lot more energy costs than our European competitors,” said Oliver Harry, head of corporate affairs at Encirc, which makes over a third of the UK’s glass bottles. Britain has some of the highest energy prices in Europe, driven by its reliance on natural gas and the costs of transitioning to renewables, which are passed on to bills. The country’s industrial electricity prices were also the steepest in Europe in 2024, according to the latest annual government data. Standing in the intense heat of the factory’s two huge furnaces, Harry warned: “We’re already seeing an increase in imports into the UK as customers turn to cheap, more unsustainable glass producers”, notably from China and Turkey. Across energy-intensive industries – from steel and chemicals to glass and cement – companies are warning that government support does not go far enough to keep them

competitive. The government said it will increase discounts on electricity network charges to 90% from April, which will save around 500 of the UK’s biggest energy users a cumulative £420 million ($570 million) per year in electricity bills. “Lowering bills is central to every decision we make,” a government spokesperson told AFP. But the steel sector, already weakened by the closure of traditional coal-fired blast furnaces, argues that more action is needed. “The industry still faces industrial power prices almost 40% higher than in France and Germany,” Gareth Stace, director general of the steel union, UK Steel, told AFP. The union has called for stronger protections similar to those in France, Italy, Spain and the UAE to shield heavy industry from high wholesale power costs. Electricity is so expensive in the UK largely because more than a quarter of its power still comes from gas, which surged in price after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. While wholesale prices have since fallen, they remain elevated. Under the liberalised electricity market, the

Adani’s investment is expected to create US$250 billion artificial intelligence infrastructure. – REUTERSPIC

Adani bets US$100 billion on data centres NEW DELHI: Adani Enterprises said on Tuesday that it will invest US$100 billion (RM390 billion) to build renewable-powered AI-ready data centres by 2035, positioning India as a contender in the global artificial intelligence race. sovereign cloud platforms. Together, this is projected to create a US$250 billion AI infrastructure ecosystem in India over the decade, it added.

storage systems. Adani has an existing partnership with Google, which has pledged to invest US$15 billion over five years to build an AI data centre, its biggest ever investment in India. The company said on Tuesday it will expand its existing partnership with Walmart-backed Flipkart to develop a second AI data centre. It is also in discussions with other major players to establish large-scale campuses across India, it said, without disclosing further details. In another development, India's Yotta Data Services will spend over US$2 billion on Nvidia's latest chips to set up an AI computing hub as it prepares to float its shares, it said yesterday, delivering a boost to the country's fledgling AI drive. Yotta is aiming to raise up to US$1.2 billion from investors to fund its expansion ahead of an initial public offering, potentially due to happen as soon as this year, CEO Sunil Gupta told Reuters on the sidelines of the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi. He would not provide further details of the capital-raising plans. – Reuters

Having been on the periphery of the AI boom so far due to the absence of any significant chip manufacturing capability, data centres represent India’s best chance of making a mark on the global stage. The investment will develop a model linking renewable energy, power grid resilience and AI computing, according to Adani. “For decades, we imported technology. Now we are building the backbone,” chairman Gautam Adani said in a post on X. “India will not follow the AI century. India will shape it”. The ports-to-power conglomerate will build on its existing 2GW (two-gigawatt) data centre capacity and scale it to 5GW to create the world’s largest integrated data centre platform, it said, without providing a timeline. Additionally, Adani will invest US$55 billion to expand its renewable energy portfolio, which will include one of the world’s largest battery energy

India has seen a surge in big-ticket AI infrastructure spending, with global players like Google, Amazon, Meta Platforms and Microsoft ramping up investments along with domestic companies such as Reliance and TCS. “AI-ready data centres would be a critical nerve centre of the AI-driven environment and it’s natural that large groups with deep pockets will get future-ready by setting up such data centres,” said Ambareesh Baliga, an independent market analyst. Top firms, including Reliance and the Adani Group, are moving quickly to capture the vast opportunities as businesses align themselves with what is seen as a major disruptor ahead, he added. Adani said that the investment is expected to trigger an additional US$150 billion across related industries including server manufacturing and