GE Vernova explores sale of Proficy software unit, Bloomberg News reports
June 27 (Reuters) - U.S. power equipment maker GE Vernova (GEV.N), opens new tab is exploring the sale of its industrial software business, Proficy, in a deal that could fetch as much as $1 billion, Bloomberg Newsreported, opens new tab on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Following its independence last year after a three-way split of General Electric (GE.N), opens new tab, GE Vernova is benefiting from surging domestic power demand.
This demand is expected to hit record highs in 2025, driven by rapid expansions in AI and cryptocurrency data centers, as well as increased energy consumption by households and businesses.
The asset could be sold for between $900 million and $1 billion, the report said.
The company is working with advisers and has reached out to industrial software firms and private equity investors, according to Bloomberg.
GE Vernova declined to comment.
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The Guardian
38 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Senate Republicans scrambling to pass tax-and-spend bill by Trump deadline
The US Senate is preparing for a key procedural vote Saturday as Republicans race to pass Donald Trump's package of tax breaks, spending cuts and bolstered deportation funds by his Fourth of July deadline. Republicans are using their majorities in Congress to push aside Democratic opposition, but they have run into a series of political and policy setbacks. Not all Republican senators are on board with proposals to reduce spending on Medicaid, food stamps and other programs as a way to help cover the cost of extending some $3.8tn in Trump tax breaks. Before the expected vote to advance the measure, the White House released a statement saying it 'strongly supports passage' of the bill that 'implements critical aspects' of the president's agenda. Trump himself was at his golf course in Virginia on Saturday with Republican senators, including one of the holdouts, Rand Paul of Kentucky. 'It's time to get this legislation across the finish line,' the Senate majority leader, John Thune, said. The 940-page bill was released shortly before midnight Friday, and senators are expected to grind through the days ahead with hours of potentially all-night debate and countless amendments. Senate passage could be days away, and the bill would need to return to the House for a final round of votes before it could reach the White House. With the narrow Republican majorities in the House and Senate, leaders need almost every lawmaker on board in the face of essentially unified opposition from Democrats. Elon Musk, the billionaire Trump donor who came out in strong opposition to the House version of the bill, denounced the Senate draft on his social media platform, X, on Saturday. 'The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country!' Musk wrote above a comment from a green energy expert who pointed out that the bill raises taxes on new wind and solar projects. 'Utterly insane and destructive,' Musk added. 'It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future.' Bernie Moreno, the Republican senator from Ohio, opened the day's session with an impassioned defense of the package that he said had been misrepresented by its critics. 'Read it for yourself,' he said. Senate Democrats intend to do just that, with the minority leader, Chuck Schumer, announcing on social media Saturday afternoon that his party will force the entire bill to be read aloud before a final vote on passage can take place. Speaking on the Senate floor, Schumer said Republicans had released the bill 'in the dead of night' and were rushing to pass it before the public fully knows what's in it. The weekend session could be a make-or-break moment for Trump's party, which has invested much of its political capital on his signature domestic-policy plan. Trump is pushing Congress to wrap it up, even as he sometimes gives mixed signals, allowing for more time. At recent events at the White House, including on Friday, Trump has admonished the 'grandstanders' among GOP holdouts to fall in line. 'We can get it done,' Trump said in a social media post. 'It will be a wonderful Celebration for our Country.' The legislation is an ambitious but complicated series of GOP priorities. At its core, it would make permanent many of the tax breaks from Trump's first term that would otherwise expire by year's end if Congress fails to act, resulting in a potential tax increase on Americans. The bill would add new breaks, including no taxes on tips, and commit $350bn to national security, including for Trump's mass deportation agenda. Sign up to Headlines US Get the most important US headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion But the spending cuts that Republicans are relying on to offset the lost tax revenues are causing dissent within the GOP ranks. Some lawmakers say the cuts go too far, particularly for people receiving healthcare through Medicaid. Meanwhile, conservatives worried about the nation's debt are pushing for steeper cuts. Senator Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, said he remains concerned about the fundamentals of the package and will not support the procedural motion to begin debate. Rand Paul has opposed the measure on the grounds that it will raise the nation's debt limit by $5tn. And Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican pushing for deeper cuts, said he needed to see the final legislative text. The release of that draft had been delayed as the Senate parliamentarian reviewed the bill to ensure it complied with the chamber's strict 'Byrd rule', which bars policy matters from inclusion in budget bills unless a provision can get 60 votes to overcome objections. That would be a tall order in a Senate with a 53-47 Republican edge, and Democrats unified against Trump's bill. Republicans suffered a series of setbacks after several proposals were determined to be out of compliance by the chief arbiter of the Senate's rules. One plan would have shifted some food stamp costs from the federal government to the states; a second would have gutted the funding structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But over the past days, Republicans have quickly revised those proposals and reinstated them. The final text includes a proposal for cuts to a Medicaid provider tax that had run into parliamentary objections and opposition from several senators worried about the fate of rural hospitals. The new version extends the start date for those cuts and establishes a $25bn fund to aid rural hospitals and providers. Most states impose the provider tax as a way to boost federal Medicaid reimbursements. Some Republicans argue that is a scam and should be abolished. The nonpartisan congressional budget office has said that under the House-passed version of the bill, some 10.9 million more people would go without healthcare and at least 3 million fewer would qualify for food aid. The CBO has not yet publicly assessed the Senate draft, which proposes steeper reductions. Top income-earners would see about a $12,000 tax cut under the House bill, while the package would cost the poorest Americans $1,600, the CBO said.
Times
an hour ago
- Times
Don't dismiss Elon Musk's Doge so fast: we can learn from its failure
History won't be kind to Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (Doge). As failed, expensive experiments go, it's up there with HS2 or 'Tay,' Microsoft's much-hyped AI chatbot that, within hours of launching in 2016, morphed spectacularly into a racist troll. Doge initially pledged to slice $2 trillion from federal spending — a bravado-fuelled ambition that was swiftly halved and then repeatedly whittled down until landing at a relatively underwhelming $150 billion. Even this revised sum relies on some fairly questionable assumptions and shaky accounting. Some independent commentators suggest the real savings hover close to zero, especially once the anticipated tsunami of lawsuits — or the burden of haphazardly dismantled departments limping on dysfunctionally — are factored in. The Department of Government Efficiency will, ironically, be remembered for its inefficiency. Yet, oddly enough, I remain rather enamoured with the concept. Just as high-speed rail doesn't have to degenerate into a bloated money pit bereft of trains, and AI chatbots needn't transform into spiteful bigots, the basic idea behind Musk's ill-fated initiative holds merit. The execution may have flopped, but the underlying model of applying a private sector mindset to government spending and bureaucracy deserves resurrection. History is full of promising ideas that tanked the first time around. Bubble Wrap, for example, originally intended as textured wallpaper, languished unsold until IBM adopted it in the 1960s for protecting computer components. The billions of Post-it Notes sold annually began life inauspiciously in 1968 as a glue deemed too weak for aerospace engineering, only to find new purpose in the 1980s. One of Doge's many glaring oddities was that, despite being overseen by one of the world's most successful corporate CEOs, its cost-cutting approach was remarkably un-corporate. Most jobs — even those which are poorly performed, vulnerable to automation, or submerged in bureaucratic sludge —were originally created for a valid reason. This explains why corporate belt-tightening almost always ends rather than begins with job cuts. CEOs and CFOs typically look at expenses before wielding the axe, scrutinising discretionary spending first — travel, events, equipment — and cutting back hours or trimming temporary hires. Full-time roles are usually the last domino to fall. Musk flipped that sequence, firing up the chainsaw without any evident due diligence or sober analysis. This wasn't the sort of disruption or iconoclastic thinking for which Silicon Valley has become famed, just muddled recklessness. Over here, taxpayers' money continues to be splurged on an array of baffling pursuits. This year, these have included a £99 million initiative devoted to teaching overseas families to 'cook with electricity', including in places where basic infrastructure — and electrical cooking appliances — are lacking. • Outgoing head of Reform's 'Doge' urges party to avoid Musk's mistakes Then there's the £1 million grant to the Open University, which made the news last month, funding a two-year project to encourage students to 'touch as a mole' and feel 'like a bee'. Given the same amount would pay for 20 police constables for a year, I'm fairly certain that wastefulness could be identified without requiring a Musk-style wrecking ball approach. Right now, injecting disciplined private-sector thinking into governmental budgeting feels not just sensible, but necessary. Rachel Reeves's recent spending review has dramatically opened the purse strings, with departmental budgets growing by 2.3 per cent — the neck end of an additional £200 billion allocated to daily public-sector operations. I don't find the spending itself inherently problematic. Rather, I worry about who within the current government has earned genuine credibility managing substantial sums prudently or, indeed, could be trusted to implement rigorous cost controls to offset the increased largesse. In this regard, I believe there are plenty of highly talented figures from the world of business, with proven track records, who would bring more experience, expertise and, in all likelihood, results than the government could muster. • Fraser Nelson: Elon Musk's Doge debacle has done us all a favour How about someone like Sir Terry Leahy, who streamlined Tesco? His brand of operational efficiency relied heavily on automation, data analytics, and smart technology as well as lean logistics. Or Sir Stuart Rose, under whose leadership M&S developed more prudent supply chain management, stricter inventory controls and a better ability to negotiate more favourable terms with suppliers? Perhaps once Dame Carolyn McCall steps down from ITV? Diplomatic and a good communicator, she has credentials in turning around, and modernising, businesses in the public eye. Musk might have inadvertently given efficiency a bad name but his version of Doge should be regarded as a flawed prototype rather than proof of a dud concept. Having had a helpful case study of 'how not to do it', perhaps it's time for someone to do it properly. Seema Shah is chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Warren Buffett announces $6 billion in donations to five foundations
Famed investor Warren Buffett is donating $6 billion worth of his company's stock to five foundations, bringing the total he has given to them since 2006 to roughly $60 billion, based on their value when received. Buffett said late Friday that the shares of Berkshire Hathaway will be delivered on Monday. Berkshire Hathaway owns Geico, Dairy Queen and a range of other businesses, and Buffett is donating nearly 12.4 million of the Class B shares of its stock. Those shares have a lower and easier-to-digest price tag than the company's original Class A shares, and each of the B shares was worth $485.68 at their most recent close on Friday. The largest tranche is going to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust, which will receive 9.4 million shares. The Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation will receive 943,384 shares, and the Sherwood Foundation, Howard G. Buffett Foundation and NoVo Foundation will each receive 660,366 shares. Buffett made waves a year ago when he said he plans to cut off donations to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation after his death and let his three children decide how to distribute the rest of his fortune. Berkshire Hathaway's Class B stock has climbed 19.1% over the last 12 months, topping the broad U.S. stock market's return of 14.1%, including dividends. Buffett is famous on Wall Street for buying companies at good prices and being more conservative when prices look too high. The bargain-hunting approach has helped him amass a fortune worth about $145 billion, with basically all of it in Berkshire Hathaway's stock. 'Nothing extraordinary has occurred at Berkshire; a very long runway, simple and generally sound decisions, the American tailwind and compounding effects produced my current wealth,' Buffett said in a statement. 'My will provides that about 99½% of my estate is destined for philanthropic usage.'
