Dronemaker Destinus Seek Funds at Unicorn Valuation
Takeaways NEW
Destinus, a drone company founded by a former Russian national that supplies weapons to Ukraine, is in talks to raise funds that would value the firm at as much as €1.5 billion ($1.7 billion), according to people familiar with the matter.
The company is holding talks with new and existing investors to sell a minority stake for as much as €100 million, said the people, who asked not to be identified because discussions are private. No deal has been agreed on and the size of the stake and its value will depend on investor demand, the people said.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
ECB Is in Good Position on Rates, Lagarde Tells Monaco Info
(Bloomberg) -- The latest interest-rate moves primes the European Central Bank to meet its medium-term inflation goal, President Christine Lagarde told television station Monaco Info. Next Stop: Rancho Cucamonga! Where Public Transit Systems Are Bouncing Back Around the World ICE Moves to DNA-Test Families Targeted for Deportation with New Contract US Housing Agency Vulnerable to Fraud After DOGE Cuts, Documents Warn Trump Said He Fired the National Portrait Gallery Director. She's Still There. 'We think we have really reached a good position,' she said in an interview broadcast Saturday, adding that the latest olicy decision was 'well calibrated.' Speaking on the sidelines of an event on oceans, Lagarde said that policymakers will be attentive to incoming data 'to know if we need to adjust or not adjust' borrowing costs. 'But I think we are currently well positioned to face moments that will be delicate and very uncertain.' After an eight rate reduction in a year and a total easing of 200 basis points, the cutting campaign is nearing an end, Lagarde has said after the latest decision on Thursday. The ECB is now 'in a good position' to deal with uncertainties ahead, not least due to US trade policies, she said. Officials from across the hawk-dove-spectrum have echoed that the recent cycle is almost, if not completely over. Greece's Yannis Stournaras, one of the most dovish policymakers, told Bloomberg on Friday that the bar for more cuts is 'high,' while more hawkish Boris Vujcic from Croatia said Saturday the ECB is 'nearly done.' The ECB's projections published Thursday foresee inflation to slow to 1.6% in 2026, before returning to 2% in 2027, matching the institution's medium-term target. Growth is expected to strengthen over the forecast horizon. Lagarde also said in the interview that 'the euro is doing well,' adding that the ECB's monetary policy has allowed officials to tame inflation from a peak of more than 10% to the 2% level that is the central bank's target. 'I think we are well calibrated to reach this medium-term goal,' she said. Speaking in a separate interview with TV Monaco, Lagarde said while the ECB's most recent economic projections don't take into account a scenario of 50% tariffs on European goods shipped to the US, such a level 'would be rather disastrous for international trade.' (Updates with comment on trade in final paragraph) Cavs Owner Dan Gilbert Wants to Donate His Billions—and Walk Again The SEC Pinned Its Hack on a Few Hapless Day Traders. The Full Story Is Far More Troubling Trump Considers Deporting Migrants to Rwanda After the UK Decides Not To Is Elon Musk's Political Capital Spent? What Does Musk-Trump Split Mean for a 'Big, Beautiful Bill'? ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
No more leprechaun economics: Ireland's tax swindle is finally ending
Donald Trump has sent Ireland to the naughty step. Once the altar boy of American commerce, Dublin now finds itself blacklisted alongside China, Germany and Vietnam, each a prime candidate for tariffs and sanctions. The offence? Running a surplus with the United States. On the face of it, the complaint seems petty. One country sells more than it buys. So what? But Ireland's problem, like the others on Trump's list, is that its surplus rests on a creed that has fallen out of favour. As offshoring hollowed out Middle America, the old Clinton mantra 'It's the economy, stupid' has begun to sound rather less clever than it once did. That, at least, is the mood in Trump's Washington. And judging by his campaign-trail fixation with the word tariff, many Americans agree: a reckoning is overdue. Ireland offers a particularly inviting target. Its surplus owes less to tangible exports than to tax gymnastics. A pill is made in Ireland for 50 cents, sold to a sister company (also in Ireland) for €10, and then shipped to the global market at the same price. The profit is booked in Dublin, while tax collectors elsewhere are left out of pocket. The trick doesn't stop there. Intellectual property is shifted to Irish subsidiaries, global sales are routed through Irish entities, and profits vanish into low or no-tax jurisdictions. Together, these sleights of hand form what we're invited to call the Irish economic miracle – a miracle that, by one estimate, deprives other countries of nearly $20 billion a year in tax revenue. The question being asked in Washington is: who benefits? Ireland, clearly. One in every eight euros of its tax revenue now comes from US firms. That's a fivefold increase since 2010, driven by Ireland's famously 'competitive' tax regime. It accounts for a large slice of a €150 billion bilateral surplus. When Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin visited the Oval Office in March, Trump put it plainly: 'We do have a massive deficit with Ireland, because Ireland was very smart. They took our pharmaceutical companies away.' It's hard to argue with the logic. Ireland has been undeniably clever at attracting American capital. Spending it is another matter. Much of the money sits on Irish books without generating the economic activity one might expect. The state's coffers may be overflowing, but the windfall is narrowly concentrated. Public spending, as ever, has been handled with something shy of brilliance. From roads and hospitals to housing and energy, the services most visible to the public have seen little improvement, despite years of surging resources have been channelled into more headline-friendly ventures: a €350,000 bike shed outside parliament; a vast new hospital project already among Europe's most expensive; and billions annually to accommodate asylum applicants – most of whom, the government has conceded, are economic migrants. The miracle, it seems, left little room for prudence. As every lottery winner learns, easy money tends to breed excess. But with full coffers, Ireland could afford to paper over the cracks. Meanwhile, American tech and pharma giants have flourished. Apple, Microsoft, Pfizer and others have routed billions through Ireland, to the delight of shareholders and pension funds. If Trump moves to close loopholes or impose tariffs, these are the interests he'll have to console ahead of the midterms. The losers, predictably, are the American workers left behind by the long, slow flight of industry and tax revenue. Worse off still are the countries quietly drained by Ireland's magic act. The sums involved are vast. The structures that move them are so complex they can feel impossibly abstract. But the consequences are not. According to modelling by the Universities of St Andrews and Leicester, this tax loss has deprived more than 100,000 children of school attendance and some 1.1 million people of access to basic sanitation. Quibble with the methods if you like, but the core truth is hard to deny: when profits are rerouted, people are short-changed. Not that Dublin seems overly troubled. Only last month, Ireland's Taoiseach declared: 'Ireland earns its living from an open and fair approach to world trade.' The most pious nations often turn out to be the most artful. Ireland rarely misses a chance to sermonise on Gaza, climate justice, or whichever cause currently allows it to cast itself as Europe's moral compass. But as La Rochefoucauld noted, hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue. And by that measure, Ireland has paid handsomely. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Trump and Musk's very public feud is like Alien v Predator for political nerds
'Sometimes you see two young children fighting like crazy,' Donald Trump observed in the Oval Office on Thursday. 'They hate each other, and they're fighting in a park, and you try and pull them apart. They don't want to be pulled. Sometimes you're better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart.' The US president was referring to the war between Russia and Ukraine but could just as easily have been talking about himself. On Thursday, to the surprise of no one, Trump's bromance with the billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk exploded in a very public feud. While the president urged his supporters to 'fight, fight, fight' last summer after he survived an assassination attempt, now that mantra is evocative of children on a school playground urging Trump and Musk to go at each other. For political nerds this is like Alien v Predator, Batman v Superman and King Kong v Godzilla rolled into one. It was always going to end this way for two megalomaniacs devoted to fame, money and the far right, neither of whom is unaccustomed to a messy divorce. Related: What we know so far: Trump and Musk's spectacular public blowup rocks Washington Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives' judiciary committee, told reporters on Capitol Hill: 'I suppose it was in the stars. Everybody was predicting it when it first began. You've got two gentlemen with gargantuan egos and both appearing to suffer from malignant narcissistic personality disorder.' Trump-Musk had begun as the ultimate political marriage of convenience. Their interests converged last year when Musk saw in Trump a hammer against wokeness who could also benefit his businesses and help him reach Mars. The Tesla and SpaceX supremo leaped on stage with Trump, flooded the zone with Maga propaganda on his X social media platform and threw a record $277m behind his election campaign. The reward came with a seat among the oligarchs at Trump's inauguration, a seemingly permanent residency at Mar-a-Lago and a chainsaw in the form of the so-called 'department of government efficiency', or Doge. 'I love @realDonaldTrump as much as a straight man can love another man,' proclaimed Musk, who lorded it over cabinet meetings and in the Oval Office. Trump returned the compliment by turning the White House south lawn into a showroom for Teslas. The pair were as inseparable – and destructive – as Laurel and Hardy pushing a piano up a flight of stairs. Then came last Friday's amicable but peculiar parting, where Musk sported a black eye, brushed off reports of rampant drug taking, praised Trump's tacky gold decor in the Oval Office and was presented with a commemorative gold key. Comedian Jon Stewart quipped: 'Doge has finally rooted out one of America's least efficient government workers and marked him for dismissal.' On Tuesday, Musk waited until the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, was at the podium before unleashing an X barrage. 'I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore,' he wrote, describing a Trump-based tax and spending bill in Congress as 'a disgusting abomination'. He followed up with three days of nonstop posts eviscerating the bill and urging Republicans to reject it. It was the point of no return. The transactional Trump-Musk relationship was on its way to turning septic, sour and rancorous. There are multiple theories as to why. The trouble began in March when it emerged that Musk arranged private Pentagon briefings on China policy without White House knowledge, a significant conflict of interest due to Musk's business ties in China. Trump was especially annoyed to learn about the briefings through the media, and about the perceived notion that Musk was using his position for personal advantage. Second, when Trump travelled to the Middle East, Musk was reportedly piqued that his arch-rival, Sam Altman of OpenAI, won a deal to build one of the world's biggest artificial intelligence data centres in Abu Dhabi. Musk worked behind the scenes to try to derail the deal if it did not include his own AI startup, according to the Wall Street Journal. Third, Musk was working at the White House as a 'special government employee', which is limited by law to 130 days; when Musk sought an extension, officials said no, perhaps because he had put so many backs up. Fourth, last Saturday Trump suddenly announced that he was cancelling the nomination of the Musk ally Jared Isaacman to be the administrator of Nasa. And fifth, there was the 'big, beautiful bill', currently navigating Republicans in the Senate. Musk said in social media posts that it would increase the already massive budget deficit to $2.5tn, undermining his work at Doge. Notably, it would also cut the electric vehicle tax credit that helps carmakers including Tesla. On Thursday, after days of uncharacteristic self-restraint, Trump struck back. He told reporters he was 'surprised' and 'very disappointed' by Musk's critiques of the bill, adding wistfully: 'Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we will any more.' Musk returned fire on social media, writing: 'Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51–49 in the Senate. Such ingratitude.' He also agreed with a social media post that called for Trump to be impeached and removed from office. The president replied on his own platform, Truth Social, that he in effect fired Musk. 'Elon was 'wearing thin,' I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!' The mad men went nuclear. Trump threatened to cancel Musk's billions of dollars in government contracts, describing it as the easiest way to save money. Musk responded by linking Trump to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein: 'Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!' The economic burden of Musk's government contracts and the Epstein files allegations both existed before the breakup, but neither man spoke up. Now they seem to have taken a truth serum and discovered a conscience. Raskin observed: 'They basically converged around a common platform of plunder and pillage of the American people and now both of them are telling the truth about the other. It's a happy moment for America that we can finally get to the bottom of things like the Jeffrey Epstein files and all of the billions of dollars of government contracts that Elon Musk has.' Mutually assured destruction? Musk could try to use X to mobilise opinion against Trump and his 'big, beautiful bill'. He could also try to exploit the government's dependence on him. His threat, which he later retracted, to cut off Nasa's use of SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft would be a huge blow to the space programme. The Pentagon and intelligence agencies have also become reliant on SpaceX. Related: Trump news at a glance: President's union with Musk up in flames as feud publicly spirals Trump could follow through on his threat to cancel Musk's lucrative government contracts. He could reopen investigations into Musk's companies that were paused when Trump took office. The Trump ally Steve Bannon, whose extremist ideas have a habit of entering the Maga mainstream, called for the South African-born Musk to be deported and SpaceX to be nationalised. Even as Tesla shares lost $150bn in market value, Musk seems to be betting that he has gathered enough dirt on Trump to survive the information war. Trump, now making plenty of his own money from deals in the Gulf and elsewhere, seems to have decided that Musk has outlived his political usefulness. There is no threat to his command of the Republican party, where Musk is seen as something of an interloper. But what of the Democrats? For now they only have to get out of the way and gleefully watch the spectacle unfold. Some suggest an 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' approach to Musk, whose money could swing elections in their favor. Others say a man who gave a Nazi-style salute on inauguration day, and whose Doge cuts have already caused deaths in the world's poorest countries, is beyond redemption. From this perspective, a nihilistic war between the world's most powerful man and the world's wealthiest man brings to mind former secretary of state Henry Kissinger's remark about the Iran-Iraq war: 'It's a pity they can't both lose.'
