Latest news with #MacFarlane
Business Insider
17 hours ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Aspen Group Limited (AYV1) Gets a Buy from Bell Potter
In a report released today, Andy MacFarlane from Bell Potter maintained a Buy rating on Aspen Group Limited (AYV1 – Research Report), with a price target of A$3.05. The company's shares closed yesterday at €1.91. Confident Investing Starts Here: Easily unpack a company's performance with TipRanks' new KPI Data for smart investment decisions Receive undervalued, market resilient stocks right to your inbox with TipRanks' Smart Value Newsletter MacFarlane covers the Real Estate sector, focusing on stocks such as Aspen Group Limited, Dexus Convenience Retail REIT, and Dexus Industria REIT. According to TipRanks, MacFarlane has an average return of -1.5% and a 48.00% success rate on recommended stocks. Aspen Group Limited has an analyst consensus of Moderate Buy, with a price target consensus of €2.17, implying a 13.61% upside from current levels. In a report released on May 21, MA Financial Group also maintained a Buy rating on the stock with a A$3.83 price target.
Press and Journal
28-05-2025
- Press and Journal
Dangerous Drumnadrochit dog's owner loses appeal against conviction
A woman who claimed her German Shepherd was a 'good-natured' pet after it bit a delivery driver has lost a bid to overturn her conviction. Janet MacFarlane's canine, Diego, attacked the worker through a gap in the gate of her home in Drumnadrochit, on April 14 2023. Inverness Sheriff Court heard how the man needed stitches after the incident. She was charged with having a dog dangerously out of control following proceedings in September 2024. Sheriff Sara Matheson ordered Diego to be muzzled and kept on a lead and muzzled when in a public place – she also ordered MacFarlane to pay Diego's victim £600. The conviction prompted MacFarlane's legal team to go to the Sheriff Appeal Court in Edinburgh, where they argued that the judge failed to follow the correct legal tests in her decision to convict MacFarlane. The Sheriff Appeal Court heard that if Sheriff Matheson had followed the correct interpretation of the law, MacFarlane would have been acquitted. But in a written judgement issued by the court on Wednesday, Sheriff Principal Aisha Anwar KC, rejected defence arguments and upheld the conviction. Sheriff Principal Anwar, who sat with colleagues Appeal Sheriff Iain Fleming and Appeal Sheriff David Young KC, said their colleague had acted correctly. She added: 'We shall… refuse the appeal.' During proceedings, the delivery driver, who wasn't named in the judgement, told the court that when he arrived at the property the dog was initially called away by MacFarlane's husband. He said he did not notice the dog returning as he passed the parcel over to MacFarlane – but it was at this point that he was bitten through a gap in the gate. In evidence, the man recalled: 'I said to the lady: 'Your dog had just bitten me and she shrugged and walked away.'' The court heard that the entrance to MacFarlane's property featured three signs warning visitors about the four-legged residents, including one that said: 'Beware of the dog, it may bite, you have been warned.' She said six-year-old Diego was a 'beautiful, good-natured dog' who had 'never bitten anybody'. 'He is a more laying on his back with his belly getting tickled kind of dog,' she added. MacFarlane confirmed she had installed wire to block the gaps in the fence since the incident.
Business Insider
26-05-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Nuclear engineers want the industry to get 'unstuck' after years of bad PR. The AI boom could be the key.
Nuclear energy has historically suffered from a PR problem. With Big Tech eyeing the industry as a possible solution to the vast amounts of energy required by AI, nuclear engineers and experts told Business Insider that they welcome the new attention as a positive shift. However, there's debate about the viability of the new kid on the block, small modular reactors, or SMRs, which are receiving a large part of the hype and funding from venture capitalists. They lack an industry standard definition, but SMRs are generally categorized as smaller reactors that produce less power, 300 megawatts to a traditional reactor's 1,000. For some in the industry, the bigger picture is that, for the first time in a while, there's renewed interest in the US in building new reactors. "Nuclear engineers have strong opinions about things, and some people are salty about whether SMRs are truly viable, or whether or not we should just be building more light water reactors. I want us to build whatever," Christopher Perfetti, an associate professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Mexico, told BI. "I'm happy to build a light water reactor. I'm happy to build more SMRs." "I think that just building something will kind of get nuclear unstuck and hopefully get more momentum," added Perfetti, who previously worked as a research and development scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. So far, no SMRs have been built in the US, and only a small handful are operational or under construction worldwide. "The vendors are saying, these reactors are cheaper, these reactors are safer, but we don't know, because they've never been built [in the US]," Allison MacFarlane, former chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told BI. The kind of financial commitment needed to actualize a nuclear reactor — even a comparatively smaller one — is massive, MacFarlane said, with delays and changes often leading to ballooning budgets. The first nuclear reactors to begin operating since 2016, Unit 3 and Unit 4 at Plant Vogtle in Waynesboro, Georgia, began producing power in 2023 and 2024, respectively. They ended up costing $36.8 billion — more than twice the projected cost, according to a report released by six consumer groups in Georgia. "So full scale, and so each of those steps takes a lot of money," MacFarlane said. "It's going to be expensive to build a demonstration model, and then you've got to get your supply chains going. And for most of the SMRs, these supply chains don't exist." Ultimately, MacFarlane remains a staunch supporter of traditional plants, which she said are more feasible and more cost-efficient. "With large light water large reactors, they benefited from a continent of scale. So it's a lot cheaper to build one large reactor than 10 small ones," she said. "That's why we have only large reactors. And so what these folks are trying to do is model themselves on tech startups, but they're not. They're trying to sell a nuclear reactor." A 'new lease on life' for a flagging industry Whether or not SMRs are the future of nuclear energy doesn't matter, said Ricky Witt, who works in radiological safety at the Sequoyah Nuclear Plant in Soddy Daisy, Tennessee. What's important is that the new wave of money and attention flowing into the industry is very real. As of 2023, a total of 54 nuclear reactors were operating across the US, providing about 20% of the country's power from 1990 to 2021. Reactors were largely cheaper to build when they first began cropping up in the 1960s, but expenses have slowly increased due to a number of factors — plants have to be built on-site, there's no standard design in use across the industry, and regulations concerning security and staff add to operating costs. Facing competition from natural gas plants, which are generally cheaper to build upfront, nuclear power experienced a slowdown from its heyday in 1990, which saw 112 plants operating in the US. Coupled with a series of disasters that stained the industry's image — among them, the incidents at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island — plants were steadily retiring. "I think going forward, nuclear is going to expand in our country," Witt said. "SMRs will be part of that. Whether it actually happens or not, we don't know, but what I see is building some other nuclear power plants and maybe opening some plants that we've shut down already, like we're doing at Palisades." "They were going towards completely shutting them down, and so now they have directions and Microsoft giving some money," he added. "They've got a new lease on life." Renewed interest from the AI sector has given plants once slated for decommission a second chance. Last year, Microsoft invested in restarting Three Mile Island in New York — in return, it'll receive nuclear energy from the plant for 20 years — and the Department of Energy backing efforts to reopen the Palisades plant in Michigan. "This agreement is a major milestone in Microsoft's efforts to help decarbonize the grid in support of our commitment to become carbon negative," Microsoft's VP of energy said at the time. Amazon, for its part, has thrown its lot in with startup X-Energy, investing $500 million toward developing SMRs, while Meta began its hunt for nuclear partners in December of 2024. "We need smart solutions that can help us meet growing energy demands while also addressing climate change," said Amazon's vice president of global data centers, Kevin Miller. "X-energy's technology will be integral in helping achieve this, and is an important step in Amazon's work to achieve our Climate Pledge commitment to be net-zero by 2040." The Duane Arnold Energy Center in Iowa, a nuclear plant that closed in 2020 after more than 45 years of operation, could also come back online, with NextEra Energy expressing interest. PitchBook, a data insights firm that closely tracks VC investments, wrote in a May 21 report that energy investments were a "bright spot" in VC investments in the clean energy space in the first quarter, drawing $2.4 billion in funding. "Geothermal and nuclear technologies continue to gain investor confidence," the firm wrote, highlighting Pacific Fusion's $900 million Series A funding, X Energy's $682.4 million Series C1, and Helion's $425 million Series F round. And interest in different reactor designs is beginning to extend beyond private investors. The Tennessee Valley Authority, owner of the Sequoyah nuclear plant and the nation's largest public power company, recently submitted a request for a permit to build a small nuclear reactor of its own. "We don't want to say trying to make something better is ever bad," Witt said. "So the more that we try to improve, the more we try to come up with new technologies — I think that's just better for everybody. It's better for the consumers and it's better for the people." A good time to be in nuclear Reignited interest in the nuclear industry could also help to attract an infusion of new blood, Perfetti said, which the field desperately needs. In his view, it's the perfect time to climb aboard the nuclear bandwagon. "It's actually quite an exciting time in nuclear too, because there are a lot of venture capitalist-supported startups that are really trying to change things and trying to build some more innovative reactor designs, sometimes for things other than electricity production," Perfetti said. "So, I think that there's a lot of excitement there." For young professionals looking for a steady career with opportunity in varying sectors, Perfetti believes nuclear is particularly fertile ground. "There are lots of career opportunities in nuclear, in part because nuclear is faced with a wave of retirements right now, so a lot of the industry is retiring," he said. "They're looking at younger people to replace them, so there's lots of quick promotion opportunities."
Business Insider
22-05-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Bell Potter Reaffirms Their Hold Rating on Dexus Industria REIT (DXI)
Bell Potter analyst Andy MacFarlane maintained a Hold rating on Dexus Industria REIT (DXI – Research Report) today and set a price target of A$2.95. The company's shares closed yesterday at A$2.76. Confident Investing Starts Here: Easily unpack a company's performance with TipRanks' new KPI Data for smart investment decisions Receive undervalued, market resilient stocks straight to you inbox with TipRanks' Smart Value Newsletter According to TipRanks, MacFarlane is an analyst with an average return of -1.4% and a 49.33% success rate. The word on The Street in general, suggests a Hold analyst consensus rating for Dexus Industria REIT with a A$2.60 average price target. Based on Dexus Industria REIT's latest earnings release for the quarter ending December 31, the company reported a quarterly revenue of A$66.98 million and a net profit of A$31.85 million. In comparison, last year the company earned a revenue of A$44.27 million and had a net profit of A$317.27 million
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Ted' Animated Sequel Series Set at Peacock With Mark Wahlberg, Amanda Seyfried, Jessica Barth Returning
Peacock is doubling down on 'Ted,' with the streamer ordering an animated series based on Seth MacFarlane's foul-mouthed teddy bear film franchise. Exact plot details are being kept under wraps, but the animated series will take place after the events of the two 'Ted' live-action features. MacFarlane will once again voice Ted, with Mark Wahlberg, Amanda Seyfried, and Jessica Barth reprising their film roles as John, Sam, and Tami-Lynn respectively. In addition, Kyle Mooney will voice the new character Apollo, while Liz Richman will voice Ruth. More from Variety 'Parks and Recreation' Alums Amy Poehler, Mike Schur Reunite for Peacock Comedy Series 'Dig' How to Watch the 2025 Kentucky Derby Online Without Cable New Seth MacFarlane Album Boasts Never-Before-Heard Frank Sinatra Arrangements (EXCLUSIVE) This is now the second 'Ted' TV show at Peacock, as the streamer also currently airs a live-action prequel series. That show launched in Jaunary 2024 and broke records as Peacock's most-watched original title to date. A second season is currently in the works. MacFarlane also voices Ted in that show, while Richman played John's high school classmate Polly in multiple episodes. The role keeps Seyfried in business with Peacock, as the Emmy-winning actress recently starred in the limited series 'Long Bright River' at the streaming service. MacFarlane serves as writer and executive producer on the new animated series in addition to starring, with Paul Corrigan and Brad Walsh serving as writers, executive producers, and showrunners. Corrigan and Walsh are also showrunners on the prequel series. Erica Huggins, Alana Kleiman, Jason Clark, and Aimee Carlson of MacFarlane's Fuzzy Door Entertainment also executive produce along with Claudia Katz of Rough Draft. UCP produces along with Fuzzy Door and MRC. The first 'Ted' movie proved to be a major box office hit, grossing nearly $550 million on a budget of $65 million in 2012. The 2015 sequel grossed over $215 million. Both films were produced by Universal Pictures and MRC Films. MacFarlane is repped by WME, Jackoway Austen, and manager Joy Fehily. Wahlberg is repped by Leverage, WME and Sloane Offer. Seyfried is repped by Innovative Artists and Frankfurt, Kurnit, Klein and Selz. Barth is repped by Jackoway Austen. Mooney is repped by Rise Management and UTA. Richman is repped by Citizen Skull Management and The Chasin Agency. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Emmy Predictions: Talk/Scripted Variety Series - The Variety Categories Are Still a Mess; Netflix, Dropout, and 'Hot Ones' Stir Up Buzz Oscars Predictions 2026: 'Sinners' Becomes Early Contender Ahead of Cannes Film Festival
