The Teesside company saw a big rise in profitability

One of the North East’s largest companies has reported a rise in both profits and turnover in what it describes as a “year of exceptional trading”. Middlesbrough-based Cleveland Cable Company has released accounts for the year to the end of April 2025 in which its turnover rose from £456.5m a year earlier to £486.7m.

Over the same period, operating profit went from £31.2m to £41.2m and retained earnings at the end of year stood at £184.6m, an increase of more than £30m over the year.

In the accounts, the company says it does not provide a geographical breakdown of its sales as that would be “prejudicial to the affairs of the company”. Cleveland Bridge’s headcount increased slightly during the year to stand at 598, with the increase coming in its operating and sales staff.

Despite the successful year, the company did not pay any dividend to shareholders, having had an £83.6m dividend 12 months earlier.

The success of Cleveland Cable, the largest cable supplier in the UK and Ireland, over nearly 50 years has made brothers Alastair and Michael Powell some of the North East’s most successful businessmen. The duo have an estimated wealth of £701m, according to the annual Sunday Times rich list, and also own The Keys restaurant in Yarm.

In the accounts Alastair Powell said: “The directors are pleased to report on yet another year of exceptional trading. Both sales and profits have continued to be buoyed by the strong demand from all our markets and continued inflationary pressures on market prices.

“We are delighted with our progress made with our major projects team, new facilities and overseas businesses. The balance sheet and liquidity of the company continues to be healthy due to strong trading performance.

Cleveland Cable Company was started in 1978 by the Powell brothers. Its Middlesbrough head office in Riverside Park covers a 12-acre site and has more than 160,000sq ft of warehousing.

The company has depots at Newcastle, Northampton, Warrington, Bristol, Glasgow, London and Birmingham. It has overseas sites in Ireland, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Norway.

Among the projects the firm has worked on was an £8m scheme for the 2012 London Olympics and involved 940,000 metres of cable.

Elon Musk said Sunday that SpaceX is shifting its near-term priorities away from Mars and toward building what he described as a “self-growing city” on the moon, citing faster timelines and strategic urgency.

“For those unaware, SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the Moon, as we can potentially achieve that in less than 10 years, whereas Mars would take 20+ years,” Musk wrote in a post on X.

“The mission of SpaceX remains the same: extend consciousness and life as we know it to the stars,” he added.

Musk said the moon offers a more practical testing ground because of its proximity to Earth.

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“It is only possible to travel to Mars when the planets align every 26 months (six month trip time), whereas we can launch to the Moon every 10 days (2 day trip time). This means we can iterate much faster to complete a Moon city than a Mars city,” Musk wrote.

He said SpaceX still plans to pursue its long-held goal of settling Mars but on a longer timeline.

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“That said, SpaceX will also strive to build a Mars city and begin doing so in about 5 to 7 years, but the overriding priority is securing the future of civilization and the Moon is faster,” Musk wrote.

The comments echo a recent Wall Street Journal report that said SpaceX has told investors it would prioritize lunar missions before attempting a Mars landing, targeting March 2027 for an uncrewed moon mission.

The shift marks a notable change from Musk’s long-standing public emphasis on Mars as SpaceX’s primary destination. As recently as last year, Musk said the company aimed to launch an uncrewed Mars mission by the end of 2026.

“No, we’re going straight to Mars. The Moon is a distraction,” Musk wrote in January last year in response to a post on X.

Musk has a long record of setting ambitious timelines for major projects – including electric vehicles and self-driving technology – that have often slipped beyond their original schedules.

The renewed focus on the moon comes as the United States faces growing competition from China to return humans to the lunar surface this decade. Humans have not visited the moon since NASA’s Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

The remarks also arrive amid major financial and strategic shifts at SpaceX. Less than a week ago, Musk announced that SpaceX had acquired artificial intelligence company xAI – which he also leads – in a deal valuing SpaceX at $1 trillion and xAI at $250 billion.

Supporters of the move say it could bolster SpaceX’s longer-term plans for space-based data centers, which Musk has argued could be more energy-efficient than Earth-based facilities as demand for AI computing power grows.

SpaceX is also preparing for a potential public offering later this year that could raise as much as $50 billion, potentially making it the largest IPO in history.

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On Monday, Musk said in response to a user on X that NASA will account for less than 5% of SpaceX’s revenue this year, despite the company’s central role in NASA’s Artemis moon program, which includes a roughly $4 billion contract to land astronauts on the lunar surface using Starship.

“The vast majority of SpaceX revenue is the commercial Starlink system,” Musk wrote.

Reuters contributed to this report. 

Sebi on Monday proposed a sharp reduction in the minimum investment required from individual investors in social impact funds to Rs 1,000 from the existing Rs 2 lakh, in a move aimed at widening retail participation and easing fundraising for not-for-profit organisations (NPOs) on the Social Stock Exchange (SSE).

In its consultation paper, Sebi also proposed extending the registration period for NPOs on the SSE without fundraising and lowering the minimum subscription requirement for issuing Zero Coupon Zero Principal Instruments (ZCZP).

The regulator said the measures are intended to “further strengthen the SSE framework, facilitate ease of fund raising and encourage greater participation by NPOs”.

Under the current Alternative Investment Fund (AIF) Regulations, individual investors are required to invest a minimum of Rs 2 lakh in a social impact fund that invests exclusively in securities of NPOs listed or registered on the SSE.

Sebi has now proposed lowering this threshold to Rs 1,000 to align it with the existing minimum application size for Zero Coupon Zero Principal Instruments (ZCZP) under the ICDR norms, thereby enabling wider retail participation in social impact investments.

On the registration front, Sebi has suggested extending the period during which NPOs can remain registered on the SSE without raising funds from the existing two years to three years.
The proposal has taken into account practical challenges faced by NPOs, including delays in statutory and regulatory approvals, and would be subject to approval by the SSE.In addition, the regulator has proposed reducing the minimum subscription requirement for ZCZP issuances from 75 per cent to 50 per cent in select cases.

This relaxation would apply only to projects where costs and outcomes can be implemented on a clearly identifiable per-unit basis, ensuring that partial subscription does not adversely affect project execution, Sebi said.

In such cases, SSEs would be required to carry out due diligence to ensure that funds raised at the lower subscription threshold can still be meaningfully deployed towards the stated objectives.

Also, the regulator said that funds would be refunded to investors if the minimum subscription requirement is not met.

Marc Bircham
Executive Chairman of the Board

Good morning, and welcome to the 2025 Annual Meeting of Stockholders of Sports Entertainment Gaming Global Corporation. I am Marc Bircham, Chairman of the Board, I will serve as Chair of today’s meeting.

This meeting is being held virtually via live audio webcast. Before turning to the formal items of the business, I would like to welcome the other members of our Board of Directors to today’s meeting. Mr. Tam Hassan; Mr. Christopher Gooding; Mr. Paul Jordan; and Mr. Warren Macal.

I’d also like to acknowledge the other members of our management team who are present at today’s meeting, including Rob Stubblefield, our Chief Financial Officer, Interim CEO and President; who will act as secretary of the meeting; Dennis Ruggeri, our Compliance Officer; and Greg Potts, our Chief Operator; also joining us today is Amar Ali, the company’s outside General Counsel; and Boladale Lawal & Co, the managing partner of our company’s independent accounting firm.

Finally, I would like to welcome Vito Cirone, representative of Continental Stock Transfer and Trust Company, who is with us today and has taken an oath of the inspector of election. That oath will be filed within minutes of this meeting. This meeting is now called to order. We will conduct the formal part of the meeting and most of votes have been taken and the polls are closed. The votes will be report concluding the formal part of the meeting. Therefore, they will answer any appropriate questions during the meeting from stockholders that was submitted in advanced and posted in accordance with the meeting rules of conduct and

As artificial intelligence continues to redefine how information is created, summarized, and distributed, news organizations face one of the most significant structural challenges in modern media history.

Search engines increasingly rely on AI-generated responses, social platforms prioritize algorithmic summaries, and audiences often encounter journalism through fragments rather than full articles.

At the center of this transformation is Dev Pragad, President, Chief Executive Officer, and co-owner of Newsweek, who has emerged as one of the most outspoken media leaders addressing the long-term implications of AI on journalism. Rather than framing artificial intelligence as a short-term disruption, Pragad has described it as a permanent shift that requires publishers to rethink the foundations of their business models.z

AI and the Changing Economics of Information

For more than two decades, digital publishing operated on a relatively stable formula: create content, rank in search engines, generate page views, and monetize traffic through advertising. Artificial intelligence has begun to destabilize that system.

AI-powered interfaces now summarize news events, answer complex questions, and extract insights directly from publisher content—often without directing users back to the source. This development has intensified concerns across the media industry about declining referral traffic and diminishing visibility.

According to Pragad, this trend signals the end of an era in which traffic alone could serve as the primary indicator of success. Instead, publishers must now prepare for a future in which distribution is increasingly mediated by AI systems rather than traditional search results.

He has noted that while AI tools rely heavily on journalism as a source of information, the value exchange between platforms and publishers remains uncertain. This imbalance has prompted Newsweek to focus on resilience rather than dependency.

From Traffic Optimization to Structural Resilience

Under Dev Pragad’s leadership, Newsweek has gradually shifted its internal priorities away from pure traffic maximization toward what he describes as organizational resilience.

The goal is not to eliminate traffic as a metric, but to ensure that the business remains sustainable even as traffic becomes less predictable.

This philosophy represents a notable departure from earlier digital media strategies that prioritized viral reach and search dominance above all else.

AI as Both Threat and Catalyst

While artificial intelligence presents clear risks to publishers, Pragad has also characterized it as a catalyst for overdue change within the media industry.

In his public commentary, he has emphasized that journalism has long been overly dependent on intermediaries—search engines, social networks, and aggregators—that control distribution but not content creation. AI, in this view, merely accelerates a dynamic that already existed.

Rather than attempting to outcompete AI systems directly, Newsweek’s strategy has been to focus on what AI cannot easily replicate:

• original reporting
• expert interviews
• verified data-driven rankings
• long-form analysis
• video and visual storytelling

By investing in these areas, the organization aims to preserve relevance even as automated summaries become more prevalent.

Developing AI-Resistant Content Formats

One area of focus under Pragad has been the expansion of editorial formats that resist commoditization.

For example, structured research projects and rankings require proprietary datasets, methodological transparency, and editorial oversight—elements that are difficult for generative systems to reproduce independently. These formats also serve dual purposes: reinforcing editorial authority while supporting diversified revenue streams.

Similarly, Newsweek has increased its investment in video programming, which plays a growing role in how audiences engage with news across platforms. Video interviews, panel discussions, and explainers maintain context and nuance that text-based AI summaries often lack.

In an AI-mediated environment, such formats help anchor content to the originating brand rather than allowing it to dissolve into anonymous information.

Revenue Diversification in the AI Era

A central theme of Newsweek’s AI resilience strategy has been the diversification of revenue sources.

Historically, programmatic advertising accounted for a large share of digital publisher income. However, fluctuating traffic patterns and declining ad yields have exposed the vulnerabilities of that model.

Under Pragad’s leadership, Newsweek has pursued revenue streams that are less sensitive to algorithmic shifts. These initiatives are designed to ensure that financial stability does not depend exclusively on how AI systems choose to surface content.

By broadening its commercial foundation, Newsweek aims to maintain editorial independence even as external platforms evolve.

Brand Identity in an AI-Fragmented Landscape

Another dimension of AI resilience involves brand visibility. As news increasingly appears in partial or summarized form, recognition becomes more difficult.

Pragad has argued that strong brand identity functions as a signal of trust in environments where users may not encounter full articles or traditional layouts. This belief informed Newsweek’s recent redesign, which sought to unify typography, visuals, and editorial tone across formats.

The objective was not aesthetic modernization alone, but strategic clarity: ensuring that when Newsweek content appears within AI-generated environments, social feeds, or multimedia platforms, it remains identifiable.

In an era of fragmentary consumption, brand coherence becomes a form of editorial defense.

Editorial Trust in the Age of Synthetic Content

The proliferation of AI-generated text has intensified concerns around misinformation and authenticity. In response, Pragad has emphasized the importance of transparency, sourcing, and accountability.

As synthetic content becomes easier to produce at scale, established news organizations face renewed responsibility to differentiate verified journalism from automated narratives.

Newsweek’s editorial framework under Pragad stresses the role of human judgment, fact-checking, and institutional oversight—elements that AI systems depend on but cannot independently guarantee.

In this context, trust becomes not only an ethical imperative but a competitive advantage.

Leadership Perspective on AI Regulation and Collaboration

While public debate continues around AI regulation, Pragad has advocated for dialogue between technology companies and publishers rather than unilateral solutions.

He has suggested that sustainable information ecosystems will require clearer frameworks governing attribution, licensing, and value sharing between AI platforms and content creators.

Although no single regulatory model has yet emerged, Pragad has positioned Newsweek to remain adaptable regardless of outcome—another reflection of the organization’s resilience-first mindset.

What Dev Pragad’s Strategy Signals for the Industry

The approach taken by Dev Pragad offers broader insight into how media organizations might navigate AI disruption.

Rather than relying on short-term defensive measures, his strategy emphasizes:

• long-term adaptability
• diversified economic foundations
• brand-centered distribution
• editorial credibility as infrastructure

This model does not eliminate the challenges posed by artificial intelligence, but it reduces existential risk by ensuring that journalism’s value extends beyond raw traffic.

Conclusion

As artificial intelligence reshapes the flow of global information, the decisions made by media leaders today will influence the future of journalism for decades.

Through a focus on resilience, diversification, and editorial trust, Dev Pragad has positioned Newsweek to confront these changes with strategic clarity rather than reactionary fear.

In an age when information increasingly travels through automated systems, his approach highlights a central truth: while technology may transform distribution, the enduring value of journalism lies in credibility, context, and human judgment.