UKSE has take an equity stake in Cardiff Canning t osupports its expansion

A Cardiff firm is poised to double output after securing an equity investment from UKSE.

Cardiff Canning has installed a second production line allowing it to make 35 million cans a year for the UK ready to drink (RTD) market, helping drinks brands develop and grow their products.

UKSE, a subsidiary of Tata Steel, is working closely with company to fulfil the business plan which forecasts turnover rising by 50% in 2026. In three years , the prediction is that the workforce will increase by seven to 30 with an emphasis on training and upskilling in a more automated workspace.

To accommodate the £400,000 new canning line, the firm has moved into the adjacent unit at Freemans Park doubling its footprint, gaining valuable storage space and improving efficiency.

Cardiff Canning helps drinks brands, large and small, develop and manufacture through canning, blending, product development and storage.

The family business is optimistic about the future. Its managing director, Paul Miller, said“We are very pleased to be working with UKSE in what we are sure will be a long and fruitful relationship.

“Choosing the right manufacturer is the most important decision a drinks company can make. We have all the facilities and knowledge to help them bring their ideas to market, and we pride ourselves on our hands on approach putting customer relations first,” he said.

UKSE area manager in Wales Michelle Noble said; “The firm has a clear focus and strong ethos with quality and customer relationships at its heart.

“More space and increased automation will enable the firm to move to the next level and draw in new customers. The potential for growth is considerable and our new partnership comes at a crucial stage and I am confident UKSE, with our experience in equity investment, can play a vital role.”

UKSE can make invest equity investments in firms of up to £1m. Ms Noble said “Many businesses in Wales would benefit from a capital injection in the form of equity from a flexible and patient partner, who is there to support rather than control the business. We back management teams to deliver their own business plans and are very happy to discuss how we can support them at any time.

UKSE has been operating in Wales for 50 years.

The IRS launched a new mobile app that will let taxpayers check refund statuses and make payments directly from their phones, expanding the agency’s digital services as it works to combat fraud and protect taxpayer information.

IRS CEO Frank Bisignano joined FOX Business’ Stuart Varney on “Varney & Co.” to discuss the app’s security, growing demand for online services and the agency’s efforts to combat identity theft.

The IRS is rolling out a new mobile app designed to let taxpayers securely check their refund status and make payments directly from their smartphones. (Getty Images)

“100%, 100% secure,” Bisignano said of the new app, which will allow taxpayers to complete tasks on their phones rather than redirecting them from an older app to the IRS website.

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The rollout comes as more taxpayers turn to the agency’s online tools. Bisignano said the IRS handled 600 million online inquiries last year, roughly double the previous year’s volume. The new app is intended to make the process more convenient, combining refund tracking and payments into one mobile experience.

As taxpayers increasingly manage sensitive financial information on their devices, security will be central to the agency’s digital push. Bisignano said the IRS will rely on ongoing cybersecurity monitoring to guard its systems.

“It’s important for us to always patrol the perimeter and surveil the interior, and we’ll use agents to do that to ensure we’re in good shape,” he said.

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The agency is also working through a backlog of identity theft cases. Bisignano pointed to an inspector general’s report covering 2023 to 2025 and said the relevant inventory peaked at about half a million items in 2024. He said that figure has since been cut by more than half and processing times have improved.

While the IRS is using artificial intelligence elsewhere in its operations, Bisignano said it is not being used to reduce that particular backlog. He described the agency’s broader mission as improving service while preventing fraud.

“We’re just gonna make it better every day,” he said, adding that the IRS is “completely focused on eliminating fraud.”

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Misarenko started his career in the financial sector with institutions such as Raiffeisen Bank, before moving into entrepreneurship and consulting in 2017. Alongside his brother, he co-founded two Poland based consulting firms, advising clients across Europe on e-commerce strategy, brand development, and operational scaling.

His work brings together financial discipline with hands-on execution. Clients came to him and his partners for help building structures that could survive beyond a single product launch or a single market cycle, covering fulfilment logistics, HR outsourcing, and marketing research.

Having lived and worked across several jurisdictions, Misarenko has a practical grasp of how businesses behave differently once they cross a border. Banking gave him an early view of risk and process. Consulting gave him the freedom to apply that view to fast-moving companies that didn’t always have the patience for it.

He is now a long-time resident of Monaco and is shifting his focus away from running his own companies day to day. Instead, he is looking to collaborate with established firms on larger, more complex consulting projects, where his background in finance and hands-on experience in e-commerce can support bigger decisions.

His approach stays consistent regardless of the project’s size: build something that works without needing constant intervention. That means clear structures, realistic timelines, and decisions grounded in data rather than assumption. It’s a mindset shaped as much by his years in banking as by the entrepreneurial side of his career, and it’s one he continues to apply as he takes on new, larger-scale work.

Interview with Dmitriy Misarenko

You started in banking before moving into consulting. What made that shift happen?

Banking teaches you to think in terms of risk and process. Everything has a procedure, everything gets checked twice. When I moved into e-commerce consulting with my brother, I noticed most young companies didn’t have that discipline yet. They were moving fast, which is good, but a lot of them didn’t have the structure underneath to support the speed. That gap is where I found the most useful work to do.

What kind of problems were you solving for clients in those early years?

A lot of it came down to operations that weren’t built to scale. A brand would get traction, then the fulfilment side couldn’t keep up, or the HR side was too thin to handle growth. We worked on brand development, logistics, HR outsourcing, and marketing research, but the common thread was always the same: put a structure in place before growth outpaces it, not after.

Did banking and e-commerce ever pull you in different directions?

Less than people assume. Banking gave me a way of thinking about numbers and risk. E-commerce gave me speed and direct contact with how a business actually runs day to day. Put together, they complement each other. A finance background stops you from making decisions that look good short term but create problems later.

You’ve worked across several jurisdictions. What’s the biggest misconception people have about running a business across borders?

That the rules are roughly the same everywhere, just with local variations. In practice, banking relationships, reporting requirements, and even basic logistics can work completely differently from one country to the next. You learn quickly that a setup that works in one place might create friction in another. It’s less about finding one perfect model and more about staying flexible enough to adjust it.

How has living in Monaco shaped the way you approach your work?

Monaco puts you close to a lot of international business activity, but it also gives you a clear view of how much local presence matters, even in a globalised industry. You see firms that combine a strong local footprint with reach across other markets, and that’s the kind of setup I find most effective. It’s part of why I’m looking to bring my experience into a more established firm rather than keep running smaller ventures on my own.

What are you looking for in the next stage of your career?

Bigger, more complex projects. Running two consulting companies with my brother taught me a lot about the practical side of business, from operations to client relationships. But I’ve reached a point where I want to apply that experience within a larger structure, one with more resources and a wider network, where the projects have more moving parts and higher stakes.

Looking back at those years building the Poland based companies, what would you say mattered most?

Consistency. It’s easy to have a strong quarter or land a good client. What’s harder is keeping the same standard over years, across different markets and different teams. That’s the piece I’d tell any consultant starting out to focus on first: not the big win, but whether what you build still works a year later, without you having to fix it every week.

What’s the one thing your banking background still shapes today?

Patience with numbers. Even in fast-moving consulting work, I still go back to the data before making a call. It’s a habit from banking that never left, and honestly, it’s saved me from a few decisions I would have regretted otherwise.

SINGAPORE — Leylah Fernandez pulled off a major upset Friday night, defeating Russian top seed Mirra Andreeva 6-2, 7-5 to reach the semifinals of the Singapore Open, crediting the crowd’s support for helping carry her through the match’s tougher stretches.

The Canadian world No. 31, who has Filipino roots through her mother’s side of the family, advanced to her first tour-level semifinal of the season with the win. She will next face French Open runner-up Maja Chwalinska on Saturday. Fernandez entered the WTA 500 event as a wild card and now holds a 3-2 head-to-head advantage over Andreeva, having also eliminated the Russian in the third round of last month’s Canadian Open in Toronto.

Despite the early exit of Filipino star Alex Eala earlier in the tournament, Center Court remained packed for Fernandez’s match, with fans continuing to rally behind her throughout the evening. Fernandez, whose maternal grandfather is from Ilocos Norte and whose maternal grandmother hails from Leyte, said the crowd’s energy played a direct role in helping her get through difficult moments during the match. “Of course, that helped me tremendously during those tough moments, those moments where I was making mistakes,” Fernandez said. “I just kept hearing everyone cheering me on and screaming my name, and it just gives me that enjoyment, that motivation to keep going, and of course my motivation, my goal is to always put on a good show for all the fans here.”

The match itself was not without late drama. The 24-year-old Fernandez had built a 5-3 lead in the second set before Andreeva mounted a late fightback, narrowing the gap before Fernandez ultimately closed out the 7-5 set to seal the win. Andreeva, the reigning French Open champion and world No. 5, showed her frustration during the match, throwing her racket at one point as Fernandez continued to press her advantage.

Andreeva’s elimination came just a day after third-seeded Eala was upset in the round of 16 by unseeded Russian player Tatiana Prozorova on Thursday night. Prozorova, ranked 180th, advanced to the semifinals after ousting China’s Wang Xinyu in three sets, continuing a tournament that has already produced multiple significant upsets among the higher-seeded players in the draw.

With Andreeva’s exit, Maja Chwalinska, Fernandez’s semifinal opponent, is now the highest-ranked player remaining in the tournament. Chwalinska reached the semifinals by sweeping fourth-seeded and defending champion Elise Mertens 6-2, 6-2 earlier in the day, a dominant performance that positions her as a significant test for Fernandez heading into Saturday’s match.

The tournament’s other semifinal spot remains undecided, with seventh-seeded Greek player and former world No. 3 Maria Sakkari set to face Australian Talia Gibson for the final berth in the draw.

Fernandez’s run in Singapore continues a season in which the 2021 US Open finalist has looked to rebuild momentum on tour, with Friday’s win over a top-five player marking one of her most significant results of the year. Her connection to the Philippines, through her maternal grandparents, has continued to generate strong local support during her appearances in the region, a dynamic reflected clearly in the crowd reaction that greeted her performance against Andreeva on Friday night.

Fernandez’s semifinal matchup against Chwalinska on Saturday will pit two players in strong current form against one another, with Chwalinska carrying momentum from her decisive win over the tournament’s defending champion into the match. For Fernandez, advancing past a Saturday semifinal would put her into her first tour-level final of the season, continuing what has already become one of her more notable tournament runs in recent months.

The Singapore Open has produced a series of unexpected results throughout the week, with the elimination of both Eala in the third round and Andreeva in the quarterfinals reshaping what had initially appeared to be a more predictable path toward the tournament’s final rounds. With Chwalinska now standing as the highest remaining seed in the draw, and Fernandez continuing to draw strong crowd support behind her, the tournament’s final weekend is shaping up to feature a field considerably different from what may have been anticipated when the draw was first announced.

With her semifinal against Chwalinska set for Saturday, Fernandez will look to build on Friday’s victory and the sustained crowd support that helped carry her through a tightly contested second set against one of the tour’s top-ranked players.

The S&P 500 gained 37.96 points, or 0.49%, to end at 7,742.09 points, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 125.51 points, or 0.47%, to 27,064.88. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 469.07 points, or 0.91%, to 51,819.05.

Gains in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq capped a volatile week driven by uncertainty about what industries will win and lose from artificial intelligence, and by concerns about the US war with Iran and a surge in US Treasury yields.

Microsoft rallied after the software giant unveiled several new capabilities in its Copilot app, including a coding tool and an always-on AI agent.

Akamai Technologies surged after an $11.6 billion cloud services deal with AI leader Anthropic. The deal includes a warrant that could give Anthropic up to 5% of Akamai.

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“That’s a positive from the standpoint that people are still investing, deals are still being done,” said Thomas Martin, senior portfolio manager at Globalt Investments in Atlanta. “It’s another circular deal, so OK … but Akamai stock is up.”
Chip maker Qualcomm gained and Dell also advanced.Meta Platforms dipped. The social media company’s stock has soared about 13% this week amid a strong reception to its Muse AI agent, which analysts say could benefit tech infrastructure stocks, while challenging banks, online shopping platforms and other consumer businesses.

The S&P 500 this week has traded just under 19 times expected earnings, its lowest valuation since 2023, according to LSEG data. AI-related heavyweights are responsible for much of the recent increase in earnings expectations.

A report that US and Iranian negotiators continued to explore a phased path out of the war, which would involve Tehran reopening the Strait of Hormuz and Washington lifting its economic blockade, helped market sentiment.

Data also showed strong AI-related capital expenditures boosted demand for key manufactured capital goods, outpacing expectations in August.

Brent crude eased but remained above $100 a barrel. The yield on the benchmark US 10-year Treasury note hit a fresh 19-year high and was last up 3.4 basis points at 5.196%.

Traders see a 66% chance of the Federal Reserve increasing interest rates by at least 25 basis points in October, up from around 50% earlier this week, the CME Group’s FedWatch Tool showed.

US President Donald Trump said he had a “very productive meeting” with President Xi Jinping, following a three-day summit that showcased personal diplomacy rather than big breakthroughs in economic relations.

Magazine publisher People Inc jumped after a report said MGM Resorts International was discussing a bid for the company.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Akamai Technologies shares jumped Friday after the company said Anthropic committed $11.6 billion over seven years for cloud computing, with an option to add as much as $9 billion more.

The stock traded around $126.54 in early New York dealing on Sept. 25, up $16.13, or 14.6 percent, from Thursday’s close of $110.41. After-hours and premarket prints had been even higher, with Barron’s citing a rise of more than 21 percent to $133.84 before the open.

Akamai said the contract will “support Anthropic’s accelerating CPU workload demands by leveraging Akamai Cloud’s distributed AI infrastructure and software.” It adds to more than $2.8 billion in multi-year cloud infrastructure commitments the company has already disclosed this year.

Chief Executive Tom Leighton said: “Anthropic is advancing the AI revolution and we are thrilled they chose Akamai’s capabilities for building and operating AI infrastructure at scale.”

Anthropic did not immediately comment to Barron’s.

As part of the pact, Akamai issued a warrant covering about 7.7 million shares on an as-converted basis, or up to about 5 percent of common stock outstanding. The exercise price is $111.33 a share. About 2 percent of the equity is tied to the initial $11.6 billion commitment; another 3 percent could vest if the companies expand the deal by up to $9 billion, according to summaries of the announcement. That would take the potential commitment near $20 billion.

Building the capacity is expensive. Barron’s reported Akamai expects $5.5 billion in new capital spending, including memory purchases, with $1.6 billion of that in 2026. Benzinga cited about $1.7 billion of extra 2026 capital expenditure to lock in supply-chain parts and said the company sees no change to 2026 revenue guidance. An investor-update recap said revenue from the Anthropic work is expected to ramp toward $1.7 billion a year by 2028.

Akamai is best known as a content-delivery network that later pushed into cybersecurity and cloud infrastructure. Delivery revenue has been under pressure. Security is the largest profit engine. Cloud Infrastructure Services is smaller but growing fast. In the second quarter ended June 30, total revenue was $1.1 billion, up 5 percent. Security was $604 million, up 10 percent. Cloud Infrastructure Services was $99 million, up 39 percent. Delivery and other cloud applications fell 6 percent to $396 million.

GAAP diluted earnings were $0.52, down 27 percent. Non-GAAP diluted earnings were $1.59. Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities were $4.616 billion. The company had guided full-year 2026 revenue to $4.445 billion–$4.530 billion before this announcement and said the new deal does not alter that 2026 top-line range — meaning most of the $11.6 billion sits in later years.

Anthropic, maker of the Claude models, is privately held and filed confidential IPO paperwork in June, Barron’s noted. AI labs have been signing multiyear compute contracts with Nvidia-heavy clouds such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and CoreWeave. A large CPU-focused deal with Akamai is a different flavor of capacity: inference and supporting workloads spread across Akamai’s edge footprint rather than a single training campus.

Investors repriced Akamai as more than a CDN with a security wrap. The share count implied by the warrant is dilution if Anthropic exercises. The capex is cash out the door before the revenue curve steepens. Those are the offsets. The bid on Friday treated the contract size as the headline.

Akamai’s next scheduled earnings date in market calendars was around Nov. 5. Until then, the tape is trading a seven-year number, a warrant at $111.33, and a stock that closed Thursday at $110.41 after a 6.8 percent drop and opened Friday in the mid-$120s.

The company still has to buy memory, stand up servers and keep Anthropic’s usage on the committed path. Anthropic still has to need that CPU layer for seven years. Friday’s move is the market assigning a higher probability that both happen.

A women’s apparel company that caters to price-conscious consumers announced the closure of 120 retail stores by the end of the fiscal year.

The Cato Corporation, parent company of Cato Fashions, operates more than 1,000 women’s apparel and accessories stores across 31 states. 

The slated closures account for more than 10% of its stores, Fast Company reported.

Cato, which was founded in 1946, focuses on budget-wary consumers, much like TJ Maxx or Ross Dress for Less.

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Cato Fashions, an American retailer of women’s fashions and accessories, will close 120 locations by the end of the fiscal year, the company has announced.  (Getty Images / Getty Images)

The Cato Corporation also operates two other retailers — Versona, an upscale apparel, jewelry, and accessories brand with 90 locations in the U.S., and its It’s Fashion and It’s Fashion Metro brands, which have 119 locations in the U.S.

Last week, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based corporation announced it would close 120 stores, an increase from the initial 50 the company originally announced.

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Bright-colored tops hanging on a rack. (iStock / iStock)

“Annually, we review approximately one-third of our stores to exercise available lease options or negotiate an extension based on each store’s performance, including store sales trends and current and projected store profitability,” John Cato, the company chairman, president and CEO, said in a statement.

“In light of the current economic environment, especially with the negative pressure on our customers’ discretionary income, we do not expect these marginal stores to improve appreciably,” he added. “As a result, we are closing more stores than expected this year. We believe that closing these additional stores will have a positive impact on our operating results in fiscal 2027 and beyond.”

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In August, the company reported a net income of just $1.1 million for the second quarter, down from $6.8 million the company brought in during the same period a year earlier, the news report states.