Knut Nesse
Chief Executive Officer

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, and very much welcome to the AKVA Second Quarter Presentation. The program for this morning is that I will do the introduction and the highlights. Ronny Meinkoehn, the CFO, will do financial performance, and please post any questions during the presentation. It goes straight to the highlights of the second quarter. We had a high quarterly revenue of NOK 1.189 billion and record high quarterly EBIT of NOK 111 million. We had a strong order intake of NOK 1.345 billion and order backlog of approx. NOK 3 billion at the end of the second quarter.

A small contract of approx. EUR 28 million was awarded from Laxey in April, subject to financing, which was secured in June. A dividend of NOK 1 per share will be distributed during the second half of 2026. Strategic review was announced start of April to maximize shareholder value. We’ll give a comment on that later. Then to the figures of the second quarter. It is — in the first place, it’s in line with the trading update we published on July 20. It’s a record high activity level of NOK 1.189 billion, EBITDA of NOK 179 million, where the segments came in Sea Based at NOK 143 million, Land Based at NOK 21 million and Digital at NOK 15 million. Actually, we are pleased with the activity and the performance in all the segments.

EBIT for the group at NOK 111 million which is representing a record quarter. Then looking into the figures for the first half. Revenue there at NOK 2.329 billion, which is ballpark 7% higher than

Friends close to music producer David Foster have pushed back against claims that he deliberately snubbed Meghan Markle during a red carpet appearance in Canada earlier this month, adding fresh detail to a controversy that has continued generating attention days after Foster himself publicly denied any intentional slight.

The moment in question occurred August 7 at the David Foster Foundation’s 40th anniversary gala in Victoria, British Columbia, an event that organizers said raised $14.5 million in support of the foundation’s work funding life-saving organ transplants for Canadian children. Video from the red carpet showed Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, extending her hand toward Foster as he arrived alongside Prince Harry, only for Foster to continue past her and pose for photos instead alongside his wife, singer and actress Katharine McPhee. The clip spread quickly online, with one widely shared post on X describing the moment as Meghan being “publicly snubbed by host David Foster.”

According to an insider who spoke with RadarOnline, the moment was a simple oversight rather than any deliberate gesture. The source said Foster “wasn’t” consciously walking past Meghan or ignoring her outstretched hand, and argued that the viral clip failed to capture the full context of the evening. “What the short clip doesn’t show is everything that happened beforehand,” the insider said, explaining that Foster had already greeted Harry and Meghan warmly earlier in the night, well before the red carpet photos were taken. By the time the group reached the carpet, the source said, nobody involved felt there was any unresolved greeting still owed.

The insider also attributed Foster’s apparent oversight to the demands of hosting a major fundraising event, saying the 76-year-old had a great deal to manage that evening and likely simply missed Meghan’s gesture rather than intentionally rebuffing it. The source described Foster as genuinely “thrilled” to have the Sussexes attend the occasion.

A separate insider, cited by IBTimes UK, offered a similar account, saying Foster had been “so excited to see Harry and Meghan” and pointing to the fact that he was actively conducting interviews at the moment the photo was taken. That source said Foster and the Sussexes had already exchanged greetings, including hugs, before the red carpet moment, and that Foster had also used the opportunity to introduce Harry and Meghan to other family members in attendance. A source separately speaking with Page Six offered a consistent account, confirming that Meghan and Harry had already greeted Foster before the viral clip was filmed.

Foster addressed the controversy directly himself in an on-the-record statement to PEOPLE, pushing back firmly against the snub narrative. “As the host of the David Foster and Friends foundation event, I had already greeted our friends, the Duke and Duchess, at the entrance 10 minutes before the red carpet encounter,” Foster said, adding that both Harry and Meghan had generously given their time to engage with attendees throughout the evening. He was direct in criticizing the coverage that followed, saying, “It’s sad that certain media chose to deceive a red carpet encounter for clickbait. They turned simple ‘positioning’ to get the best photo into a hurtful lie.” Foster went on to affirm his relationship with the couple, saying, “Harry and Meghan are dear friends of mine. Anyone watching can see there was no awkward moment and certainly no snub.”

The friendship between Foster and the Sussexes predates the current controversy by several years. McPhee has previously described her husband’s bond with Harry in warm terms, telling Access Hollywood in 2020 that the two share “a really, really beautiful relationship,” comparing them to father and son. McPhee’s own connection to Meghan traces back to their overlapping years at Immaculate Heart, a Los Angeles school, though she has said the two were never especially close as students, with their friendship instead developing later through their husbands’ relationship.

That closeness has extended into practical support in the past. Foster has said he helped Harry and Meghan find a place to stay in Canada around the 2019 holiday season, shortly after the couple, along with their infant son Prince Archie, sought time away from the UK. He described the gesture as rooted in his own Canadian background and connection to the Commonwealth.

Despite the friends’ accounts and Foster’s own public denial, the episode has continued to draw commentary in entertainment and royal-focused media, reflecting the intense scrutiny that continues to follow even brief, ambiguous public interactions involving Harry and Meghan. The claims from anonymous insiders defending Foster, while consistent with one another and with Foster’s own on-record statement, remain attributed to unnamed sources rather than independently verified accounts from other attendees at the gala.

Neither Buckingham Palace nor representatives for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have issued separate public comment on the incident beyond what has already been reported through Foster’s own statement and the accounts provided by sources close to him. For now, the controversy appears to have been addressed primarily through Foster’s direct denial and the surrounding insider accounts corroborating his version of events, even as the viral video itself continues circulating among those unconvinced by the explanation.

I’m at the research and development centre of the world’s biggest publicly listed ice-cream maker, Magnum. Near Bedford in the UK, it’s where the company’s researchers dream up new recipes and develop their production processes.

What really catches my eye is a pale yellow glow in the corner of the room. The light emanates from a glow-in-the-dark ice lolly.

Launched in the clubbing capital of Ibiza, it’s targeted toward clubbers and festival-goers, and one of its ingredients, vitamin B2, is naturally luminescent and glows under UV club lights.

While a luminescent product may seem a bit of a gimmick, ice cream is a serious business and innovation is crucial to staying ahead of the game.

There’s tough competition from other giants including Häagen-Dazs owner, Froneri, and Baskin-Robbins, the world’s largest chain of ice cream specialty shops, not to mention smaller artisan ice cream makers that are popping up all the time.

They’re all dealing with a notoriously unpredictable market and with fluctuating commodity and energy prices. No one can afford to stand still.

“We’ve had five years of price volatility impacted by war in Ukraine, Covid, the cost of living crisis. We’ve now got the Strait of Hormuz. We’ve just been in this constant state of instability when it comes to pricing,” says Georgia Rose, principal analyst at global market research company, Kantar Retail IQ.

And those price fluctuations affect multiple areas of the ice-cream making process.

“Manufacturers have been hit by higher prices for dairy, cream, eggs; the ingredients that make ice-cream bases. And then you’ve got the flavours; vanilla, chocolate, sugar, fruit. And something that often gets forgotten is the cold-chain energy costs and storage,” she says.

Google Gemini users began reporting problems accessing the company’s AI assistant Friday afternoon, according to outage-tracking service Downdetector, in what appeared to be a developing disruption affecting the widely used chatbot and its integrations across Google’s broader product ecosystem.

Downdetector said user reports indicating problems with Google Gemini began climbing at 12:15 p.m. Eastern time. The tracking service posted about the rising number of reports on its official account on the social platform X, asking affected users to describe how the outage was impacting them and tagging the post with the hashtag “GoogleGeminiDown.”

As of Friday afternoon, Google had not issued a detailed public statement addressing the scope, cause or expected resolution timeline for the reported disruption. Separate outage-monitoring service Entireweb Status showed Gemini as operating normally as of the previous day, logging 88 user reports over the preceding 24-hour period, with 5 of those in the final hour of that window, suggesting the service had already been experiencing a low, ongoing baseline of complaints even before Friday’s reported spike. StatusGator, another third-party tracker, separately monitors Gemini’s status through Google’s own official status dashboards, checking for updates roughly every few minutes based on issue reports, page visits and other signal strength data.

Friday’s reported issue also arrived on a day when users separately reported problems with Gmail, according to posts on the online forum DesignTAXI Community, where a user described a surge in Gmail-related Downdetector reports beginning around 9:12 a.m. Eastern time, several hours before the Gemini reports began climbing. It remained unclear whether the two sets of reports were connected through any shared underlying cause within Google’s infrastructure, or whether they represented separate, unrelated issues affecting different products on the same day.

Google Gemini functions as the company’s primary conversational AI assistant, available as a standalone web and mobile app and integrated across Google Workspace products, including Gmail, Docs, Sheets and Slides through a feature often referred to as the Gemini side panel. A disruption affecting Gemini’s core systems can therefore ripple across multiple products simultaneously, depending on which specific backend services are affected, rather than being limited only to the standalone chatbot experience.

Friday’s disruption would not be the first time Gemini has experienced significant outages. In June, a widely reported outage left many users unable to access Gemini starting around 6 a.m. Eastern time, with Downdetector reports climbing steadily to nearly 1,000 before the issue was resolved. During that incident, Google’s Workspace Status Dashboard formally acknowledged the disruption, saying its engineering team had identified a mitigation and was working to implement it, though the company did not provide a specific estimated time of resolution at the time, saying only that it would provide a further update later that afternoon.

An earlier outage in September 2025 affected primarily Gemini’s more advanced Pro tier, while the lighter Flash version of the model continued functioning normally for many users throughout the disruption. That incident saw Downdetector reports spike to nearly 3,000 before gradually declining over the following hour as Google’s engineering team addressed the underlying issue, with most users regaining normal access within roughly 90 minutes of the initial spike in complaints.

Google has periodically disclosed additional technical detail about the underlying causes of past Gemini disruptions through its official status pages. In one previously documented incident affecting Gemini within Google Workspace, the company said an internal background process had caused certain users’ chat histories to become temporarily invisible within both the web and mobile versions of the app, a problem the company said its engineering team identified and halted, though full mitigation still required additional time to complete.

Given Gemini’s rapid growth, having recently surpassed 1 billion monthly active users according to Google’s own recent disclosures, even brief disruptions to the service now have the potential to affect a substantially larger user base than in the platform’s earlier years, a dynamic that has made outage reports for the assistant increasingly visible and closely tracked whenever they occur.

For users experiencing issues Friday, standard troubleshooting guidance compiled by outage-tracking services generally recommends first checking Google’s official Workspace Status Dashboard to determine whether the company has already acknowledged a known, ongoing incident, since an active, company-confirmed disruption typically cannot be resolved through user-side troubleshooting steps. If no incident is shown on Google’s own status page, users are generally advised to consider the issue more likely to be local, potentially tied to their own internet connection, browser or device, rather than a broader service-wide problem.

This remains a developing situation, and additional details regarding the precise scope, underlying cause and expected resolution timeline of Friday’s reported Gemini outage were not immediately available. Google had not issued an official public acknowledgment of the disruption as of Friday afternoon, leaving affected users largely reliant on Downdetector and the company’s own status dashboard for updates on whether the issue was continuing to affect the broader user base.

TUCSON, Ariz. — A man briefly detained as a person of interest in the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie is demanding that Pima County investigators unseal the evidence that led deputies to search his family’s home, as a legal dispute over the handling of the case continues to unfold alongside the still-unsolved investigation.

Carlos Palazuelos, 36, a delivery driver, was detained February 10 by Pima County Sheriff’s deputies while authorities searched for leads in the disappearance of Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of “Today” co-anchor Savannah Guthrie. He was held for roughly seven to eight hours before being released the same day without charge.

Six months later, the circumstances that led investigators to Palazuelos remain unclear, according to his attorney, Jesse Showalter of the law firm Robbins Curtin Millea & Showalter. Showalter told Newsweek he wants the sealed search warrant affidavit made public. “I want to see the search warrant affidavit that was used in order to obtain the search warrant that led to the arrest and the search of his family home,” Showalter said, adding that he wants to understand what evidence investigators presented to a judge to justify the search.

The search warrant used to raid the Palazuelos family home remains under seal, according to Showalter. “Whatever evidence supposedly existed, for the arrest and for the search is secret,” he said, adding that whether the material is ever made public may depend on how ongoing litigation unfolds, since law enforcement agencies frequently seek protective orders to keep sensitive material sealed.

Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos has defended the decision to seek the warrant, saying investigators had sufficient information to bring the case before a judge. Nanos said in a recent interview that deputies had information suggesting there was a “potential that Nancy’s there, or there’s a potential the bad guy’s there,” which he said was enough for a judge to authorize the search. Nanos has declined to detail that information further or say whether anything was recovered from the home, and the sheriff’s department has said it will not comment on pending litigation.

In late July, Palazuelos and several family members filed a notice of claim seeking a combined $3.25 million from Pima County, a required legal precursor to filing a civil lawsuit under Arizona law. According to the claim, Palazuelos is seeking $2.5 million in damages, with an additional $500,000 sought by his brother-in-law, Daniel Maddox, and roughly $250,000 sought by his mother-in-law and homeowner, Josefina Maddox. The county has 60 days from July 27 to respond to the notice before a lawsuit can formally be filed.

The claim alleges the search warrant was obtained through a sealed application built on “false or baseless evidence,” and that deputies at all times lacked probable cause to believe Palazuelos had committed any crime. According to the notice, deputies followed Palazuelos before stopping him, and when he pulled over to ask why he was being followed, officers pointed guns at him and placed him under arrest. He was held in the back of a patrol vehicle while deputies executed the search warrant at the Rio Rico home. Daniel Maddox, according to the claim, was handcuffed and held under armed guard outside the home during the same operation, while Josefina Maddox is separately seeking damages for property destruction the claim says deputies caused while executing the warrant.

The notice also points to public statements made by Nanos at the time of the detention, alleging that a post on social media describing a “subject” being questioned in connection with the Guthrie investigation left the public impression that Palazuelos was a suspect, an impression the claim says the sheriff’s office has since refused to formally correct. “Despite requests by undersigned counsel, Sheriff Nanos and the PCSD have refused to retract their statements or to make clear that Carlos is innocent and had no involvement in the Guthrie case,” the notice states. In response, the sheriff’s office has said that no one has been formally cleared in the case, describing it as an ongoing and active investigation.

Showalter said he has seen no evidence placing his client near Guthrie’s home at the time of her disappearance, and has questioned publicly why Palazuelos came under scrutiny at all. He has acknowledged investigators may have identified Palazuelos through his delivery routes or similar data, but argued that “just being in the area where a crime occurred doesn’t give you probable cause to arrest somebody.” He has also raised, while stressing it remains speculative, the possibility that license-plate readers or other automated investigative tools may have mistakenly flagged his client’s vehicle.

Nancy Guthrie was reported missing from her home in Tucson’s Catalina Foothills neighborhood on February 1, and authorities have treated the case as a kidnapping since ransom notes tied to the disappearance were later made public. Despite an extensive investigation involving local deputies and federal agents, including the FBI, no suspect has been formally named and no one has been charged. A masked individual seen in doorbell camera footage from Guthrie’s home, sometimes referred to online as “Porch Guy,” remains unidentified. Savannah Guthrie has offered a $1 million reward for information leading to a conviction in her mother’s case.

With the underlying investigation still unresolved and Pima County facing a legal deadline to respond to the Palazuelos family’s claim, the dispute over the sealed search warrant is expected to remain a closely watched side issue in a case that has drawn sustained national attention throughout the year.

If individual contributions were made in confidence, redact them. If legal advice must remain privileged, remove it, but just publish

No one disputes that Welsh rugby faces some extraordinarily difficult choices over the next few years, and maintaining the status quo simply because change is difficult is not a credible strategy.

But accepting that change is necessary is very different from accepting that every proposed change is necessarily the right one, and nowhere is that distinction more important than in the decision by the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) that the long-term future of the professional game should involve reducing the number of regions from four to three.

This would mark one of the most significant structural changes in Welsh rugby since the creation of regional rugby more than two decades ago. It would have implications not only for finances and playing performance but also for supporters, players, communities and the identity of the professional game across Wales.

Most importantly, once implemented, it would be extremely difficult to reverse.

Given this, I would expect any organisation contemplating such a fundamental restructuring to undertake a detailed appraisal before reaching a decision. It should examine the financial consequences of the different options, the assumptions underpinning those projections, the risks associated with each alternative and, critically, what happens if those assumptions turn out to be wrong.

Until recently, it was unclear whether such an appraisal had been undertaken by the WRU and I therefore wrote to chief executive Abi Tierney asking a series of questions about the process that had led the board to conclude that three regions represented the best future for the professional game.

Following further correspondence, we now have a much clearer answer, and it is an important one. Between August and October 2025, the WRU says that it held 32 separate engagement meetings involving a wide range of stakeholders, with each independently minuted and a subsequent report produced for the board.

Alongside this, detailed analysis was undertaken by the executive team and subjected to what the WRU describes as external independent challenge from experts in the field.

More importantly, that work culminated in a formal option appraisal considering a range of options for the professional game, including financial analysis, strategic considerations, an assessment of the principal risks and opportunities, and feedback received through the stakeholder engagement process. It seems that the WRU board considered and approved the appraisal in October 2025, after which it concluded that its preferred long-term strategic direction was a move from four professional regions to three as part of the wider One Wales Strategy.

For those of us who have been asking whether there was a substantive evidence base behind the decision, that clarification is welcome and now what work was undertaken before the Board reached its conclusion. But in answering one important question, the WRU has created another that is arguably even more important.

If this detailed evidence exists, then why can’t Welsh rugby see it?

I am not alone in asking that question, and last week, Scarlets managing director Jon Daniels publicly questioned what he described as the lack of data and transparency surrounding the decision. He argued that a change of this magnitude requires everyone involved in Welsh rugby to understand both the decision and the data used to reach it.

More significantly, he suggested that the Scarlets still did not know the real financial picture and questioned whether every possibility of retaining four professional teams had been properly explored.

So, there is now an uncomfortable contradiction at the heart of this process as the WRU says that a detailed option appraisal was undertaken, containing financial analysis, strategic considerations and an assessment of risks and opportunities. Yet one of the organisations most affected by the outcome says that it still has insufficient visibility of the data used to justify the proposed change.

Those positions are not necessarily incompatible, as consultation can take place without the final analysis being shared, but that is precisely why transparency matters. The WRU has pointed out that some information cannot be shared publicly because it may be commercially sensitive, legally privileged or linked to ongoing negotiations. That is reasonable, but it is not the same as saying the underlying evidence base cannot be shared

If individual contributions were made in confidence, redact them. If legal advice must remain privileged, remove it. If some financial assumptions are commercially sensitive, summarise them. What should remain is the substance of the case and the reasons why three regions emerged as the preferred option.

The WRU has also offered a stakeholder session to explain the work that underpinned the board’s decision and to allow questions, but there is a fundamental difference between being given a presentation and being able to scrutinise the evidence, particularly when we know that the board reached its preferred strategic direction in October 2025.

Yes, boards exist to make decisions, but if one of the regions directly affected is still publicly questioning the evidence and transparency nearly a year later, it is difficult to argue that the case has been sufficiently understood outside that boardroom.

Welsh rugby has experienced enough governance difficulties to know that institutional trust cannot simply be demanded but has to be earned, and openness around major decisions is one of the most effective ways of doing that. There may ultimately be an overwhelming financial and strategic case for three professional regions but, equally, some of the assumptions underpinning that conclusion may prove less convincing when subjected to wider scrutiny.

At present, those outside the board who are affected by this decision cannot make that judgement because they have not been allowed to see enough of the analysis.

Therefore, the next step should be straightforward: the WRU should publish the option appraisal, suitably redacted to protect genuinely confidential information, and allow Welsh rugby to examine the evidence for itself. If it still refuses, member clubs should press for disclosure, as there is simply no longer any reason why it should not be made available.

Indeed, the question is no longer whether the evidence exists but why, if the case for three regions is genuinely compelling, Welsh rugby is still being asked to trust the conclusion without being allowed to properly scrutinise the case behind it. And that simply isn’t good enough.

Walkden tower has been abandoned for months

A building project in Walkden has been left ‘in limbo’ after the firm carrying out the work went bust.

Building works on the corner of Bolton Road and Manchester Road mysteriously ground to a halt in January and are yet to resume. The plot was supposed to become a five-storey block for the elderly.

Housing 21, a not-for-profit care provider, commissioned social housing developers Alderley Group to build 46 independent living apartments for the over-55s. The planning application was given the greenlight by Salford council in December 2024, and construction on the project started last year.

The half-built steel tower has stood abandoned for several months after Alderley Group was issued a winding up order in January and ordered to liquidate its assets in June.

The websites are now defunct and Companies House is currently processing a statement of administrator’s proposal, which is one of the final stages before a firm is made insolvent or sold off to recoup funds invested by creditors.

According to Housing 21, the plans are still due to go ahead once they find a replacement contractor. But in the meantime, local councillors and residents are worried the ‘eye-sore’ site will attract fly-tipping and anti-social behaviour to the area.

Councillor Sammie Bellamy said: “I’m just so sorry for the residents having to put up with the eyesore. It feels like something we have very little control over but is having a big impact.

“I know it’s already causing issues for the Gill Medical Centre, who overlook the construction site.”

Construction is due to continue eventually, with a road closure order in place across Harriet Street, Manchester Road, and Bolton Road until December 2027. The roads are currently free, but could be blocked off once the construction recommences.

A Housing 21 Spokesperson said: “We can confirm work on the site has been temporarily paused whilst we source a replacement contractor to deliver the scheme. We are keeping all interested parties updated with progress and would like to thank everyone for their patience and understanding.”

A Salford City Council spokesperson said: “We understand the concerns that residents have raised about this site. We will continue to keep the situation under review and work with relevant parties where appropriate and take the necessary action to help protect the local environment and support the community.”

To find all the planning applications, traffic diversions, road layout changes, alcohol licence applications and more in your community, visit the Public Notices Portal.

The S&P 500 closed lower on Friday, dipping from a record high and weighed down by Applied Materials, while investors digested weaker-than-expected retail sales data. Applied Materials fell after its upbeat quarterly forecast failed to impress investors. The chip equipment maker’s shares have doubled in 2026 due to strong demand related to the buildout of AI data centers.

With investors nervous about high valuations ‌of AI-related stocks that ⁠have soared ⁠in recent years, chipmakers including Broadcom and Intel also dropped on Friday.

“A lot of the drivers in the market right now are around various parts ​of AI, and (Applied Materials) is an example of a company that had a ‘beat and raise’ but expectations were high and so the stock ​sold off,” said Thomas Martin, senior portfolio manager at GLOBALT Investments in Atlanta. Transit through the Strait of Hormuz appeared at a near standstill after two more ships were attacked there and the United States said it could maintain a naval blockade ​of Iran indefinitely. Those developments added to pessimism after a senior Iranian source said on ⁠Wednesday there ‌had been no progress in talks to build on a June agreement to end the ​war.

The S&P 500 energy index rallied, tracking higher oil prices. Reddit surged after the social media company was named a new ⁠addition to the S&P 500 index, effective August 18. July retail sales data came in weaker than expected, after an unrevised 0.2% gain in June, the Commerce Department’s Census Bureau said.

According to preliminary data, the S&P 500 lost 13.41 points, or 0.17%, to end at 7,785.58 points, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 73.86 points, or 0.28%, to 26,729.16. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 108.53 points, or 0.20%, to 53,732.53.While inflation related to high oil prices remains a concern, recent economic data has investors mostly expecting the Federal Reserve to hold interest rates steady at its September meeting. Traders see a 67% chance the Fed will keep rates unchanged at the September ‌meeting, with a 33% chance of a hike, according to CME’s FedWatch.
The University of Michigan’s preliminary consumer sentiment survey came in at 51 in August, below expectations of 54.5, according to economists polled ​by Reuters.
The aggregate earnings of S&P 500 companies have ⁠surged 52% in the second quarter, with much of that gain coming from Amazon , Microsoft and other AI heavyweights, according to LSEG.

With the S&P 500 trading just below record highs, the index is valued at about 20 times expected earnings. That is up from about 19 at the end of July and below 22 at the start of 2026. Workday dipped. The stock soared 18% on Thursday after Reuters reported that private equity firm Silver Lake was in talks to acquire the software firm. Shares of some drone makers gained after President Donald Trump said late on Thursday he would impose tariffs on imports of drones and their components. Red Cat and Unusual Machines both jumped.

New data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that while overall delinquency rates improved for overall debt burdens, new delinquencies rose slightly for auto loans and mortgages and remained elevated for credit cards.

The New York Fed found that aggregate delinquency rates improved in the second quarter of 2026, with 4.7% of outstanding debt in some stage of delinquency.

“Delinquency rates across most products have held steady over the past two years,” said Joelle Scally, economic policy advisor at the New York Fed. “Still, new delinquencies for auto loans and credit cards remain at elevated levels, a trend we’ll continue to monitor.”

Credit card debt that is over 30 days delinquent has remained relatively steady at about 9% of outstanding balances since it reached that level in 2024, while auto loans are at about 8% and mortgages around 4%.

INFLATION COOLED IN JULY BUT REMAINED ELEVATED AS FED WEIGHS RATE HIKES

For debt flowing into serious delinquency, which is defined as 90 days or more past due, those transitions have held relatively steady over the past year but have edged slightly higher.

Credit card delinquencies were slightly higher than a year ago, rising from 6.93% to 6.97% when comparing the second quarter of 2025 to 2026, respectively.

The share of auto loans that entered serious delinquency also rose over that period, rising from 2.93% to 3% when comparing the second quarter of 2025 to 2026. Mortgages entering serious delinquency also ticked higher from 1.29% to 1.52% in that period.

AUTO LOAN REFINANCING: HOW IT WORKS AND WHEN IT COULD SAVE YOU MONEY

Student loans were a notable exception, with the resumption of reporting defaulted student debt causing some distortions after the pandemic era pause on defaults concluded.

When excluding charged-off debt, new credit card delinquencies have been at around 3% of balances since 2024, with the most recent reading at 2.95%. Credit card debt that reached 90 days past due accounted for 6.97% of the balance in the latest quarter, while those that are beyond 90 days past due were at 2.3%.

The New York Fed noted in its analysis that, from the third quarter of 2022 to the first quarter of 2026, the percentage of credit card balances that were more than 90 days delinquent increased from 7.6% to 12.8%.

FED DISSENTERS WARN INFLATION COULD BECOME ENTRENCHED WITHOUT MONETARY POLICY TIGHTENING NOW

That stock figure includes charged-off debt, the inclusion of which was noted by economists as differing from the flows into delinquency that reflect a relatively steady level of consumer health.

New York Fed economists said they found the “stock delinquency rate is rising because of a pool of stale, charged-off debts that lenders have been reporting for longer durations, rather than a fundamental worsening in the incidence of delinquency.”

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Operator

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for waiting. Welcome to Braskem’s Second Quarter of 2026 Results Conference Call.

With us here today, we have Mr. Helcio Tokeshi, Braskem’s CEO; Mr. Carlos Brandao, Braskem’s CFO; and Mrs. Rosana Avolio, Investor Relations, Strategic Planning and Global Market Intelligence Director.

We inform you that this event is being recorded. The presentation will be held in Portuguese with simultaneous translation into English. All participants can choose which language to listen to and see the presentation using the show captions and view options button respectively. After Braskem remarks, there will be a Q&A session. Please be advised that questions must be sent through the Q&A button. I will now repeat the same instructions in Portuguese.

We inform you that this event is being recorded. The presentation will be held in Portuguese with simultaneous translation into English. All participants can choose which language to listen to and see the presentation using the show captions and view options button respectively. After Braskem remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. Please note that questions should be submitted in writing through the Q&A button.

The audio of this event will be available on the Investor Relations website after it ends. We remind you that the participants will be able to submit questions to Braskem, which will be answered after the end of this conference by the RI (sic) [ IR ] department.

Before proceeding, we would like to clarify that any statements that may be made during this conference call regarding Braskem’s business prospects, projections, operational and financial goals are beliefs and