Mumbai: The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Tuesday proposed changes to the governance framework for alternative investment funds, seeking to standardise how investor consent is obtained, tighten oversight of conflict-of-interest transactions, and introduce a uniform approval threshold for key decisions.

The regulator has proposed replacing the existing mix of two-thirds and 75% investor approval requirements with a single threshold of 75% consent by value of unit holders across AIF regulations wherever investor approval is mandated.

At present, rules mandate that certain material decisions relating to the governance and operations of an AIF, should be done only after obtaining requisite investor consent, with varying thresholds for different requirements.

They prescribe different approval thresholds for different matters.

However, they do not provide guidance on the manner or methodology for obtaining such consent.

“Over time, based on supervisory experience and stakeholder interactions, it has been observed that while the existing framework provides flexibility and operational ease, certain conflict-prone transactions may not be uniformly captured for investor consideration due to the limited scope of entities covered under the current definition of ‘associate’. This may lead to situations where transactions involving comparable levels of conflict are treated differently, resulting in interpretational uncertainty,” Sebi said in a discussion paper on Tuesday.
Further, diverse market practices have emerged with respect to solicitation, voting methodologies, and treatment of non-responses.

Shares of Hesai Group, the Chinese lidar technology leader, jumped sharply Tuesday, climbing $1.68, or 10.69%, to $17.45, as investors continued to reward the company for a freshly approved stock split, a fresh bullish analyst initiation and growing momentum tied to its strategic partnership with Mercedes-Benz.

The latest gain builds on a rally that has gathered steam since Hesai’s annual general meeting on June 26, when shareholders approved an eight-for-one stock split and authorized the company to issue up to 10% more shares. The split, which improves the stock’s liquidity and is expected to broaden its potential investor base by lowering the per-share price, has been a primary driver of buying interest in recent sessions, even as the additional share issuance authorization carries some longer-term dilution risk that analysts have flagged as worth monitoring.

Adding further fuel to the rally, a new analyst initiated coverage on the stock with an Outperform rating and a $23.50 price target, joining what has already been an overwhelmingly bullish chorus of Wall Street voices. According to data compiled across 22 analysts tracking the company, the consensus rating on Hesai stands at “Strong Buy,” with a 12-month price target of $30.17, implying substantial additional upside from current trading levels.

Much of that optimism traces back to Hesai’s first-quarter 2026 results, released May 19, which showed the company continuing to scale rapidly across both its core automotive lidar business and a broader push into what management has termed “spatial intelligence.” Hesai reported net revenues of RMB680.6 million, or approximately $98.7 million, a 29.6% increase from the same period in 2025. Total lidar shipments reached 471,723 units, up 140.9% year-over-year, with shipments of lidar units for advanced driver-assistance systems surging 141.9% to 353,441 units. The company posted GAAP net income of RMB18.3 million and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share of ¥0.31, beating Wall Street expectations by more than 70%, marking another step in Hesai’s transition from a high-growth but unprofitable hardware company to one demonstrating sustained profitability.

That shift toward consistent profitability has become a central pillar of the bull case for the stock. According to the company’s own investor materials, Hesai achieved an industry-first full-year GAAP net income of $62 million and non-GAAP net income of $79 million for 2025, while delivering GAAP net income for three consecutive quarters and non-GAAP net income for five consecutive quarters. Hesai has also positioned itself as the global lidar market leader, ranking No. 1 in 2025 with more than 40% share of the long-range automotive lidar market, according to industry research firm Gasgoo, alongside top rankings in several major robotics lidar submarkets, including humanoids, quadrupeds, robotaxis, robovans and robotic lawn mowers.

The Mercedes-Benz partnership, announced alongside the first-quarter results, has been particularly significant to investor sentiment given the strategic validation it provides from one of the world’s most prominent automakers. Under the agreement, Hesai will supply lidar sensors to support Mercedes-Benz’s development of Level 3 autonomous driving capabilities, a milestone that analysts have characterized as evidence that major global automakers tend to stick with trusted lidar suppliers across multiple vehicle development cycles, offering Hesai a durable, long-term growth runway rather than a one-off contract win.

Alongside the Mercedes deal, Hesai introduced several new products during its first-quarter update, including the Picasso 6D SPAD-SoC lidar chip and the Kosmo SGI spatial intelligence device, part of a broader strategic shift the company has articulated toward what it calls “Physical AI,” a category encompassing not just automotive driver-assistance systems but also autonomous mobility, embodied AI, and industrial, agricultural and service robotics. Hesai has described itself as committed to becoming a key enabler of this broader AI-driven shift, leveraging its proprietary application-specific integrated circuit, or ASIC, technology and an integrated research, testing and manufacturing approach to maintain its competitive position across these expanding end markets.

To support that growth, Hesai has announced plans to more than double its production capacity in 2026, targeting more than 4 million units annually to meet what the company describes as surging global demand. New manufacturing facilities, including operations in Thailand, are intended to support international expansion while also helping mitigate geopolitical risks tied to the company’s Chinese manufacturing base, a consideration that has taken on added significance given ongoing U.S.-China trade tensions and periodic scrutiny of Chinese technology companies by U.S. regulators.

For the second quarter of 2026, Hesai has guided net revenues to a range of RMB850 million to RMB900 million, or roughly $123 million to $130 million, representing year-over-year growth of approximately 20% to 27%. That guidance, combined with the company’s expanding shipment volumes and new product pipeline, has formed the basis for analysts’ continued bullish positioning on the stock even as some have trimmed fair value estimates modestly in recent weeks to reflect slightly more conservative assumptions around longer-term growth and margin trends.

Not every signal surrounding the stock has been uniformly positive. Hesai shares have remained volatile over the past several months, including a roughly 19% decline over a 90-day stretch earlier this year before the recent rebound, reflecting the broader swings common among growth-oriented Chinese technology stocks navigating both company-specific execution risk and macro-level geopolitical uncertainty. Some analysts have also continued to flag the company’s reliance on continued strong shipment growth translating into durable order visibility and margin stability, particularly as competition intensifies in the increasingly crowded global lidar and advanced driver-assistance hardware market, including from domestic Chinese rival RoboSense Technology.

For now, Tuesday’s rally reflects a market clearly favoring the combination of improved share liquidity from the stock split, fresh institutional validation through the new analyst initiation, and continued confidence in Hesai’s expanding footprint across automotive, robotics and broader physical AI applications. Investors are likely to watch closely for further updates on how the Mercedes-Benz partnership and the company’s second-quarter revenue guidance translate into concrete order visibility and sustained profitability when Hesai next reports results, expected around August.

This article was written by

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Operator

Hello, and welcome to Progress Software Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I will now like to hand the conference over to Michael Micciche.

Sir, you may begin.

Michael Micciche
Senior Vice President of Investor Relations

Thank you, Tawanda. Good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for joining us for Progress Software’s Second Fiscal Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. With me tonight are Yogesh Gupta, our president and CEO, and Anthony Folger, our Chief Financial Officer.

Before we get started, let’s go through the safe harbor statement. During this call, we will discuss our outlook for future financial and operating performance, corporate strategies, product plans, cost initiatives, and other information that might be considered forward-looking.

Such forward-looking information represents Progress Software’s outlook and guidance only as of today and is subject to risks and uncertainties, and our actual results may differ materially. For a description of the factors that may affect our future results and operations, please refer to the risk factors in our SEC filings, particularly the risk factor section of our most recent Form 10-K and the latest 10-Q, which was filed in conjunction with this announcement this evening.

Progress assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements included in this call. Additionally, please note that all the financial figures referenced in this call tonight are non-GAAP measures unless otherwise indicated.

You can find a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial

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Fermi Inc. (FRMI) Shareholder/Analyst Call June 30, 2026 4:00 PM EDT

Company Participants

Toby Neugebauer
Cathy Landtroop

Conference Call Participants

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Stephen Gengaro – Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Incorporated, Research Division

Presentation

Operator

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Good afternoon. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Neugebauer and Fermi Analysts Live Town Hall. [Operator Instructions] Legal disclaimers for this call are on the screen, and you are encouraged to read them in their entirety.

I’d now like to turn the call over to Toby Neugebauer, the co-founder and largest shareholder of Fermi America for live opening remarks.

Toby Neugebauer

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Well, good afternoon, everybody. And I almost want to correct something. My wife is the largest shareholder. I just get to speak for her today. When I think about June 30, and I think it’s the #1 question, we anticipated June 30 to be a big day for Fermi. We anticipated at the time of our departure that this would be the day that we would announce 2 tenants. And we always — our friend, Nick, with Evercore always say, Toby likes to announce things on holidays. And this one was the birthday of one of our key negotiators for tenant 1 and tenant 2.

And so before we just start this call, I really do think as shareholders, we have to move on beyond are we getting a tenant. That’s not what this call is about. That should not be what’s in your thought process. Again, we were planning on June 30 being the announcement of our first 2 tenants, but at least our first one. As I was reflecting on if it’s not about the tenant, then what is the call about? And what is Toby want? And what is Toby worried about? And I didn’t sleep last night, and I came up with a slide that really sums up what I think

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Dell Technologies Inc. shares rose more than 2 percent Tuesday, trading around $425 as investors continued to reward the company’s strong positioning in artificial intelligence infrastructure amid robust demand for high-performance servers.

The Round Rock, Texas-based technology giant, known for its personal computers and enterprise solutions, has emerged as a key beneficiary of the global AI buildout. Its servers, optimized for graphics processing units and large-scale computing, have seen explosive growth as data centers expand to support training and inference workloads.

Tuesday’s modest gain added to substantial year-to-date advances, reflecting sustained enthusiasm for companies enabling AI adoption across industries. Dell’s infrastructure business has outpaced traditional PC sales, with AI-related revenue contributing significantly to overall results in recent quarters.

Analysts attribute the company’s momentum to its early and deep partnerships with leading chipmakers, particularly Nvidia. Dell’s PowerEdge servers integrated with advanced GPUs have secured major orders from hyperscalers and enterprise customers racing to deploy AI capabilities.

Recent financial performance underscored this shift. In the prior quarter, Dell reported record AI server revenue, with orders and backlog reaching unprecedented levels. The company has raised guidance multiple times, citing accelerating demand that has outstripped initial expectations.

The broader market context supported technology shares, as investors assessed Federal Reserve policy signals and corporate earnings trends. While some sectors faced headwinds, AI-exposed names like Dell continued to attract capital seeking growth opportunities.

Dell’s transformation from a PC-centric manufacturer to a diversified infrastructure provider has reshaped its financial profile. Infrastructure Solutions Group revenue has grown rapidly, surpassing traditional segments in contribution during peak AI demand periods.

Company executives have highlighted the scalability of their AI factory solutions, which offer turnkey deployments for enterprise customers. These systems combine computing, storage and networking optimized for AI workloads, reducing deployment complexity.

Partnerships with major cloud providers and technology firms have expanded Dell’s addressable market. Collaborations enable hybrid and on-premises AI solutions, appealing to organizations concerned about data sovereignty and latency.

Supply chain dynamics remain a focus. Strong demand has led to extended lead times for certain components, though Dell has worked to expand capacity and diversify suppliers. Pricing power in AI servers has also supported margins amid component costs.

Investors monitor Dell alongside peers in the data center ecosystem. The company’s performance serves as a barometer for enterprise AI spending trends, distinct from consumer-driven technology cycles.

Tuesday’s trading reflected broader participation in technology amid mixed economic signals. While inflation concerns persist, optimism around productivity gains from AI has underpinned valuations in select names.

Dell’s history includes a leveraged buyout and return to public markets, periods that tested management but ultimately positioned the company for its current growth phase. Strategic acquisitions and divestitures have streamlined operations toward higher-margin infrastructure.

The PC business, while mature, benefits from refresh cycles driven by AI-enabled devices and Windows updates. Hybrid work trends and enterprise security needs provide steady demand, complementing the high-growth AI segment.

Global expansion efforts target emerging markets and international data center projects. Government initiatives supporting domestic technology manufacturing could further benefit Dell’s U.S.-based operations.

Analysts have raised price targets and earnings estimates following recent results. Consensus forecasts project continued revenue expansion, though execution on margins and supply will influence outcomes.

Risks include potential slowdowns in AI capital expenditure if economic conditions tighten or if returns on massive investments disappoint. Competition in servers remains intense, with specialized players and cloud hyperscalers developing in-house solutions.

Despite these factors, Dell’s order backlog provides multi-quarter visibility uncommon in hardware. This visibility supports planning and has reassured investors regarding near-term growth.

Tuesday’s price action around $425 marked another session of positive momentum. Volume was healthy as traders responded to sector rotation and individual company developments.

Longer-term, Dell aims to capture share in the expanding AI infrastructure market projected to reach hundreds of billions annually. Success depends on innovation speed and customer relationships built over decades in enterprise computing.

The company’s direct sales model and supply chain expertise provide competitive advantages in fulfilling large, customized orders. Enterprise customers value Dell’s ability to integrate complex systems at scale.

As AI moves from experimentation to production deployments, demand for supporting infrastructure is expected to broaden beyond initial hyperscaler leaders. Dell’s portfolio spans edge, core data center and hybrid environments.

Management has emphasized sustainable growth alongside shareholder returns through dividends and buybacks. Capital allocation decisions will balance investment in growth with returning cash to owners.

Sector peers have shown varied performance, but Dell stands out for its AI server specificity. This focus has differentiated it from more diversified technology conglomerates.

Market watchers will track upcoming earnings for updates on backlog conversion and new order trends. Guidance parameters often move markets significantly in this space.

Tuesday’s advance contributed to Dell’s strong performance trajectory in 2026. The stock’s sensitivity to AI narratives has amplified moves on positive developments.

Broader technology sentiment remains constructive, supported by innovation cycles and corporate adoption. However, valuation multiples have expanded, prompting caution among some fundamental investors.

Dell’s story illustrates the intersection of legacy computing strength with emerging AI opportunities. Its ability to bridge these worlds has driven recent outperformance.

As the session progressed, Dell shares maintained gains, reflecting confidence in the company’s strategic direction. Continued execution will determine whether momentum sustains through the remainder of the year.

The technology sector’s role in economic growth keeps it central to market narratives. Dell’s contributions through infrastructure underline hardware’s enduring importance even as software garners attention.

Investors balancing portfolios continue allocating to AI enablers while monitoring macroeconomic indicators. Dell exemplifies a company translating secular trends into financial results.

Bill payers are being urged to submit a meter reading as household energy prices rise by 13% for millions of people in England, Scotland and Wales on Wednesday.

Anyone whose tariff is affected by regulator Ofgem’s price cap and does not have a smart meter should take a reading to avoid previous usage being charged at the new, higher rate.

Price rises, driven by the higher cost of gas, may have a relatively limited impact owing to warm weather and lower energy use during the summer months.

But higher energy prices caused by the fall-out of the US-Israeli war with Iran are likely to persist into the winter, according to analysts at the consultancy Cornwall Insight.

It has predicted a very slight 0.5% dip in Ofgem’s price cap in October, adding renewed pressure on the government to step in to help those in need.

Ministers point to reforms to cut bills earlier this year. Chancellor Rachel Reeves had also indicated some targeted support could be provided in the autumn, although she may be replaced in the job under new Labour leadership, and prices have not risen as high as feared before the US-Iran truce.

“The Iran ceasefire gave the markets some breathing room, but this is a pause, not a resolution to the conflict. What comes out of the final agreement, if there is one, will matter enormously for energy prices,” said Craig Lowrey, principal consultant at Cornwall Insight.

“Even in the best-case scenario, the enduring effects from the conflict will be with us for a while.”

In central Manchester, 23‑year‑old Ashleigh agrees with Joel that the state pension is unlikely to be coming her way: “At this rate I don’t think anyone’s ever going to retire, I think everyone will just have to fend for themselves in the end.”

But as someone on a lower income, her pension choices are less squirrel‑like. When working for a big retailer, she says that she chose to stop contributing to her employer’s auto-enrolment pension.

“I opted out of it. I need the money now.” She explains: “I’d rather save for a house and then at least I have something to show for it”.

Some experts warn that the gap between rich and poor in retirement could widen significantly for this generation.

Dr Suzy Morrissey, deputy director at the Pensions Policy Institute (PPI), believes that alongside how much Gen Z save privately, another factor will widen the divide: far more of them will be renting.

“Renting in retirement increases your chances of pensioner poverty, and they do face challenges to save, as younger people, that previous generations didn’t face when they were at the same age,” she says. “If we have people paying rent in retirement who don’t have large pension pots to cover those expenses, then that equals higher risk of pensioner poverty.”

But Morrissey sees a silver lining: pensions auto-enrollment, the system that automatically puts most employees into a workplace pension unless they opt out. If they’ve been employees, “they will have spent their working life contributing into a pension pot, and they will be the first generation that will have spent their whole life doing that.”

It’ll be a backstop for many, but the minimum contribution rate is unlikely to be enough for a comfortable retirement. It’s not automatic for the self-employed and people like Ashleigh have opted out because of immediate financial pressures, so it looks like plenty won’t see the benefit of that silver lining.