North West, the 13-year-old daughter of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, released the music video for her single “Aishite” on Aug. 7, a horror-inspired visual filmed entirely in Japan that arrives days after she abruptly canceled her first headlining concert tour.
The track is part of North’s debut EP, “N0rth4evr,” which she released in May under her stage name North. Directed by Ty Akimoto, the video opens inside an abandoned school building, where North is shown walking through dimly lit corridors with neon blue pigtails, later moving through what appears to be a deserted arcade as blood-effect imagery drips across the screen throughout the visual, evoking the aesthetic of Japanese horror anime.
A Song About Isolation and Betrayal
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“Aishite,” which translates from Japanese as “love me,” samples the 2013 Vocaloid track “Aishite Aishite Aishite” by producer Kikuo, performed using the Hatsune Miku voice synthesizer software. The chorus repeats the phrase “just love me,” with lyrics that explore themes of isolation, feeling pursued, and struggling to trust the people around her. Lines from the song describe not being able to escape those chasing her and feeling unable to let others in, themes North has said throughout her debut project reflect her experience growing up as the child of two globally famous parents.
A Tour Canceled Without Explanation
The video’s release comes just over a week after North announced that her planned 14-date “Kimokawaii Tour,” a co-headlining run with 21-year-old rapper Molly Santana, would not move forward. The tour had been scheduled to kick off Aug. 5 in Dallas and wrap up Aug. 27 in Los Angeles, with stops planned in cities including Houston, Atlanta, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Toronto, Chicago, Phoenix and San Francisco.
North announced the cancellation on her Instagram Story on July 30, writing, “I was really excited to go on tour w Molly Santana. Sadly it isn’t happening anymore.” She did not offer a specific explanation for the decision but added, “I have something special for u guys see ya soon,” a message widely interpreted by outlets covering the news as a tease for the “Aishite” video that followed. All 14 tour listings were subsequently removed from ticketing platforms Ticketmaster and AXS, and the tour’s official website has since returned a “not found” error.
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Santana also addressed the cancellation on her own Instagram Story the same day, writing, “To everyone who bought tickets to the tour i sincerely apologize. i know a lot of you have taken time out of your busy schedules and spent your hard earned money planning to be there. nothing makes me more happy than the opportunity to share more amazing memories with you all and i hope to see you soon.”
Building a Music Career
North signed with independent label Gamma, run by former Apple Music executive Larry Jackson, earlier this year. Her self-produced debut EP, “N0rth4evr,” released in May, includes tracks such as “H0w Sh0uld ! f33l” alongside the title track, which she also accompanied with a separate music video at the time of the project’s release.
Prior to launching her own solo material, North had already appeared on other artists’ projects. She was featured on FKA twigs’ 2025 album “EUSEXUA,” rapping a verse in Japanese on the track “Childlike Things.” Speaking about that collaboration in a previous interview, FKA twigs said she wanted someone with a “childlike energy” and a strong point of view for the track, and recalled being struck by North’s confidence after watching an interview with her, saying it made her wish she had a friend like North growing up who could speak up for herself.
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A Family Legacy on Stage
North is no stranger to live performance, having appeared on stage multiple times alongside her father, the rapper and producer known as Ye. The two performed a surprise duet together in Mexico City in January and North joined him during a string of comeback concerts in Los Angeles in April. The father-daughter pair also released a collaborative track titled “Piercing On My Hand,” a song that appeared to directly address public criticism North had received over her facial piercings, a recurring feature of her public style that she references again in “Aishite.”
A Rising Profile Amid Public Scrutiny
As the eldest of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s four children, alongside younger siblings Saint, 10, Chicago, 8, and Psalm, 7, North has grown up almost entirely in the public eye, drawing both a large following and ongoing scrutiny over her evolving public persona as she has moved from childhood social media appearances into an independent music career. Several members of the extended Kardashian-Jenner family have promoted North’s music on their own social media platforms since the release of “N0rth4evr” in May, contributing to the project’s visibility ahead of the now-canceled tour.
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With the “Aishite” video now released and framed by outlets covering the story as the “something special” North had teased following her tour’s cancellation, attention turns to whether she will announce a rescheduled version of the Kimokawaii Tour or pursue additional new music and visuals in the coming months. Neither North nor representatives for Molly Santana have provided further public explanation for the tour’s cancellation, and no rescheduled dates had been announced as of the video’s release.
Good afternoon, and welcome to the Vanquis Banking Group plc Half Year Results Investor Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Before we begin, I would like to submit the following poll.
And I would now like to hand you over to CEO, Ian McLaughlin. Good afternoon to you, sir.
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Ian Michael McLaughlin CEO & Executive Director
Good Afternoon, Alex, and welcome, everybody. If we just go to our sort of intro slides, Look, I really appreciate you joining this afternoon. It’s a bit of a frustrating update from Vanquis. I’m sure it is for you, if you’re investors it certainly is for us as a management team. We are making really strong underlying progress. I’ll go through a little bit of that in a second because I think it’s important to talk about how we’re doing with what we committed to do.
But then probably the meat of today’s presentation is what has happened towards the end of the first half that has caused us to change our guidance, so I’ll take you through that. I’ll then hand over to Dave Watts, our CFO. You can see on the screen, I’ve got James Cranstoun, our Head of Investor Relations with me and Dave as well. And then we’ll go to your questions, which are always a bit where we get great value from, so look forward to that. Please do post your questions as we go.
So look, as I said, a bit of a frustrating first half for us, really good underlying progress, particularly on transformation, but two headwinds and one particular tailwind, and that’s what I want to unpack. So if we just
Jose Costa – Investor Relations Manager Roberto Monteiro – CEO, Investor Relations Officer, Director & Member of Management Board Jean Calvi – COO & Member of Management Board Milton Rangel – CFO & Member of Management Board Bruno Lowndes Dale de Menezes – Chief Business Development & Trading Officer and Member of Management Board
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Conference Call Participants
Monique Greco – Itaú Corretora de Valores S.A., Research Division Gabriel Coelho Barra – Citigroup Inc., Research Division Rodrigo Reis de Almeida – Banco BTG Pactual S.A., Research Division Tasso Vasconcellos – UBS Investment Bank, Research Division Yuri Pereira – Santander Investment Securities Inc., Research Division Leonardo Marcondes – BofA Securities, Research Division Bruno Montanari – Morgan Stanley, Research Division Bruno Amorim – Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Research Division
Presentation
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Jose Costa Investor Relations Manager
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Prio’s Conference Call. I am Jose Gustavo, New Business and IR Manager. For those who want to follow us in English, we have simultaneous interpreting through the Globe icon on the bottom of the Zoom screen. The translated presentation is available on our Investor Relations website.
The comments on the results will be presented by the management. After presentation, the officers will be available during the Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] This event is being recorded and will be available on our IR website.
This presentation contains information based on future estimates and forecasts based on assumptions adopted by the company, which can change and should not be considered facts or be used as the basis for financial projections beyond the plans expressed by the company.
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Now I’ll turn the floor to Roberto Monteiro, our CEO.
Roberto Monteiro CEO, Investor Relations Officer, Director & Member of Management Board
Good day, everyone. Welcome to our earnings call for the second
Good afternoon, and welcome to the Zotefoams plc investor presentation. [Operator Instructions]
Before we begin, I would like to submit the following pool. I would now like to hand you over to Ronan Cox, CEO. Good afternoon, sir.
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Ronan Cox Group CEO & Executive Director
Thank you very much, Lily, and good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the Zotefoams’s 2026 Interim Results. I am Ronan Cox, Group CEO, and I’m joined here by Nick Wright, our Group CFO. Today, I’ll begin with the business performance and the strategic context. Nick is going to take you through the financials in detail. We’ll cover the strategic progress together, and I will close on the outlook before we take your questions.
So if we go to the next slide, please, Lily. I’ll take the disclaimer as read, and then we move on. And just quickly on business performance, let me start with how the business performed in the first half. And if we go on again, Lily. Next slide, please. Thank you.
So the first half really shows diversification and disciplined execution working together. That is the key message here. Sorry, I think that we are probably a few slides ahead. Can we go back, Lily, please?
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Yes. There we go. That’s the one. Thank you. So diversification and disciplined execution working together. Group revenue was up 23% to GBP 95.2 million. It’s really important to be clear about the quality of the growth. It includes the first full half year contribution from OKC, and that was acquired growth. So on an organic basis, revenue grew by 4% or 6% on a constant currency basis.
Good morning, and welcome to the Serica Energy plc investor presentation. [Operator Instructions] Before we begin, I’d like to submit the following poll. And I’d like to hand you over to Chris Cox, CEO. Good morning, sir.
Christopher Cox CEO & Executive Director
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Good morning. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Serica’s 2026 Half Year Results Presentation. I’m joined as usual by Martin Copeland, CFO; and Andrew Benbow, our Head of Investor Relations. Martin and I will now run through a short presentation, leaving time for Q&A afterwards.
I’m pleased to say this has been a very strong period for Serica. We’ve been working hard across our asset base to increase reliability, and this has driven a material increase in production with Q2 averaging 50,000 barrels a day. In turn, of course, supported by the stronger than forecast commodity prices, we have generated material cash flows, turning a net debt position of $200 million at the start of the year into net cash of $26 million by the middle of the year. We’ve also made significant strategic moves to support our growth and deliver value to our shareholders. We’ve got our financing — refinancing done, giving us a strong liquidity position, allowing us significant flexibility as we enter the next phase of organic investment and portfolio growth.
We expect very soon to be able to confirm the contracting of a rig to deliver the start of our high-impact and rapid return organic growth projects in the U.K. North Sea, and continue to seek further opportunities to deliver shareholder value via M&A. In the period, we completed
Well, thank you very much for coming to our call. So today, we disclosed the first quarter results. So I’m going to give you some explanations on the results.
Please go to Page 3. So these are the main points for our results. Regarding the bottom line, Group adjusted profit is JPY 158.1 billion. It’s about JPY 84 billion higher than the number the previous year. The last year, due to the bond rebalancing, profit level was quite low. So we had 113% increase this year. And our progress rate for full year outlook is about 28%.
For Domestic Business, higher positive spread in DL and higher gain from sale of domestic equities drove the better results. Particularly because of the yen portfolio rebalancing, the Group’s fundamental earning power has been improving.
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Now regarding the top line, Well, the Group’s new business ANP was JPY 135 billion, 6.7% higher compared to the same period of last year. If you exclude FX impact, that’s 3.9% increase. Sales in DL was steady and PLC’s retirement business saw outperforming fixed annuity sales, and TAL benefited from Group business contract renewals. And sales momentum for the Group as a whole is quite steady.
On the other hand, if you look at the value of new business for 3 domestic companies, Daiichi Life, the new business margin has been lower because of the inflation. So it resulted in lower results from the — or than the original estimate.
Now economic value. Group EV increased from the previous term. ESR-wise, because of the acquisition of the company portfolio and investment in M&G and also higher mass
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Household affordability challenges are leading some consumers to consider refinancing their auto loans to save money on monthly payments.
Stephanie Roberts, director of auto products at PenFed Credit Union, told FOX Business that expanded access to credit terms has allowed consumers to more easily check the rates available to them as they consider refinancing.
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“I think consumers from a credit education standpoint are more educated than ever on the health of their credit, so they’re taking out those refinances,” Roberts said, noting that many banking and personal finance apps give consumers access to their credit scores.
“A lot of lenders, PenFed included, are allowing for consumers to check their rate by way of soft pull… without any impact to their credit score or promises that I’m going to go through this process, and I think that’s why a lot of people are now seeing that refinance is a fruitful option for them, where it hadn’t been like that in the past,” she said.
PenFed’s Stephanie Roberts explained that refinancing auto loans may make sense for consumers looking to lower monthly payments or tap into their car’s equity. (iStock)
Roberts said that PenFed is “proactively going after consumers where we can see that your rate is higher than what we have to offer in a pre-approval process,” adding that, “As a credit union, we care about our members’ financial health, so we really want them to save money when they can, where they can.”
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“It doesn’t sound like a lot initially, but when you think about it over the life of the rest of the loan, it really does add up,” she said, noting that inflation is squeezing household budgets for necessities like groceries and gas. “That $100 can go a long way when it comes to monthly expenses.”
Car owners should look at the value of their car and their equity in it when assessing whether it makes sense for them to refinance. (iStock)
Improvements in the durability of vehicles have also made refinancing auto loans more viable, as cars are able to hold more of their value and stay operational longer.
“Cars are staying on the road longer than they ever have. Right now, the life of a car is about 13 years, there’s just been enhancements in technology and engines and things that are keeping them on the road,” Roberts said.
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She said that affordability challenges with purchasing new cars are also contributing to consumers keeping their cars longer, so refinancing is “naturally coming into play as an option.”
Auto loans can be refinanced by consumers, who may see lower rates and monthly payments by reworking the terms of the loan. (iStock)
Roberts outlined the steps a person considering refinancing an auto loan should consider before making any commitments.
“The very first thing that you should do is look at the value of your car,” she said, noting that there are a range of free tools that allow consumers to check. That process allows them to see if it makes sense financially to refinance their car “because if you owe more than the value, it becomes a harder conversation.”
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She said the second thing consumers should do is look at their pre-approval options to see if their options for interest rates are lower than what they are paying. That will allow them to consider whether refinancing makes sense given their equity position in the vehicle.
Roberts added that consumers ought to consider whether a loan term extension would make sense for them in the refinancing process, as it may allow them to save more on payments if it makes sense given the car’s initial valuation.
Some lenders, including PenFed, offer a cash-out refinancing option, which Roberts added can even take the form of a title loan for paid-off vehicles. That can make sense for consumers who are looking at either a personal loan or using their credit card as an alternative to taking the equity out of the car, she said.
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