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By Arsheeya Bajwa and Aditya Soni (Reuters) -An investor group including BlackRock, Microsoft and Nvidia is buying one of the world's biggest data center operators with nearly 80 facilities in a deal worth $40 billion to secure coveted computing capacity for artificial intelligence. The purchase of U.S.-based Aligned Data Centers from Australian Macquarie Asset Management on Wednesday is the first deal for the AI Infrastructure Partnership formed last year which includes Abu Dhabi-based fund MGX and Elon Musk's startup xAI among its backers. "With this investment in Aligned Data Centers, we further our goal of delivering the infrastructure necessary to power the future of AI," said BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, who also serves as the chairman of the AI Infrastructure Partnership. DEALS TO SNAP UP CHIPS AND INFRASTRUCTURE The acquisition is the latest in a series of big-ticket deals involving Big Tech and Silicon Valley startups that has been fueled by the boom in AI.  Major tech companies including Alphabet, Amazon.com, Meta, Microsoft and CoreWeave, are on track to spend $400 billion on AI infrastructure this year, Morgan Stanley estimates. OpenAI, the startup at the heart of the AI boom, struck deals in recent weeks with chipmakers Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Broadcom that may cost over $1 trillion to secure about 26 gigawatts of computing capacity, enough to power roughly 20 million U.S. homes. Meta Platforms is building several multi-gigawatt AI data centers, including one called Prometheus due to come online in 2026 and another, Hyperion, that can scale up to 5 gigawatts. Privately-held Aligned Data Centers currently has over 5 gigawatts of operational and planned capacity located across 50 campuses in the U.S. and Latin America. Joe Tigay, portfolio manager at Nvidia shareholder Equity Armor Investments, said the acquisition highlights the growing value of data center assets for investors. "They’re looking at rapid expansion to meet AI demand and optimize for it." SPENDING SURGE AS INTEREST BOOMS Founded in 2013, Aligned has been a big winner of the AI infrastructure spending boom, raising $12 billion in equity and debt earlier this year in one of the largest private capital injections into a data center company. Its customers include cloud-computing platform Nutanix and IT services provider Datto, according to its website. The company also has a land portfolio with access to significant near-term power capacity in key markets, said Macquarie, which first invested in the company in 2018. Shares of its publicly listed rivals, such as Applied Digital, have soared more than four-fold this year. Applied Digital shares jumped 5% on Wednesday. The investment group buying Aligned, which also includes Kuwait Investment Authority and Singapore state-owned investor Temasek as backers, has an initial target of deploying $30 billion of equity capital, with the potential of reaching $100 billion including debt. It has not disclosed how much each partner has contributed to the group nor the equity value of Wednesday's deal. Nvidia and Aligned declined to comment, while the investors did not immediately respond to requests seeking more details on the deal. "All the major parties in that consortium, they are showing the strength of the AI ecosystem," said Hendi Susanto, portfolio manager at Nvidia investor Gabelli Funds. Aligned will remain headquartered in Dallas, Texas, under CEO Andrew Schaap when the deal closes in the first half of 2026, the investor group said in its statement. (Reporting by Arsheeya Bajwa in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva and Elaine Hardcastle)

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NEW YORK (Reuters) -A U.S. judge on Wednesday said he was ready to approve Rio Tinto's agreement to pay $138.75 million to settle a lawsuit that accused the Anglo-Australian mining giant of defrauding investors by concealing problems with its $7 billion underground expansion of the Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine in Mongolia. Rio Tinto had reached a preliminary settlement with shareholders of the former Montreal-based Turquoise Hill Resources in June, pending approval from Manhattan-based U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman.   Liman at a hearing on Wednesday said he was ready to approve the settlement, but did not sign off on it yet because he was waiting for the shareholders' lawyers to inform him of what they planned to do with any funds left after initial distributions. Rio Tinto did not admit wrongdoing in agreeing to settle.   The lawsuit sought damages on behalf of Turquoise Hill shareholders between July 2018 and July 2019, when that company, then listed in Toronto, was majority-owned by Rio Tinto.  Shareholders were led by funds advised by Chicago-based Pentwater Capital Management. Pentwater said in a September 10 court filing that the settlement amount represented between 34% and 43% of the damages it believed it could prove at trial, describing it as reasonable given the risk of continued litigation. Turquoise Hill had been a single-asset company owning 66% of the Oyu Tolgoi mine, with Mongolia's government owning 34%. Pentwater accused Rio Tinto and Turquoise Hill of fraudulently assuring that the Oyu Tolgoi mine was "on plan" and "on budget," even as it was falling up to 2-1/2 years behind schedule and running as much as $1.9 billion over budget. Rio announced the possible $1.9 billion overrun in 2019, and projected total capital expenditures of $6.5 billion to $7.2 billion. In 2022, Rio Tinto bought the 49% of Turquoise Hill it did not already own for $3.3 billion, fully integrating the mine into its copper portfolio.  (Reporting by Luc Cohen, Clara Denina, Editing by Alexandra Hudson)

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By Tom Hals DOVER, Delaware (Reuters) -Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay package from Tesla should have been restored by a vote of the company’s shareholders last year, a Tesla attorney argued to the Delaware Supreme Court on Wednesday. One of the biggest corporate legal battles entered its final stage after a lower court judge rescinded the Tesla CEO's record compensation in January 2024. The company is also appealing a ruling by the lower court that rejected as legally invalid a vote by shareholders to restore the pay package.  “This was the most informed stockholder vote in Delaware history,” Jeffrey Wall, an attorney for Tesla, told the justices. “Reaffirming that would resolve this case.” The case's outcome could have substantial consequences for the state of Delaware, its widely used corporate law, and its Court of Chancery, a once-favored venue for business disputes that has recently been accused of hostility towards powerful entrepreneurs. The Court of Chancery ruling striking down Musk's pay has become a rallying cry for Delaware critics. Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick ruled that the Tesla board lacked independence from Musk when it approved the pay package in 2018 and that shareholders lacked key information when they voted overwhelmingly in favor of it. As a result, she applied a demanding legal standard and found the pay unfair to investors. Musk did not attend the arguments, which were held in a special court to accommodate the 65 people in attendance, mostly lawyers.  The defendants, current and former Tesla directors, denied wrongdoing and said McCormick misinterpreted the facts and the law.  COMPANIES SWITCH LEGAL HOMES Tesla argued in Dover, Delaware, that the five justices on Delaware's high court had three avenues to reverse the lower court ruling. They could find that Musk, who owned 21.9% of Tesla stock in 2018, did not control the board pay negotiations and that shareholders were fully informed when they voted to approve it that year. They could determine that rescinding the pay was an improper remedy because it did not undo the work that Musk had done or the gains that shareholders had received. Or they could determine last year's vote demonstrated that shareholders wanted to accept the pay deal, despite the legal flaws. "Shareholders in 2024 knew exactly what they were voting for," Wall said. After the Musk pay ruling, large companies, including Tesla, Dropbox, and the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, switched their legal homes to Texas or Nevada, where courts are friendlier toward directors. Delaware lawmakers responded to the corporate departures, a trend known as "Dexit," by overhauling its corporate law.  If Musk loses the appeal, he will still reap tens of billions of dollars in stock from the electric vehicle company, which agreed in August to a replacement deal if his 2018 plan is not restored. Tesla has said the replacement plan will cost $25 billion or more in accounting charges.  The company said the replacement award was meant to retain and focus Musk, who said earlier this year he was forming a new U.S. political party, on transitioning Tesla to robotics and automated driving. Tesla is now incorporated in Texas, where it is far more difficult for a shareholder to challenge board decisions. TESLA PROPOSES NEW PAY PLAN Tesla's board last month proposed a $1 trillion compensation plan, highlighting confidence in Musk's ability to steer the company in a new direction, even as Tesla loses ground to Chinese rivals in key markets amid softening EV demand. The justices are considering the appeal of the pay ruling as well as the $345 million legal fee that McCormick ordered Tesla to pay to the attorneys for Richard Tornetta, who held just nine Tesla shares when he sued to block the pay deal. The court typically takes months to rule.  Tesla estimated in 2018 the stock options plan would be worth $56 billion if the company met operational and financial goals, which it did. Because the stock continued to appreciate, the options are currently worth closer to $120 billion, by far the largest executive compensation ever. Musk is the world's richest person with a fortune of around $480 billion, according to Forbes. The defendants have argued that McCormick erred in finding social and business ties to Musk compromised their independence and said Tesla shareholders were informed of the economic terms of the pay deal before they approved the plan. The directors said she should have reviewed the pay package under the "business judgment" standard, which protects directors from second-guessing by courts. The directors have long argued the pay package performed as hoped – it focused the attention of Musk, a serial entrepreneur, and he transformed Tesla from a startup into one of the world's most valuable companies. (Reporting by Tom Hals in Dover, Delaware;Editing by Noeleen Walder and Rod Nickel)

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