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(Reuters) -PNC Financial reported a more than 21% rise in third-quarter profit on Wednesday, driven by higher interest income and across-the-board jump in fees. The results underscored borrower resilience across the U.S. and a rebound in dealmaking from April's tariff-driven slump, mirroring trends observed across the biggest U.S. banks this week. JPMorgan Chase raised its full-year forecast for net interest income on Tuesday, while Wells Fargo and Citigroup also reported higher income from interest payments. NII – the difference between what a bank earns as interest on loans and pays out on deposits – jumped to $3.65 billion in the quarter for PNC, compared with $3.41 billion a year earlier, reflecting lower funding costs and loan growth. Provisions for credit losses fell to $167 million in the period, compared with $243 million a year earlier. "Credit performed well and we continued to build on our strong capital levels," said CEO Bill Demchak. PNC agreed to buy privately held FirstBank Holding in a $4.1 billion cash-and-stock deal last month, providing momentum to a long-predicted wave of regional banking consolidation. Analysts say the deal provides the bank access to low-cost deposits and cross-selling opportunities. They continue to view the bank as a potential buyer as banking M&A picks up pace under lighter regulation. Total non-interest income for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based PNC rose 12% to $2.23 billion, led by a 16% jump in capital markets and advisory fees. The lender's profit rose to $1.82 billion, or $4.35 per share, from $1.51 billion, or $3.49 per share, a year earlier. (Reporting by Ateev Bhandari in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)

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By David Lawder and Andrea Shalal WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. is close to finalizing a trade deal with South Korea, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Wednesday, telling reporters that he expected an announcement in the next 10 days. "We are about to finish up with Korea," Bessent told CNBC. "The devil's in the details, but we are ironing out the details." Bessent said U.S. and South Korean officials were meeting this week on the sidelines of the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington. Speaking to reporters later on Wednesday, Bessent said he believed disagreements with South Korea over promised investments could be resolved. "I'm sure the differences can be resolved. We are in discussions now, and I would expect something in the next 10 days," Bessent said. Asked if Treasury would support setting up a currency swap facility for South Korea, Bessent said that would be up to the Federal Reserve, but he was surprised it didn't already exist. "If I were Federal Reserve chair, and I'm not, Korea would already have a currency swap facility, as would Singapore." BOTH SIDES KEEN TO GET A DEAL U.S. and South Korean officials are keen to finalize a trade agreement before the end of October, when Seoul will host an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to attend the APEC summit and meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines. Seoul's top policy adviser Kim Yong-beom on Wednesday said the two countries had made "meaningful progress" in negotiations over $350 billion of investments that Seoul had pledged to make in the U.S. in exchange for reduced U.S. trade tariffs. The promise was made in a preliminary trade deal announced in July. In an interview with a YouTube channel, Kim said U.S. negotiators made a new proposal about how South Korea could implement the investment package, but gave no details. President Lee Jae Myung told Reuters last month that South Korea's economy could plunge into crisis rivaling its 1997 meltdown if the government accepted current U.S. demands in the trade talks without safeguards. (Reporting by David Lawder; Writing by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Paul Simao and Andrea Ricci)

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By Deepa Seetharaman (Reuters) -Artificial intelligence startup Anthropic has overhauled its smallest AI model, Haiku, as companies increasingly opt for AI systems that are nearly as capable as the most advanced tools – but come at a fraction of the cost. Anthropic said on Wednesday that the updated model, called Haiku 4.5, is about one-third the cost of Sonnet 4, one of its medium-sized models, and one-fifteenth the cost of its most advanced offering, Opus. The new Haiku model performs as well or better than Sonnet 4 on a range of tasks, including coding.   Traditional companies outside of Silicon Valley are more likely to use AI if they have cheaper, yet still capable models to try, Mike Krieger, the company’s chief product officer, said in an interview. It also makes it easier for firms to add more AI to their internal systems that might be used by hundreds or thousands of employees, he added. “Often, there’s a lot of scale to that,” Krieger said. “Small models really help because they can be a more economical way of deploying into that.”   The vast majority – about 80% – of the company’s revenue comes from companies, an Anthropic spokesperson said, adding that it has more than 300,000 enterprise customers that use Anthropic tools internally, for products or both.  Anthropic's annual revenue run rate – a calculation of annual revenue extrapolated from the current sales pace – is almost $7 billion, the spokesperson said. Anthropic also draws revenue from people who pay to use Anthropic’s chatbot, Claude.   San Francisco-based Anthropic, last valued at $183 billion, was formed in 2021 by a group of former OpenAI employees. Its models go toe-to-toe with those of its more famous counterpart. This is the first time in about a year that Anthropic has updated its smallest model, Krieger said.   In the earliest days of the modern AI boom, executives at companies like Anthropic and OpenAI tended to talk up their most powerful and capable AI systems. Such systems can cost $100 million or more to train and need a lot of computing power to respond to customer queries or requests.  But many customers balk at the computational costs of using the best models. So in response, AI companies have had to think small. It is possible to use the different models in tandem, Krieger said. Some companies rely on the most advanced models to set strategy or make plans, but outsource the grunt work to smaller models that can search the Web and synthesize information.  (Reporting by Deepa Seetharaman in San Francisco; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

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By Jody Godoy (Reuters) -A group of U.S. states said they may seek to block Hewlett-Packard Enterprise's $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks and have asked a judge for permission to intervene in a case where the U.S. Department of Justice has proposed to settle and let the deal move forward. Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser and Democratic attorneys general from six other states and Washington, D.C. said in court papers on Tuesday that they want to probe what they called suspicious circumstances around the settlement.  "The public deserves transparency on what happened in this case and to ensure that high-ranking government officials follow the law during merger reviews, make decisions on the merits and are not influenced by politically connected lobbyists," Weiser said. Weiser, who was a DOJ antitrust attorney earlier in his career, is running for governor of Colorado in 2026. If U.S. District Judge Casey Pitts in San Jose, California allows the states to intervene, they could seek an order for the companies to pause integrating their businesses. Shortly after President Donald Trump took office in January, the DOJ sued to block the deal, alleging it would stifle competition and lead to only two companies – Cisco Systems and HPE – controlling more than 70% of the U.S. market for networking equipment. The DOJ agreed to drop its claims in June ahead of a scheduled trial in exchange for HPE agreeing to license some of Juniper's AI technology to competitors and sell off a unit that caters to small and mid-sized businesses. Last month, Colorado was among a group of states that called on Pitts to probe whether the deal addressed the DOJ's initial concerns about the deal and what role lobbyists with ties to the Trump administration played in the settlement. (Reporting by Jody Godoy in New York; Editing by Joe Bavier)

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By Jody Godoy (Reuters) -A group of U.S. states said they may seek to block Hewlett-Packard Enterprise's $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks and have asked a judge for permission to intervene in a case where the U.S. Department of Justice has proposed to settle and let the deal move forward. Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser and Democratic attorneys general from six other states and Washington, D.C. said in court papers on Tuesday that they want to probe what they called suspicious circumstances around the settlement.  "The public deserves transparency on what happened in this case and to ensure that high-ranking government officials follow the law during merger reviews, make decisions on the merits and are not influenced by politically connected lobbyists," Weiser said. Weiser, who was a DOJ antitrust attorney earlier in his career, is running for governor of Colorado in 2026. If U.S. District Judge Casey Pitts in San Jose, California allows the states to intervene, they could seek an order for the companies to pause integrating their businesses. Shortly after President Donald Trump took office in January, the DOJ sued to block the deal, alleging it would stifle competition and lead to only two companies – Cisco Systems and HPE – controlling more than 70% of the U.S. market for networking equipment. The DOJ agreed to drop its claims in June ahead of a scheduled trial in exchange for HPE agreeing to license some of Juniper's AI technology to competitors and sell off a unit that caters to small and mid-sized businesses. Last month, Colorado was among a group of states that called on Pitts to probe whether the deal addressed the DOJ's initial concerns about the deal and what role lobbyists with ties to the Trump administration played in the settlement. (Reporting by Jody Godoy in New York; Editing by Joe Bavier)

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By Isla Binnie NEW YORK (Reuters) -Leading asset manager Blackstone has launched a unit to channel more retirement funds globally into private market investments, a potentially multi-trillion-dollar opportunity in the United States alone, it said on Wednesday. The sector's ambitions to tap those savings received a boost in August when U.S. President Trump signed an executive order directing the Labor Secretary and Securities and Exchange Commission to make it easier for everyday savers to invest in alternative assets through popular 401(k) plans.     Alternative assets include private equity, private credit, cryptocurrency and real estate. The new unit will focus on forming partnerships and creating products for defined contribution plans, Blackstone said in a statement. These are plans employees and employers pay into, but that do not guarantee the saver will get more than they invested when they retire. The unit will be part of the private wealth business that the company says manages about $280 billion in assets. Advocates of increased retail investment in private assets say they will give more people access to potentially higher returns, while critics say they carry more risk and come with higher fees than the highly-regulated, publicly traded securities the 401(k) plans have traditionally favored. “For decades, the world’s biggest and most sophisticated institutional investors benefitted from the strong returns and diversification of investing in private markets," Blackstone president and Chief Operating Officer Jon Gray said in a statement. He said Blackstone aimed to be "the partner of choice for retirement solution providers". Blackstone said Heather von Zuben would head the new unit, moving from a role in charge of open-ended credit funds. Tom Nides, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and long-time Morgan Stanley banker before joining Blackstone, will be its chair. Paul Quinlan, who previously worked as Chief Financial Officer in Blackstone's real estate business, has been picked as head of the U.S. part of the business. Private markets firms, including Apollo and Blue Owl Capital, have struck partnerships with other asset managers to offer funds to the defined contribution market that mingle public and private investments. Americans held $9.3 trillion in 401(k) plans as of June 30, according to trade association the Investment Company Institute. (Reporting by Isla Binnie; editing by Barbara Lewis)

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RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) -Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Wednesday that Brazil and the U.S. will hold negotiation talks on tariffs on Thursday. Lula's remarks at an event in Rio de Janeiro followed a call between him and U.S. President Donald Trump last week in which Trump designated Secretary of State Marco Rubio to continue tariff negotiations with Brazilian officials. Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira and Rubio agreed on a meeting last week. Vieira and Brazilian technicians are in Washington preparing for Thursday's meeting, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. "Trump called me and I asked to have a conversation without formalities," Lula said. "Tomorrow we will have the negotiation talk." Brazilian markets have been closely watching potential developments after Brazil's exports suffered one of the highest tariff rates imposed by the United States. Lula and Trump have been at odds for months over the trial and conviction of Brazil's former president Jair Bolsonaro. Trump hiked a tariff on many Brazilian goods from 10% to 50% because of the case, which he called a "witch hunt." During last week's call, the Brazilian president asked Trump to remove the additional 40% tariff, according to a statement from the Lula's office. (Reporting by Rodrigo Viga Gaier and Lisandra Paraguassu; Additional reporting and Writing by Isabel Teles; Editing by Brendan O'Boyle and Sarah Morland)

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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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