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Two weeks ago, when SoftBank's SB Energy pulled the marketing of its giant IPO meant to find its even more giant data center, we wrote that "slowly the data center dream is turning into a nightmare" ("SB Energy Delays IPO Funding World's Largest Data Center Amid Investor Revolt, Public Outcry", Sep 22). Two days later we went a little further:

SB Energy is next and then it's all over

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 24, 2026

"All over" may be premature. "Next," however, has arrived right on schedule.

Overnight, Bloomberg reported that Australian data center operator Firmus closed the books on its struggling IPO "without clear indication of the price or the deal structure," as investors grew "increasingly concerned that the deal could be pulled."

The Nvidia-backed company had been trying to raise as much as $5.5 billion at A$11 a share, which valued it at A$43.7 billion ($30.4 billion) and would have made it one of the largest listings in Australian history. By the time the books closed, the A$11 was gone: per the Australian Financial Review via Reuters Breakingviews, Firmus cut the price to as low as A$8, a 25% haircut, and was "scrambling" to hold it at A$8.25.

How's the SB Energy IPO going?

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 8, 2026

Put differently, the second mega data center IPO in a month has just hit the same wall as the first. This time the wall came with a twist, and that twist is why this story belongs in our long-running coverage of the debt holding up the AI supercycle.

Below we explain how Firmus got from a $5.5 billion private valuation to a $30 billion IPO in six months, why the "creative" valuation metric failed to sell it, and why at the reduced price the equity is worth less than the debt.

Books Closed, Price... TBD

The cracks were visible before the books closed. On Wednesday evening Goldman's Sydney futures desk wrote in its morning comment that "the AFR reports bankers managing the IPO of Firmus are considering a potential cut in the listing price because of weak demand from foreign investors." Within hours that "consideration" was a 25% cut.

Equity investors with direct exposure did not wait around. Shares of Firmus backer Maas Group fell as much as 30% in Sydney, the most on record, which prompted the company to note "significant market speculation and commentary" about whether the IPO would go ahead. Meanwhile Plato, an Australian fund manager running about $6 billion, called Firmus a "screaming short", citing 30 "red flags" ranging from valuation to senior management.

Ten Cap's Jun Bei Liu summed up the bookbuild on Bloomberg TV:

"I've never seen an IPO so polarizing. There was a lot of international investor interest, however, when it comes to the crunch, the demand seems like it isn't there when they were asked to put up the capital that's required."

Translation: everyone loves AI infrastructure until they are asked to pay for it.

For the record, the bookbuild was pulled forward from Friday to Thursday just three days ago because of "early indications of demand in excess of the offer size." That's the same "oversubscribed" (just as the Paramount bond deal had over $100 billion in "demand" and its bonds are now crashing every day) deal now negotiating with itself over A$0.25 a share.

From $5.5 Billion To $30 Billion In Six Months

The rerating is the whole story. Firmus started out as a Bitcoin mining operation in 2019. In February it landed a $10 billion debt package led by Blackstone and Coatue. In April a Coatue-led round valued it at $5.5 billion. In August a $2 billion round with Nvidia, Coatue, Blackstone and Jane Street nearly doubled that to $10.5 billion. Then, less than two months later, the IPO asked public investors for three times the August price.

Behind that price tag, according to Breakingviews, Firmus has so far built just 42 megawatts of capacity out of a pipeline of about 1 gigawatt, or just over 4%. It recently shifted away from a mostly domestic partnership with CDC Data Centres toward Malaysia and Indonesia, to serve hyperscalers such as OpenAI and Meta. Per Reuters, the draft prospectus forecast a $77 million loss in the first half of FY27 and no forecasts at all beyond June 2027.

Australian fund managers were less than impressed. Morningstar's Lochlan Halloway saw signs of a "boom phase," pointing to the "wild increase in valuation in such a short period of time." Merlon's Kirit Hara said his process "prevents us from effectively buying into, kind of, the hopes and dreams." Katana's Romano Sala Tenna admitted "we are struggling with the fundamental arithmetic," and Blackwattle's Joseph Koh, who will not bid, put it more simply: "There are so many unknowns."

Introducing "EV+1/EBIT+2"

When the arithmetic doesn't work, you change the arithmetic. As Breakingviews' Antony Currie explains, the deal leaned on a new valuation tool, "EV+1/EBIT+2." It takes enterprise value using the net debt the company will have in 12 months and divides it by the EBIT it hopes to earn two years from now. 

The logic is that data center developers fund up to 90% of construction with debt and can start generating revenue within a year, so today's numbers flatter nobody. The problem, as Currie notes, is that the metric is "easy to manipulate." Capex assumptions can be inflated to pump up EV, and any delay in permits, equipment, power or water means "EV+1 becomes +2 or +3, with EBIT delayed to +3, +4 or beyond." 

This is pure batshit insanity, and shows just how big the AI bubble has become for a company to realistically think that such "vibes" garbage can be credibly used an investment highlight for institutional investors. 

Regular readers know how that goes: Project Jupiter declared force majeure and Oracle's 1.3GW Wisconsin "Lighthouse" campus slipped earlier this week, so "+1" is the optimistic case. Then again, nothing says "mature asset class" like a valuation multiple whose denominator is two years in the future.

Half The Deal To... The Existing Shareholders

A second detail also spooked buyers. Firmus planned to allocate about half of the IPO to "selected existing strategic and financial investors", a list that includes Nvidia, Coatue, Blackstone and Jane Street. At the same time, pre-IPO holders could reportedly sell up to 20% of their stakes from day one. Bloomberg says this overhang was what turned potential investors cautious, on top of "what some investors see as an aggressive pricing strategy."

Then there is where the money goes. IPO proceeds would fund purchases of Nvidia GPUs for Firmus' first project in Batam, Indonesia, built with DayOne as part of an eight-year partnership with Nvidia. In other words, Nvidia invests in Firmus, Firmus raises money partly from its own backers, and the money goes back to Nvidia for chips. We have seen this kind of Nvidia circular financing before, just never quite this small.

One more detail: the four joint lead managers are Bank of America, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and Morgans. That would explain the absence of sell-side research on the deal from three of the largest research shops in the world.

When The Equity Is Worth Less Than The Debt

This is where the deal stops being an IPO story and becomes a credit story. As one reader put it in a reply to our tweet, "At that point an AI data centre stops being a growth stock and starts being a credit."

The napkin math is simple, and alarming. Morningstar estimates Firmus' debt at about $30 billion, roughly six times its own forecast earnings. At A$11 the equity was worth about $30.4 billion, so the company was valued at about one dollar of equity for every dollar of debt. At A$8.25, and assuming the same share count, it is worth roughly A$33 billion, or about $23 billion, some $7 billion less than the debt it carries. At A$8 it is $22 billion.

In other words, at the price the bankers are now "scrambling" to defend, the shareholders' stake would be worth less than what Firmus owes its lenders, before the stock trades for a single day. That is a leveraged credit with an equity ticker, and it lands at the worst possible moment for AI credit, which we summarized yesterday afternoon:

Credit remains the big story: here everything is falling apart. 1. Oracle bond yields, CDS record high 2. SpaceX bonds new all time low/YTW high 3. Bond behind Meta's Hyperion data center (proj Beignet) hit record low 4. Paramount CDS trading at financial crisis levels https://t.co/bxEqe8IQFw

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 7, 2026

Throw in 10Y Treasury yields that hit 5.36% on Wednesday, a 24-year high, per the same Goldman Sydney note, and the cost of carrying $30 billion of data center debt only goes one way.

SB Energy, Then Firmus... Then Who?

Firmus is the second data center mega-IPO to stumble in three weeks. SoftBank-backed SB Energy postponed marketing its IPO in late September after more SEC questions and investor pushback on a valuation of around $60 billion, and on its dependence on a single customer, OpenAI. Nvidia had agreed to guarantee up to $105 billion to help OpenAI lease SB Energy's Ohio data center, while also investing $1.5 billion in SB Energy itself. Back then we asked the obvious question:

Is it a coincidence that the 2 key data centers of OpenAI's Stargate are suddenly on the ropes? Project Jupiter (4.5GW) loans trading < 90, major delays... SB Energy (8GW) delaying IPO, major delays. Without these two DCs having clear timeline/funding, OpenAI can just cancel IPO

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 23, 2026

And the line behind them is long. Singapore's DayOne, which also happens to be Firmus' partner in Batam, wants to raise up to $5 billion at a $20 billion valuation in a US listing as soon as November. Switch has filed confidentially, Vantage and CyrusOne are exploring listings, and London's Nscale just raised $3.36 billion in pre-IPO convertibles. As Shenton Research's Ke Yan told Reuters, "the dividing line is whether demand is contracted and already energised, or only planned." Firmus, with 42MW built against a gigawatt pipeline, is firmly on the "planned" side of that line.

Goldman: $1 Trillion Of AI Spending... And Everyone Hiding In The Mag 7

None of this means the AI spending boom is slowing. Goldman's Global Corporate Access team flagged in Wednesday's IR Kick-Start (available to pro subs) that GS Research now estimates global AI investment will exceed $1 trillion this year, with the US and Asia accounting for more than 80% of net data center additions (Europe gets about 10%).

The question was never whether the money gets spent. It's who funds it, and at what price. Goldman's Asia sales desk answered part of that overnight in "Power Back On" (also available to pro subs): hedge funds have "certainly re-engaged in tech as a result of macro uncertainty," with net exposure to the Mag 7 as a share of total US exposure on GS' prime book at ~22%, the highest since the start of 2022.

Put differently, investors still want AI, but they want it through companies with balance sheets that can fund a trillion dollars of capex, not through a 42-megawatt former Bitcoin miner levered six times its forecast earnings. The same GS desk notes that "the positioning within AI and large-cap tech no longer seem to be tailwinds," which means the crowd is all on one side of the boat, and it's not the side Firmus is on.

Bottom Line

This week, Mike Novogratz told the Greenwich Economic Forum that AI is the "biggest bubble of our lifetime," but that it can't burst yet because it "isn't spectacular enough" (which we discussed earlier). Ray Dalio disagreed and speaking at a CEO conference in Singapore, called it a "classic bubble" nearing its bursting point because of rising rates and the debt behind AI infrastructure.

We side with Dalio, and the reason is the IPO window. Bubbles don't end when the bulls run out of narrative; they end when the marginal buyer refuses to take paper off the hands of the early investors at the asking price. That has now happened twice in three weeks, first with SB Energy and now with Firmus. Each time the issue was the same: too much debt, too little contracted revenue, and existing backers looking for an exit.

Having warned since October 2025 that AI is a debt bubble too, something that virtually everyone - even the WSJ - now accepts, we'll allow ourselves another prediction: when the equity cushion under a data center is smaller than the debt, the equity investors stop pricing a growth story, and it becomes the bondholders' problem. Just ask Oracle's lenders.

Firmus is scheduled to lodge its prospectus on October 12 and start trading on October 23, assuming there is still a deal. We'll see whether the "+1" in EV+1 refers to years, or to the number of IPOs that follow it into the wall.

Much more in the full Goldman "Power Back On" and "IR Kick-Start" notes, both available to pro subs.

Ukrainian drones have hit a major Russian industrial hub and oil refinery which lies very far away from the front lines of fighting, in Western Siberia, north of the Kazakh border.

The Omsk Oil refinery and industrial complex is located well over 1500 miles from the Ukrainian border. Regional Governor Vitaly Khotsenko announced Telegram that several drones were shot down by air defenses, but that one made it through to impact.

Ukraine's General Staff was quick to own up to the Thursday attack, stating, "The destruction of such facilities is the exercise by Ukraine of its inalienable right to self-defense in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter and is aimed at reducing the military-economic potential of the Russian Federation."

While the extent of potential damage to the refinery itself remains unknown, images from local residents showed explosions and fire in the area near the oil refinery.

Emergency crews are active at the scene of the facility, Russia's largest, which is owned by Gazprom Neft

8 October 2026: Multiple channels report a sustained Ukrainian long-range drone attack on Russia’s largest oil refinery in Omsk, with 15 or more explosions so far. The governor confirms an ongoing drone attack in the region. Gazprom Neft’s refinery can process about 22 million tonnes annually, roughly 440,000 barrels per day, or about 1/15th of Russia’s total refining capacity. #OSINT #Russia

— OSINT Intuit™ (@UKikaski) October 8, 2026

The same remote refinery was forced to halt operations when it came under a similar long-range drone attack previously in July. Bloomberg provides some additional details:

• In a separate statement, Ukrainian drone maker Fire Point said Ukraine’s forces attacked Russia’s largest oil refinery, over 2,500 km from the border, with upgraded FP-1 drones, confirming a hit 
• Omsk refinery, owned by Gazprom Neft, processed ~22m tons of crude (~440k b/d) in 2024, producing 5m tons of gasoline and 8m tons of diesel.

Some regional reports have said that motorists in the same city have been forming long queues at gas stations, amid what has already been a situation of national fuel shortages.

Ukraine reportedly struck Russia’s Omsk oil refinery, located beyond the Ural Mountains, more than 3,000 km from the Ukrainian border. It is Russia’s largest oil refinery. https://t.co/cY6xGxqSHY

— Clash Report (@clashreport) October 8, 2026

Russian Data Center Attacked in First of War

Also, in the overnight hours there's been another reported first of the war: Russian tech giant Yandex has reported its data center in the town of Sasovo, in Ryazan region, was attacked and caught fire.

"The attack marks the first confirmed strike against Russian data infrastructure since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, weeks after Moscow launched attacks against Ukrainian data centers," The Moscow Times underscores. 

Russia has itself long been going after data centers in Ukraine, however. The Kremlin has argued that these data centers support Ukrainian military operations, with the same accusations now being hurled the other way as well. 

According to more from the same publication:

NASA’s fire monitoring service FIRMS showed a fire in Sasovo early Thursday morning. Outage tracking platform Downdetector recorded more than 1,300 user reports of disruptions affecting Yandex Cloud, Yandex Documents and Yandex Tables, while core consumer tools like search and taxi services remained online.

Yandex shares dropped more than 3.4% during Thursday morning trading on the Moscow Exchange.

A key element of Ukraine's drone warfare strategy is to keep hammering away at Russian energy and industrial infrastructure in hopes of devastating the economy amid US-led sanctions, in order to ultimately force President Putin to the negotiating table on terms acceptable to Kiev and the West.

Mass Civilian Casualties in Ukraine

The Kremlin has of late made known that it would increasingly targeted Ukrainian civilian infrastructure as a result of Kiev forces doing the same in Russian territory with its nightly drone assaults.

This has already had tragic effect amid mass casualty events this week. The NY Times writes Thursday, "At least 30 people were killed in a Russian strike on a commuter bus in the country’s east, officials said, a day after an attack on an apartment building far behind the combat zone killed 22."

Moscow has not commented on these alleged attacks. "Images posted by local prosecutors showed the burning metal shell of the bus along with debris and some of the victims on the road," BBC also reports. It happened mid-morning and appears to have involved an aerial bomb dropped on a bus stop.

Far from being closer to some kind of US-mediated peace talks that President Trump is hoping for, the tit-for-tat strikes are getting nastier as the war continues to spiral. Ukraine's President Zelensky is vowing revenge.

Speaking of the killings in the Donbass region, Zelensky said: "This strike will not go without our response." He said further on Telegram: "Russia is trying to destroy all life in Donbas, and the world needs to react to this. React harshly - exactly as the Russians deserve for all the deaths they have caused."

Chipotle Mexican Grill shares jumped in the early US cash session after a Financial Times report said Starbucks has explored acquiring the Mexican-style quick-service food chain.

FT says Starbucks executives have worked with advisers in recent months on a takeover proposal for Chipotle, which has a market value of nearly $41.3 billion. The report is based on people familiar with the potential transaction, but no formal offer has been submitted.

Marrying the two chains would combine businesses that generated nearly $50 billion in sales last year. Starbucks operates about 41,000 owned and licensed stores worldwide, while nearly all of Chipotle's 4,200 restaurants are in the US.

One of the biggest potential benefits would be combining Starbucks' global reach with Chipotle's restaurant model, giving the group more ways to grow beyond coffee and breakfast sandwiches on the international level. 

Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol has been working on a turnaround strategy for the chain since taking the helm in September 2024. He previously headed up Chipotle from 2018 to 2024 and held executive roles at Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and Procter & Gamble.

Chipotle's shares have plunged 39% since Niccol left the chain.

Meanwhile, Starbucks shares have traded mostly flat since September 2024.

Market action this morning: Chipotle surged up to 8.6% in New York, while Starbucks tumbled up to 6.7%.

FT noted, "A potential takeover of Chipotle would eclipse Burger King's $11.4bn acquisition of Canadian coffee-and-doughnut chain Tim Hortons in 2014." 

Any credible turnaround plan for Starbucks should include automation and robotics ...

... to replace this ... 

... and this. 

New name for the potential marriage ... Chipotbucks? 

In the last 24 hours, the Trump administration has announced three major efforts to crack down on foreign worker/student visa fraud.

First, US ?Vice President JD Vance ?said on Thursday that the ?federal government is suspending tech giant Microsoft from a program to apply for green cards for workers who come to the U.S. to live and work using an H-1B visa as it accuses the company of fraud.

“If you do the math, for every worker that Microsoft laid off, they replaced that worker with one and a half foreign indentured servants,” said Vice President JD Vance in a White House news conference announcing the decision.

Secretary of Labor Keith ?Sonderling added that some of ?the largest ?IT firms ?in the ?world would also be suspended ?from that ?program, including Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCO and Capgemini, as well ?as Adobe.

Microsoft did not immediately respond to ?a request for comment.

Second, the Trump administration is going after nine elite universities on suspicion of visa fraud, accusing them of unlawfully benefiting financially from hiring and admitting foreign nationals.

Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Brown, the University of Pittsburgh, UC Davis, Caltech, Arizona State, and MIT are under examination by federal investigators, Vice President JD Vance announced Thursday, suggesting the schools are exploiting the J-1 visa program to import cheaper students from overseas and skirt employment obligations to US citizens.

“Something weird is going on at these universities,” said Vance.

“They’re using these visas way too much. They’re using them to undercut the wages of American grad students and American researchers, and it simply has to stop.”

The Labor Department is establishing a visa fraud strike team as part of the probe and subpoenas have already been sent to the schools.

“Nobody will be getting a free pass because their name is carved into an expensive building,” said Labor Department watchdog Anthony D’Esposito, who reported that 61% of post-grad students at US universities come from overseas.

“American taxpayers send billions of dollars to these universities to support research and innovation. They deserve to know where that money is be, where is going, and whether it’s being used lawfully.”

And finally, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is considering a new rule that would impose major fees for foreign students seeking to work in the United States.

The proposed rule, announced by the Trump administration on Oct. 7, would require colleges and universities to pay a $70,000 fee for each nonimmigrant student applying to participate in the Optional Practical Training program.

The program authorizes foreign students to temporarily work in the United States in jobs related to their field of study either during or after their time in school.

As Timothy Frudd reports further for The Epoch Times, the new proposal comes after the Trump administration was blocked last month from implementing limitations on F-1 visas, which allow nonimmigrant students to live and study in the United States.

DHS said Wednesday that the proposed rule is intended to reduce the influx of cheap labor into the United States, curb fraud and abuse, protect American workers, and strengthen the integrity of the immigration system.

"Optional Practical Training was never meant to be a back door into the American workforce, a subsidy for cheap labor, or a prize for those who game the system," a DHS spokesperson said in a statement.

"DHS is upskilling OPT to require foreign students to justify their worth to employers. American workers should not have to compete against a program that has been turned into a pipeline for cheap foreign labor."

In addition to the initial $70,000 fee for each nonimmigrant student participating in the optional practical training program, colleges and universities would also be required to pay a $30,000 fee for each renewal or extension of the program's authorization for students.

Under the program, F-1 nonimmigrant students are required to receive a recommendation from a designated school official before applying for employment authorization with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Students participating in the program are typically eligible to work in the United States for one year after graduation.

However, some students with degrees in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics are eligible to work for an additional two years.

More than 294,000 foreign students participated in the optional practical training program during the 2024-2025 academic year, according to the President's Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration.

In Wednesday's announcement, DHS said it was proposing the new rule in response to fraud and abuse discovered by the Student and Exchange Visitor Program.

As the program has expanded, schools, officials, employers, and F-1 nonimmigrant students have attempted to exploit regulations, including "problematic worksites and 'pay-to-stay' visa schemes," according to DHS.

The department suggested the fees would encourage colleges and universities to employ additional oversight and be more selective of students recommended for the training program.

In response, Fanta Aw, CEO of nonprofit NAFSA: Association of International Educators, said in a statement that the program provides foreign students with the opportunity to have hands-on experience.

She said international students involved in the program also fill labor shortages in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics fields.

"Imposing this new fee structure on Optional Practical Training is the latest in a series of developments that creates deep uncertainty for international students," Aw said.

"Driving away the talents, perspectives, and aspirations of international students will only hurt American innovation, economic growth, workforce development, and global leadership."

A federal judge blocked another Trump administration rule on Sept. 14 that would limit students on F-1 visas to four years in the United States before requiring them to seek approval from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to stay longer.

DHS said the limitation on F-1 visas was needed to address national security risks, including foreign spying at universities in the United States.

Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, who blocked the Trump administration from implementing the law while a legal challenge moved forward in court, said DHS did not explain how the rule would deter future spying or acts of sabotage.

In May 2025, the Trump administration attempted to revoke Harvard University's certification to enroll foreign students under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program.

Harvard responded by suing the administration, and a federal judge blocked the government from preventing the university from enrolling foreign students through the program.

Last week NANO Nuclear bought the license to handle the back end of the fuel cycle. This week, the front end showed up in a cylinder.

On Thursday morning, LIS Technologies (LIST), the privately held laser enrichment company in which NANO Nuclear (NNE) is a shareholder and strategic partner, announced that it has accepted its first shipment of uranium hexafluoride (UF6) at its Demonstration Test Loop facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, on the footprint of the former K-25 gaseous diffusion plant, a cornerstone of the Manhattan Project. In other words, uranium is back at K-25, only this time it's going in front of a laser.

It's a milestone that matters well beyond a private startup's press release, because, as we explained in "NANO Nuclear Buys The One Thing You Can't Speed Up: A Fuel-Cycle License" last week, NANO is quietly assembling something no other microreactor developer has: an end-to-end domestic fuel chain, from enrichment to deconversion to fabrication to transport to reactor. Today, the enrichment link went from slideware to "licensed material on site."

What Actually Happened

The UF6 will feed LIST's CRISLA-4G process (Chemical Reaction by Isotope Selective Laser Activation), a patented technique that uses infrared lasers to selectively excite molecules of the desired uranium isotope so they can be separated from the rest. LIST says the shipment lets it begin proof-of-concept testing, process optimization, materials qualification, UF6 systems commissioning and integrated loop testing.

COO Lloyd Jollay noted the shipment arrived "in just under a year" after LIST received its Radioactive Material License from the State of Tennessee (Dec 23, 2025), and added a detail that says a lot about the state of the US fuel supply chain: the shipment required developing a new process with LIST's supplier, because the quantity was smaller than what the industry normally moves. When the system has to invent a procedure just to ship less uranium, you know it was built for a handful of giant customers and nobody else.

President and co-founder Christo Liebenberg laid out the next step:

"Over the past 2 years, LIST has worked to engineer and integrate all of its proprietary laser enrichment hardware. This UF6 feedstock will enable us to optimize our laser enrichment process in the coming months and mature the technology to a Technology Readiness Level 5 on the nine-level scale used by the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Energy to assess technology maturity."

Translation: the hardware is built, the uranium is in the building, and the next few months are about proving the laser separates isotopes the way the patents say it does. TRL 5 means component validation in a relevant environment. It is not a commercial plant (that's TRL 9), and LIST's own fine print says it can only make realistic economic predictions after a Phase 2 pilot plant. But every enrichment technology that has ever worked had to pass through exactly this stage, and most of the would-be US enrichers are still well short of it.

The Bigger Plan: "LIST Island" And Project F.U.E.L.

The test loop is the appetizer: Executive Chairman and CEO Jay Yu (who is also NANO's founder) tied today's shipment to LIST's flagship commercial site on the 206-acre "LIST Island" in the heart of the K-25 zone, the base for what the company calls Project F.U.E.L.

The numbers behind it are not small. In January, LIST announced plans to invest $1.38 billion in a commercial-scale laser enrichment plant in Oak Ridge, after buying the former Duct Island for $8 million and closing a 240% oversubscribed $17 million round that took total capital raised to roughly $64 million. Groundbreaking is targeted for 2026, subject to licensing and permitting, with initial commercial operations targeted before 2030, which, not coincidentally, is right when Goldman expects the uranium supply deficit to bite (more below).

For context on how fast things are moving: LIST's seed round in August 2024 raised $11.88 million. NANO wrote a $2 million check into it. Two years later, the company has a state license, a site, a nine-figure plant plan and its first uranium. That is not how the nuclear industry usually measures time.

Why NANO Shareholders Should Care

NANO doesn't own LIST outright, but the two are joined at the hip: they are related parties through common ownership and shared officers and directors, and under their November 2024 collaboration agreement, LIST is NANO's preferred supplier of enriched UF6. More interesting is the economic structure the two laid out at the time: the parties intend that LIST will provide NANO with enriched UF6 at no cost, to be fabricated and sold to customers, with LIST compensated through a profit-sharing arrangement still to be agreed.

And here's the part the market seems to keep missing. Under that same agreement, NANO's job was to build the "supportive capabilities" on either side of LIST's enrichment: deconversion and fuel fabrication. Which is exactly what NANO went out and bought last week, when it paid $13.5 million for the NRC-licensed Radnostix deconversion site near Hobbs, NM.

Put the two announcements side by side and the plan comes into focus:

• Enrichment: LIST's CRISLA-4G laser process, now running on real UF6 in Oak Ridge (today), with Enveniam as lead integrator for the commercial plant (Sep 5).
• Deconversion and fluorine recovery: the 40-year NRC license in Lea County, NM, acquired last week.
• Fuel supply and fabrication: the HALEU Energy Fuel subsidiary.
• Transport: Secured Transportation Services, the $13M acquisition that made NANO revenue-generating overnight.
• Reactors: KRONOS at UIUC, where the NRC has begun its technical review of the construction permit, plus ZEUS and the space-focused LOKI.

Here is the map we drew last week. As of this morning, the enrichment box at the top has something in it:

Regular readers will recall that NANO's own pitch put the logic best back in May: "what good is a fancy new car if there's no gas stations to fill it?" Last week NANO bought a licensed place to handle the exhaust. Today the gas station got its first delivery of gas.

Why Enrichment Is The Choke Point

None of this would matter if fuel were easy. It isn't. As DOE Deputy Secretary James Danly put it recently, "If we are going to have this nuclear renaissance, we are not going to be able to do it without fuel." The US has exactly one commercial enrichment plant (Urenco's Eunice facility, 30 miles from NANO's new New Mexico site), the Russian import ban waivers expire in January 2028, and SWU prices are sitting at all-time highs.

Goldman's clean energy strategist Brian Lee made the same point in his note on the $120 billion US-Korea reactor package last week, warning that the eight new large reactors are "likely to further exacerbate the anticipated uranium supply deficit in the 2030 time frame" (full note available to pro subs). That's eight gigawatt-scale reactors' worth of new enrichment demand landing on a Western supply chain that is already short before a single SMR is switched on.

Goldman's own uranium supply/demand math shows exactly where the trigger point sits: after raising its demand forecast to account for SMRs (while leaving production unchanged), the bank's U3O8 demand line breaks above supply in 2026-27 and never looks back, with the gap blowing out after 2030 as mine supply peaks and then rolls over. By the mid-2040s demand is roughly triple supply.

Which is also why Washington is throwing money at the problem. In January, DOE handed out $900 million each to Centrus' American Centrifuge Operating, General Matter and Orano, plus $28 million to Global Laser Enrichment. LIST, despite being one of the six companies selected for DOE's LEU Enrichment Acquisition Program in December 2024, got nothing in that round. Getting real UF6 into a real laser loop is the most direct way to change that the next time the checkbook opens.

What Could Go Wrong

• Lasers have a history. The US already spent billions on laser enrichment once: the government's AVLIS program was shelved in 1999 when USEC pulled the plug. GE-Hitachi's SILEX-based Global Laser Enrichment has been at it for over a decade and still isn't commercial. CRISLA is a different (molecular, lower-power) approach, but "laser enrichment is around the corner" has been said before.
• TRL 5 is the middle, not the end. The Phase 2 pilot plant, NRC licensing for a commercial facility and the $1.38 billion financing all still lie ahead, and LIST is pre-revenue.
• Related-party optics. Common ownership and shared directors between NANO and LIST will invite scrutiny of the eventual profit-sharing terms. The 2024 deal was approved by NANO's independent directors, but the market will want to see the final economics.

Bottom Line

Jay Yu summed up LIST's goal this morning as becoming "a world leader in cost-effective and energy-efficient enrichment." That's still a promise. But a week ago NANO's enrichment link was a license and a test loop with no uranium in it. Today it has feedstock, and NANO has a licensed site waiting at the other end of the chain.

We have argued for years that modular, behind-the-meter reactors are the only real long-term answer to AI's insatiable power demand, and that whoever controls the fuel will collect the rent long after the reactor startups finish raising money. NANO, it seems, read the same memo: while most of its peers are still waiting in line for fuel, NANO is building the line. With the stock still trading like a single-reactor story, we suspect the market will figure that out (later rather than sooner, as usual).

The next test: LIST's optimization results over the "coming months" and whether it hits TRL 5. We'll be watching.

King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh has come under Houthi attack once again on Thursday, and may have suffered a hit, as eyewitnesses have told Reuters of smoke rising from an aircraft at the major travel hub in the Saudi capital. Some new, unverified shocking images emerging...

??BREAKING: Footage Confirms Yemen Destroyed A Saudi Aircraft At Riyadh International Airport The incident has caused airlines around the world to cancel flights to the Saudi capital. Yemen is imposing a no-fly zone in retaliation for attacks on its civilian population. https://t.co/NydL1KtCqa

— MintPress News (@MintPressNews) October 8, 2026

Witnesses were also cited in The Associates Press as having heard "several explosions" - after which an urgent evacuation notice was given.

The Houthis in Yemen have been going after airports as well as Aramco oil facilities. In two separate attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday, the kingdom's Abha International Airport and King Khalid International Airport were targeted by Houthi missiles.

The AP details of the Thursday flight stoppage in Riyadh as follows:

King Khalid International Airport “closed again,” the Flightradar24 monitor said Thursday afternoon on X not long after the blasts. “Last landing 80+ minutes ago. Last take off 90+ minutes ago.”

Fire and ambulance crews deployed and smoke was visible, the witness said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The witness said outgoing flights were halted and passengers were instructed to leave checked-in luggage behind and evacuate. It was not immediately clear how many flights were disrupted.

Footage shows a massive plume of smoke rising from King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It is now the most disrupted airport in the world, Ansarallah ballistic missile attacks are becoming a daily occurrence. https://t.co/JwD3ouVNd6

— MoloMonitor ???? (@MoloWarMonitor) October 8, 2026

The prior 72 hours has seen three civilians killed and 36 injured in Houthi-claimed attacks across Saudi Arabia. "An Egyptian and an Algerian national were killed at Abha airport, and a Sudanese national was killed at the airport in Riyadh, the agency said, with 36 people wounded in the attacks," Middle East Eye details.

 

On Thursday, Saudi-led coalition spokesman Turki al-Maliki said his forces intercepted and destroyed a pair of Houthi ballistic missiles on Riyadh and towards Khamis Mushait.

As for the latest airport attack, which has reportedly shut down the international hub, the Houthis are claiming responsibility and say there was a direct hit and damage, while Saudi authorities have remained silent in the initial hours.

All of this, plus last evening's headlines that President Trump is mulling a new bombing raid on Iran possibly before the November midterm elections, has pushed oil prices higher throughout the Thursday morning hours...

Over in Yemen, fighting has intensified in the Taiz region and in rural areas. Al Jazeera details:

Fighting is raging in al-Shamayatayn, al-Maafer and the southern and western countryside of Taiz governorate.

The Houthis are pushing into rural areas that have not seen conflict for years, aiming to open a supply route because their lines towards al-Kadaha and al-Waziiya, which link Aden, Lahij and Taiz, are nearly cut off by advancing government forces.

Those forces are moving towards al-Waziiya and the Kahboub Mountains overlooking Bab al-Mandeb.

Government forces expected a dangerous escalation over the next 48 hours after the defense minister said Houthi-held areas will be recaptured soon. Government forces reported more than 2,000 operations, including attacks, supply line cuts, repelled attacks and territory retaken.

The three deaths reported by the Saudis on Wednesday are the first civilian deaths reported in the kingdom since the conflict with the Houthis was renewed several weeks ago.

Saudis have issues a Travel Alert for King Khalid airport in Riyadh. After Houthis struck a Parked aircraft. The airport has nearly shutdown with most flights now being canceled! https://t.co/BglBkTeRXA

— Ali (@MerruX) October 8, 2026

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is likely going to press allies harder to join the counteroffensive against the Houthis in Yemen, after Pakistan and Turkey have announced defense assistance based on the Mecca Defense Pact.

Iran has significantly widened its maritime operations by shifting attacks beyond the narrow confines of the Strait of Hormuz into the broader waters of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Over a recent 24-hour window, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) may have struck two commercial ships outside traditional chokepoints, including a vessel off Qatar, as well as a Very Large Crude Carrier near the United Arab Emirates. The latter instance has less confirmation at this point.

This escalation indicates a tactical shift, given the IRGC is no longer waiting for vessels to explicitly violate its designated maritime enforcement corridors. Instead, any ship suspected of trying to bypass Iranian blockades now faces active targeting across the entire regional waterway. This at least is what Tehran is likely seeking to demonstrate to Washington and its Gulf allies, and comes after record numbers of vessels have been making it through so far this month under US naval watch and protocol.

The first of these incidents, which was widely reported overnight and is now being given greater confirmation Thursday, occurred 51 nautical miles north of Madinat ash Shamal, Qatar. The vessel was struck multiple times, in what appears an effort to specifically to kill crew members. An unknown amount of casualties has been reported:

It said there were multiple casualties as a result of the attack. The extent of the casualties is unknown, however, in previous UKMTO warnings the word “casualties” has been used to describe seafarer deaths rather than injuries.

The Guardian details further of the unusual location of the attack:

The vessel was in the Gulf, about 500km (300 miles) west of the strait of Hormuz, when it reported being struck “by multiple projectiles”, the UK Maritime Trade Operations said on Wednesday. The UK authority did not specify the origin of the ship.

Wednesday’s attack comes as strikes on tankers sailing through the strait of Hormuz hit their ?highest weekly level since the Iran war began, according to maritime security firms, as oil prices climbed above $100 per barrel.

Oil Price writes, "A tanker has been struck by multiple projectiles north of Qatar’s tip in the first such attack deep within the Persian Gulf in nearly a month." Not only have drone and missile attacks on vessels picked up over the last nearly two weeks, but casualties as well.

"In the ?week to 5 October, there were at least 12 attacks ?on oil, liquefied natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas tankers around the strait, according to data from three security sources," continues The Guardian. "On Tuesday, India’s ?foreign ministry said 12 crew members were injured after an attack on a Panama-flagged oil tanker passing through the strait of Hormuz."

The second of these events, off UAE, has been less confirmed. Newsquawk notes:

Oil tanker assembly site reportedly explodes near UAE, Mizan reports; "Ocean sources reported the detection of a fire in the Gulf of Oman, approximately 30 nautical miles east of Fujairah"

And via DropSite News:

Possibly second vessel hit near UAE’s Fujairah bypass port.

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) October 8, 2026

Maritime and satellite open source channels have been observing a fire, with potential US military assets circling the area, at the below location:

If this second attack is confirmed, it marks a serious escalation in terms of Iran's efforts to extend its own blockade and 'answer' to so many ships getting through under the US Navy's protocol.

More Latest Regional Developments

via Newsquawk

• The White House has asked the Pentagon to develop strike options against Iranian targets that could be exercised ahead of the midterms, according to two administration officials. The planning underscores just how much the president wants to reduce gas prices and demonstrate progress in the conflict before the vote. The Atlantic
• The US military has been ordered to be ready for possible Iran strikes as President Trump weighs the timing, with the Pentagon said to have instructed CENTCOM several days ago to conclude preparations for resuming major combat operations in Iran; any campaign is expected to be a joint US-Israeli one including large bombing of Iranian energy, infrastructure and nuclear targets. Axios
• US President Trump stated that he doesn't think an Iran deal is something he wants to do. It was separately reported that Trump said the Iranians are ready to offer us anything to stop what's happening, even though an agreement with them is not the option he truly wants, while Trump was also reported to say that Witkoff is now working on reaching an agreement with Iran and is making very good progress, according to Al Jazeera.
• The US military has been ordered to be ready for possible Iran strikes as President Trump weighs the timing, with the Pentagon said to have instructed US CENTCOM several days ago to conclude preparations for resuming major combat operations in Iran, according to Axios. The directive didn't include a specific date for launching strikes and President Trump hasn't made any final decisions, although US and Israeli sources said it could happen before the US midterm election. Furthermore, it was stated that if major combat operations resume, they are likely to be a joint US and Israeli campaign and expected to include large bombing of Iranian energy, infrastructure and nuclear targets.
• US President Trump and his national security team have discussed possibly resuming large-scale US military operations in Iran in the coming weeks, including the option of launching strikes before the midterm elections next month, according to NBC.
• The US is stepping up preparations and has completed operational plans in case President Trump orders strikes against Iran, i24 News reported citing sources. The report added that forces at Fort Bragg are ready to deploy to any theatre within 18 hours.
• Iran's working assumption is that there will be a US attack, according to Jerusalem Post's Stein, citing two regional diplomats, while the debate in Tehran is if they should attack first.
• US CENTCOM rejected IRGC claims that the Strait of Hormuz is closed and that Iran has full control over it, while it stated that traffic is flowing through the strait carrying commercial goods and energy supplies, including 20mln bbls of crude.
•  Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Baghaei said Iran's considerations and conditions for ending the war on all fronts and restoring security to the Persian Gulf region and the Strait have been clearly and firmly explained, and the necessary response to US proposals will be provided through mediators. He also stated that Iran will continue its efforts to strengthen trust and interaction between regional countries, while he stated that Tehran has spared no effort, in consultation with Oman as another coastal state, to restore security to the Strait of Hormuz, and the two sides had agreed on the geographical coordinates for safe transit routes and on how the agreement will be presented internationally, while the agreement between Iran and Oman on the safe routes of Hormuz will soon be reflected in international references.
• Iranian intelligence services are reportedly targeting the US Ramstein and Spangdahlem air bases in Germany, WiWo reported. The report added that Iranian intelligence services are reportedly also targeting other US bases in Europe and planning complex attacks, with the UK also said to be a potential target.
• Pakistan's Army Chief said they are working to reduce the differences between the US and Iran, according to Nour News.
• Reports of explosions heard and fires visible in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, according to Sabereen News. Satellite images also showed smoke rising from the Abqaiq oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, and a fire at both Abqaiq facilities and Tanjib gas plant.
• Oil tanker assembly site reportedly exploded near UAE, Mizan reported; "Ocean sources reported the detection of a fire in the Gulf of Oman, approximately 30 nautical miles east of Fujairah."
•  Yemen's Houthis said they attacked King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh with a ballistic missile and stated Saudi airspace will be a target of operations except over Mecca and Medina.
• Syria officially denied reports of sending troops to Yemen, with its presidential media advisor stating the reports are lies with no truth, and affirmed that Syria stands with Saudi Arabia's security.

By Benjamin Picton, senior market strategist at Rabobank

US sovereign yields steadied yesterday as a 10-year bond auction saw strong investor demand. $39bn of bonds were sold with a high yield of 5.30% with a bid to cover ratio of 2.77x and low primary dealer takedown. The result signals that investors are beginning to view government debt as attractive at current levels and eased fears of a disorderly correction in bond prices that had been sparked by a poor 5-year auction in late September that saw the second-longest tail on record.

Relative valuations may be playing a role here as US equity indices pulled back from record highs. US equity market breadth is remarkably narrow, with AI-adjacent tech megacaps leading indices higher in recent times as many other sectors struggle for traction. The AI narrative had a wobble yesterday as SpaceX 5-year CDS spreads widened by 16.5bps to 197bps. That follows news that the company is seeking to raise $40bn in fresh debt financing to buy NVIDIA chips, with similarly large deals also in the works for Broadcomm ($50bn) and Oracle.

Markets were probably not reassured by comments published by the FT yesterday that “investors whom SpaceX has previously approached about financing its multibillion-dollar chip purchase said they only received a short two-page deal memo with pictures of outer space and an arrow pointing out that the company was going to build data centres “somewhere in the universe”.” The ambition is admirable, but for a market that is already running long on vibes this might have been a bridge too far.

Similar wobbles in the AI narrative have emerged Down Under as the Aussie market seeks to digest the initial float of data centre operator Firmus. Firmus had been seeking to raise $5.5bn at a valuation of approximately $30.5bn, which would have made it the second-largest IPO in Australian history, trailing only the privatisation of a public telecommunications monopoly in the late 1990s. The Australian Financial Review reports that the original offer price of A$11/share is now repricing closer to A$8.25/share as key local pension funds opted to pass on the float and demand from US long-only funds proved weaker than expected.

While US bonds were finding bids and investors were casting a more critical eye over the AI investment boom, European sovereign yields were again under pressure. French 10-year OAT yields were up by 11.8bps to 4.86%, Italian 10-year yields were up 9.7bps to 4.62% and Greek 10-year yields rose 8.9bps to 4.47%. Even the not-quite-European UK saw a sharp lift in borrowing costs, with 10-year gilt yields rising 6.8bps while Bunds bucked the trend to see yields finish slightly lower. The Wall Street Journal reports that France is considering issuing more short-dated debt; a fresh instance of a developed market economy behaving like an emerging market.

With the turmoil in European bonds ongoing, and riots across France generating unwelcome visual metaphors of people dining calmly as the streets burn, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio yesterday issued a rallying cry to Western civilization. He gave a speech in Athens with the Parthenon as the backdrop, urging the West to regain its Thumos, the “fire of passion, strength, courage, pride”. Rubio mounted a defense of nationalism, decrying the transfer of sovereignty to global bureaucracies. He argued that the West is now at a crossroads where decisions taken today will determine whether it remains pre-eminent or resigns itself to “atrophy and servitude and decline”.

SECRETARY RUBIO: This thumos, as the Ancient Greeks called it - the fire of passion, strength, courage, pride - is the heart of great civilization. Without it, nations lose their will to fight, to strive, to survive. https://t.co/r5hfm550Zw

— Department of State (@StateDept) October 7, 2026

According to Rubio, the US has chosen the former and is seeking to extend the frontier in advanced manufacturing, superintelligence, drones, weapons, warfare; chips, minerals, cyber, and “every other domain of human possibility”. Doubtless this is why recent calls from US tech CEOs to “pace the frontier” of artificial intelligence development were met with short shrift by the White House, and intrepid back-of-the-napkin risk taking is perhaps viewed more positively in the United States than elsewhere.

Rubio’s remarks were pointed directly at Europe, and particularly the European Union. The criticism of global bureaucracies reflects earlier criticisms in the US’s 2025 National Security Strategy where the US warned that Europe faces “civilizational erasure” and urged it to re-capture its civilizational self-confidence, stating clearly that the United States would seek to “cultivate resistance to Europe’s current trajectory” and lend support to “healthy nations” of Central, Eastern and Southern Europe.

These latter were widely interpreted as a pledge to support right-wing nationalist political movements on the continent in similar fashion to how the United States has (successfully) supported pro-US right-wing movements in South America. Newswires this morning are reporting that right-wing Brazilian presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro has won the support of four key centre-right parties ahead of a runoff vote against incumbent leftist Lula de Silva. Installing a more Washington-friendly (and perhaps China-unfriendly) government in Brasilia would be the last major piece of the puzzle for the Donroe Doctrine in South America, leaving only Canada as a problem to be solved in the Western hemisphere.

Rubio went on to say that there are emerging signs that Europe is beginning to awake from its “long slumber”, pointing to rising defense spending and the recent agreement over Greenland as examples of progress. He also pointed to expansion of production and manufacturing, though – perhaps politely – he declined to be specific in this area.

That’s as China yesterday rejected European calls to voluntarily limit exports of hybrid electric vehicles into the European market. It was hoped that China would agree to a soft quota that would reduce China’s share of the European market from 30% to 15%, and that the need for more overt trade restrictions to protect European industry and invite retaliation from the Chinese side might therefore be avoided.

Clearly, that is now unlikely to be the case. It’s worth noting that another broad policy ambition noted in the US National Security Strategy was “encouraging Europe to take action to combat mercantilist overcapacity…” Are we about to see that ambition realized through an assertive and self-confident European policy response? It would mark a departure from ten years of criticism of the United States doing exactly the same thing.