Highlights of the week: new iPhone, Nebius deal, Oracle takes off

The week of September 8-12 was rich in big deals. Nebius signed a contract with Microsoft for $17.4 billion and raised $3.75 billion in funding, Oracle signed an agreement with OpenAI for $300 billion, and ASML invested €1.3 billion in French startup Mistral AI - the deal raised its valuation to €11.7 billion. At the same time, investors were not impressed by Apple's new products, and Kering postponed the buyout of fashion house Valentino until 2028. The main events of the week are in our review.

Netherlands-based AI startup Nebius Group, founded by Yandex co-founder Arkady Volozh, announced on September 8 a five-year contract with Microsoft to provide GPU-based infrastructure for cloud-based AI computing. The deal is worth $17.4 billion with an option to expand to $19.4 billion, according to documents filed with the SEC. Nebius will give the tech giant access to dedicated -infrastructure in a new data center in Vineland (New Jersey), scheduled to launch in late 2025.

The news caused a sharp rise in Nebius' quotations: on the post-market the shares rose by 44%, at the moment adding over 60%. Microsoft's shares also rose slightly in extended trading - by 0.6%. The agreement was a "big deal" for the startup and will allow Microsoft to partially close the capacity gap, Bloomberg wrote.

Two days later, on Sept. 10, Nebius also placed $3.75 billion worth of stock and convertible bonds. The stock sold for $92.5 apiece - 44% higher than its value before the Microsoft contract was announced. The bonds were increased from the originally announced $2 billion to $2.75 billion, splitting the issue into two tranches: with a 1% coupon through 2030 and a 2.75% coupon through 2032. The conversion price is set at $138.75 per share, which is 50% higher than the offering price.

What else is there to read about Nebius?

- How Wall Street analysts assessed the deal between Nebius and Microsoft - in the material of Oninvest correspondent Victoria Sirota "Moment of recognition: what do Wall Street say about Nebius after the deal with Microsoft?".

- Oninvest correspondent Julia Petrova compared the business models of CoreWeave and Nebius Group - both companies build infrastructure for AI developers and cooperate with Nvidia. Why, given similar results for Q2 2025, investors assessed their prospects differently and what is important to consider when choosing these stocks - in the article "CoreWeave vs Nebius Group: why such similar companies will suit different investors".

Apple showed off new products at its Sept. 9 presentation: the ultra-thin iPhone Air, the iPhone 17 Pro with support for movie formats, AirPods Pro 3 headphones with simultaneous translation and the Series 11 watch with pressure monitoring. The company raised the starting price of the iPhone Pro in the U.S. for the first time since 2017 - by $100, CNBC noted.

Investors were disappointed with the presentation: on September 9, Apple shares fell by 1.5%, and the next day - by 3.2%. The announcements offered no surprises, and questions about the artificial intelligence strategy became even more numerous, CNBC and Bloomberg wrote. While the new A19 Pro chip introduced in the iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pro models includes improvements aimed at improving performance in AI tasks, Apple did not present a full-fledged strategy for its AI service. Ahead of the presentation, analysts said it was the AI backlog that was weighing on the company's stock the most.

"Apple's problem is that everything the company has shown is really more of an evolutionary change rather than a breakthrough change," said Daniel Newman, head of Futurum Group. - Yes, the phone is thinner, yes, it looks great. But we haven't seen a big supercycle in four years."

What else is there to read about it?

- Two days after the presentation, two analysts downgraded Apple in one day. What they advise investors - in the article "Apple received two downgrades. Analysts' confidence is at a 5-year low".

- Whether Apple will be able to gain an advantage in the market thanks to the new gadgets, argued journalist Roman Mighty in the article "Intelligence for Hire: Will Apple's presentation help it get back into the big game".

Oracle has signed a five-year, $300 billion computing capacity agreement with OpenAI, The Wall Street Journal wrote, citing sources. This is one of the largest contracts in the history of cloud services, WSJ noted. The deal will take effect in 2027 and will provide Oracle with annual revenue of more than $30 billion. Earlier, the company predicted that Oracle Cloud revenue will grow 77% to $18 billion in the current fiscal year and further reach $144 billion a year by Ma 2030.

In just one day - September 10 - Oracle shares rose a record 36%, increasing the company's capitalization to $946 billion on the day of trading. According to Dow Jones Market Data, this is the first time in history that a public company with a capitalization of more than $500 billion showed a daily gain of more than 25%.

As a result, Oracle co-founder and CTO Larry Ellison temporarily displaced Tesla CEO Elon Musk on the list of the world's richest people. Ellison's fortune grew by $101 billion, the largest one-day increase in wealth in the history of Bloomberg's index of the world's richest billionaires. On September 9, the company published a quarterly report better than expected and gave an optimistic growth forecast.

Nevertheless, the deal leaves both sides vulnerable, WSJ writes. OpenAI, with revenues of about $10 billion a year, is obliged to pay Oracle an annual sum many times higher than its revenues - about $60 billion. Oracle, on the other hand, makes the business dependent on a single customer and will probably have to take on debt to buy AI chips and build data centers that will need 4.5 GW of capacity - like about 4 million homes.

At the end of trading on Thursday, September 11, Oracle shares fell by more than 6% after a record growth a day earlier. The reason was an analytical comment that the key driver of the company's future growth may be only one client - OpenAI, wrote CNBC.

What else is there to read about it?

- After the rapid growth of Oracle's quotations, analysts began to raise their target prices for the company's shares. Why Wall Street believes that Oracle's rally is not over yet - in the article "Oracle shares soared to record highs. Wall Street thinks it's just the beginning".

Netherlands-based ASML has invested €1.3 billion in French startup Mistral AI, taking an 11% stake and becoming the company's largest investor. The funding round brought Mistral €1.7 billion and raised its valuation to €11.7 billion, making it the most expensive player in the European AI market. Other participants in the round include Nvidia and leading US funds Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst and DST Global.

For ASML, the deal means the opportunity to embed generative AI into its own development and business processes. "We want to imbue all of ASML with artificial intelligence," said company CEO Christophe Fouquet. Analysts at Citigroup and New Street Research see the partnership as a long-term positive: AI has the potential to accelerate ASML's time-to-market and improve the accuracy of its machines.

For Mistral, cooperation with the European tech giant has become a source of resources to compete with U.S. and Chinese rivals, whose investments are many times higher. ASML has not supported AI companies before and rarely invests in startups, Reuters noted.

Microsoft and OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, have signed a preliminary agreement on new terms of cooperation. OpenAI, which already has billions of dollars in revenue, is seeking a more familiar corporate structure, and in the future is going to go public, writes Reuters. Details of the deal are not disclosed, but the companies said they are working to negotiate the final terms of the agreement.

Microsoft invested $1 billion in OpenAI in 2019 and another $10 billion in early 2023. Under the previous agreement, Microsoft had exclusive rights to sell OpenAI tools through its Azure cloud platform and received priority access to the startup's technologies.

In addition, Microsoft was initially appointed as the sole supplier of computing power for OpenAI, but this year it loosened its control, allowing the company to participate in the Stargate mega-project. As part of it, OpenAI signed long-term contracts with Oracle for $300 billion, and also signed a cloud agreement with Google.

French group Kering, which owns the Gucci, Saint Laurent and Balenciaga brands, has changed the terms of its agreement with Qatari fund Mayhoola and postponed a possible full buyout of Italian fashion house Valentino until at least 2028. The companies entered into an agreement in 2023, when Kering acquired a 30% stake in Valentino and was to buy the remaining 70% from Mayhoola by 2026-2028. Now the terms have been postponed: the fund will only be able to sell this stake in 2028-2029, and Kering itself will not be able to exercise its right to a full takeover until 2029.

The decision was the first major move by new Kering CEO Luca de Meo. The commitment to buy Valentino put pressure on the group's balance sheet: the company's net debt reached €8.9 billion at the end of the year, 3.3 times its projected earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation for 2025, Bloomberg explains.

But the market hardly reacted: at the end of trading on September 10, Kering securities in Paris ended the day without significant changes. Analysts remain restrained: only four out of 23 experts advise to buy shares, the average target price of €205 suggests a further decline of almost 14%.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor