Welcome to the fourth edition of The Weekly Briefing!
Each week, we will recap the most interesting commercial news stories shaping the market, from corporate deals to regulatory shifts and highlight why they matter to businesses and law firms.
We aim to help readers sharpen their commercial fluency while keeping track of the legal angles behind the headlines.
RedBird Capital’s Telegraph Bid Tests UK Media Rules
RedBird Capital Partners has formally requested government approval to acquire The Telegraph, in a deal valuing the title at £500 million, with Abu Dhabi-backed IMI taking a minority stake of up to 15%.
The need for approval stems from recent UK rules around foreign state ownership in British newspapers, which now allow up to 15% ownership but require oversight when control is proposed. RedBird’s application must pass review by the Department for Culture, Media & Sport and could attract a Public Interest Intervention Notice. This is a mechanism that allows ministers to pause a merger or acquisition where issues like media plurality, national security or foreign influence are at stake.
Commercially, this bid highlights growing investor appetite for legacy media assets. For aspiring and practising legal professionals, it’s a live case study in media regulation, competition law and foreign investment control areas likely to see more crossover as global capital targets British cultural institutions.
OpenAI’s Chip Deal with AMD Ramps AI Infrastructure Stakes
OpenAI has struck a multi-billion-dollar deal with chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD), securing long-term access to GPUs to power its AI models. The agreement also includes a potential equity stake of up to 10%, signalling a deeper partnership that extends beyond the supply chain.
The agreement gives OpenAI more control over its compute stack, diversifying beyond reliance on rival chip suppliers (Nvidia). This also reflects the company’s urgent need to meet the rising computational demand from models such as Sora and its enterprise AI platform. In practice, OpenAI appears to be less concerned with supplier loyalty than with securing sufficient infrastructure to sustain its rapid growth. For AMD, it provides a strategic foothold in the fast-expanding AI hardware market and diversification away from traditional semiconductor cycles.
Commercially, the structure raises a key question about circular financing. If OpenAI becomes a shareholder in AMD, it effectively funds its own supply chain. That could align incentives, but it could also blur the lines between customer, investor and partner. Whilst vertically integrated chip-software tie-ups are becoming central to AI infrastructure strategies. Legally, the deal could draw scrutiny in antitrust, export controls, and contract enforcement, especially around how liability is allocated across tech stacks.
NYSE’s $2B Bet on Polymarket Turns Speculation Into Strategy
Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, will invest up to $2 billion in blockchain-based prediction platform Polymarket, valuing it at around $8 billion. The deal makes ICE the first major exchange operator to back a decentralised prediction market, signalling that traditional finance wants a stake in the rise of retail-driven event trading.
Platforms like Polymarket and its rival, Kalshi, let users bet on outcomes ranging from elections to interest-rate moves, blurring the line between speculation and structured finance. For ICE, this isn’t about gambling; it’s about data. By capturing millions of micro-bets, prediction markets create a real-time gauge of sentiment that banks and traders can monetise.
Commercially, it’s Wall Street’s way of institutionalising what used to be seen as play money, turning public predictions into information that can help inform Wall Street's investments. Legally, the move invites scrutiny from US and UK regulators over whether these contracts qualify as derivatives or gambling instruments, a question that could define how mainstream prediction markets evolve over the next decade.