ZIM sale, HDD shortage and miners’ asset shifts

ZIM Integrated Shipping Services has entered a merger agreement under which Hapag-Lloyd will acquire the Israeli container line for $35 per share in cash, valuing ZIM’s equity at about $4.2 billion. The offer represents a 58% premium to ZIM’s share price on 13 February 2026, a 90% premium to its 90-day volume-weighted average price, and a 126% premium to its ‘unaffected’ price of $15.50 on 8 August 2025.

ZIM’s president and CEO Eli Glickman said the deal caps a strategic transformation that took the company from negative equity to “industry leader” status, highlighting fleet modernization, early adoption of LNG-fuelled ships, over $1 billion invested since 2021 in new equipment and expansion in car carriers. Since its January 2021 IPO, ZIM has distributed $5.7 billion in dividends; if the merger completes, total capital returned will reach roughly $10 billion, or more than five times its initial market value.

ZIM’s chairman Yair Seroussi said the transaction followed a competitive bidding process and was deemed the most prudent outcome for shareholders, employees and the State of Israel. The board unanimously approved the deal, which is expected to close by late 2026, subject to shareholder approval, regulatory clearances and consent from the State of Israel under a Special State Share.

Until closing, ZIM and Hapag-Lloyd will operate as separate companies. Evercore and Barclays provided fairness opinions to ZIM’s board, with Meitar Law Offices and Skadden acting as legal counsel. ZIM cautioned that forward-looking statements about the transaction remain subject to risks including regulatory approvals, potential costs, legal challenges and the possibility that the deal may not close on the anticipated timetable or at all.

In parallel with the merger, Hapag-Lloyd signed a binding memorandum of understanding with FIMI, Israel’s largest private equity fund, covering the State of Israel’s Special State Share in ZIM. Subject to state approval, that share is intended to be transferred to a new FIMI-owned container network operator and liner service provider called “New ZIM”, incorporated in Israel and operating under the ZIM trademark.

‘New ZIM’ will own tonnage and receive commercial support from Hapag-Lloyd for an initial period to facilitate the start of operations, focusing on main global trade routes into Israel and fulfilling obligations associated with the Special State Share. Hapag-Lloyd has also expressed its intention to maintain a long-term presence in Israel and to retain ZIM employees.

Western Digital’s CEO Irving Tan has disclosed that the company has already sold out all of its hard disk drive (HDD) production capacity for calendar year 2026. The comment was made alongside Western Digital’s fiscal second-quarter 2026 results and reflects what management described as exceptionally strong demand from hyperscale cloud providers serving artificial intelligence workloads.

The cloud and corporate segment now accounts for 89% of Western Digital’s total revenue, while the consumer segment, covering PCs and home devices, has fallen to just 5%. Management said AI workloads, from training datasets and web scraping to inference logs and backups, require “colossal” data storage at exabyte scale, with HDDs remaining the most economical and efficient solution for that tier of storage in large data centers.

Western Digital’s entire 2026 capacity being booked as early as February 2026 underscores the tightness in the market for high-capacity drives linked to AI infrastructure build-outs. The company did not announce new capacity expansions in the report cited, but noted that rapid hyperscaler growth is the main driver of current demand dynamics.

Ally Financial executives used a Bank of America conference to reiterate their aim for mid-teens returns in 2026, citing progress across core dealer services, insurance and corporate finance businesses. Chief Financial Planning and Investor Relations Officer Sean Leary said 2025 showed “solid operational and execution” and that deposits had grown for 67 consecutive quarters since Ally Bank’s launch in 2009.

Leary said Ally’s framework for mid-teens returns rests on three conditions: net interest margin in the “upper threes,” retail auto credit losses below 2%, and discipline on capital and expenses. He said two of these were effectively met in 2025, with retail auto net charge-offs at 1.97% and expenses flat, and guided to full-year 2026 net interest margin of 3.60–3.70%, implying expansion in the second half of the year after a softer first quarter.

Ally expects 2026 auto credit losses in a range of 1.8–2.0%, pointing to stable delinquency trends and resilient consumers despite a modest rise in unemployment over the prior year. On funding, around $35 billion of certificates of deposit maturing in 2026 are expected to provide a 45–50 basis point refinancing benefit, while higher-yielding retail auto and corporate finance loans continue to replace lower-yielding legacy assets.

Leary said capital generation should support loan growth, dividends, CET1 ratio improvement toward “the nines over time,” and share buybacks. He emphasized that Ally’s auto finance franchise, insurance arm and corporate finance unit remain core, with the insurance business generating returns above the company’s mid-teens target despite weather-related volatility in 2025.

Westgold Resources has completed the sale of its Mt Henry gold project in Western Australia to Alicanto Minerals, with the total consideration rising to A$110 million from A$64.6 million announced in December 2025. The higher value reflects appreciation in Westgold’s 19.9% equity stake in Alicanto between signing and closing.

The transaction followed ministerial consent and approvals from shareholders and the Ngadju Native Title Aboriginal Corporation. Alicanto is preparing a fully funded, 50,000-metre multi‑rig drilling program targeting expansion of the existing 915,000‑ounce resource along a 16km corridor. CEO Jeff Sansom called Mt Henry a “large, under-explored gold system” with limited drilling below 100 metres and mineralisation extending beyond current resources.

For Westgold, the divestment is part of a strategy to streamline its portfolio by selling non-core and non-operational assets. Managing director and CEO Wayne Bramwell said Westgold will retain exposure to any exploration success at Mt Henry through its significant shareholding in Alicanto. He added that sales of the Peak Hill and Chalice gold assets are advancing, while an IPO of spin‑off Valiant Gold, targeting a late‑March 2026 listing, will complete the rationalisation.

Westgold restarted high-grade mining at the historic Great Fingall mine near Cue in December 2025, marking the first production from the reef in more than a century. Argonaut and law firm Thomson Geer acted as financial and legal advisers to Westgold on the Mt Henry transaction.