Blackstone, FloQast, McDonald's: Top 5 Stories of the Week

Blackstone and Wall Street Banks Announce US$63bn AI Deal

Blackstone, in partnership with Wall Street banks such as Bank of America, Citi and Morgan Stanley, will provide US$63bn in financing to buy Broadcom’s AI chips and networking gear for Anthropic, orchestrating one of the largest debt deals connected to the AI buildout.

The transaction is part of the strategic compute capacity agreement previously announced by Broadcom, with expected deliveries starting at the beginning of 2027.

Broadcom is offering residual value support to lenders, who are providing first-lien loans or senior debt, offering a significant guarantee within the financing structure.

The deal highlights the further push by major players within the financial services industry to deploy AI infrastructure across the economy and to ​support rising demand for AI computing capacity.

Binance Hack: Investors Lose Confidence as $3bn is Withdrawn

Customers of Binance withdrew more than US$3.6bn after the platform reopened, according to the company’s statement. 

Binance suffered a hack resulting in a record theft of US$6.4bn earlier in the month. It worked with partners and local authorities to reduce damage and loss, freezing US$3bn in assets. 

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has since come out with an announcement advising that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) was responsible for the attack. 

Kim Jo-Yong, sister of Supreme Leader of DPRK Kim Jong Un, a high-level government official, condemned the accusation in a statement. 

“The US has made a trite provocation of linking it with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea again,” says Kim Yo-Jong, the director of North Korea's General Affairs Department, as reported by the BBC. 

FloQast and PwC Partner to Expand Finance Services with AI

FloQast and PwC UK have expanded their existing partnership to provide an outsourced, technology-focused finance function for organisations in the UK.

By integrating FloQast’s autonomous accounting platform with PwC’s Finance Managed Services, the collaboration will address accounting talent shortages and fragmented close processes with real-time visibility and AI-powered automation.

Discussing the expanded partnership, Tony Price, Partner, PwC UK Finance Managed Services Leader, says that now more than ever, finance leaders are under mounting pressure to provide quality information at a faster rate.

“Embedding FloQast in our finance managed services offering gives our clients a new option to transform their period end through AI-enabled delivery, at pace,” he adds.

Cyber Attacks: Cost and Risk to UK Financial Services

UK financial services firms sustained an average loss of £726,000 (US$977,00) from cyber incidents over the past 12 months, according to new research from cybersecurity firm ESET. 

Across the broader sector, these disruptions represent an estimated £1bn (US$1.35bn) in cumulative losses.

The 2026 ESET UK Financial Services Security Report, which surveyed 500 small, medium and large UK financial organisations, revealed that 97%of respondents suffered cyberattacks during the year. 

Furthermore, 62% faced multiple attacks. Beyond the direct monetary drain, operational downtime poses a material challenge for executive leadership: affected organisations took an average of seven days to restore critical operations. 

McDonald’s Announces ‘Solid’ Results for Q3 2026

McDonald’s has announced “solid” but mixed quarterly results for Q3 2026, as consumer traffic at US restaurants fell, leading to a small decline in domestic same-store sales.

The company reported a 0.2% decrease in sales at its restaurants in the US that have been open at least one year. 

Despite this, McDonald’s performed better than Wall Street predicted, which had estimated the fast-food giant would see a decline of 0.5%.

Discussing the results, Chris Kempczinski, CEO of McDonald’s, says: “McDonald’s delivered another quarter of global growth, with solid performance across much of our international business. 

“In the US, we're encouraged by improvement as the quarter progressed following our intervention on value.”