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GIC Pte and Mubadala Investment Co. are in talks to join KKR & Co. and Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. in their potential purchase of data center operator STT GDC Pte, people familiar with the matter said, in what could be one of the biggest digital infrastructure deals in recent months.

The sovereign wealth funds from Singapore and Abu Dhabi are set to back the KKR-led transaction as minority co-investors, the people said, asking not to be identified because the deliberations are private. A potential deal may value STT GDC at more than $10 billion including debt, the people said. 

The firms are hammering out details of a transaction that could be announced as soon as this week, they said.

KKR and Singtel are existing investors in STT GDC after paying $1.3 billion for a minority stake in 2025. Raising that holding would support Singtel’s efforts to make artificial-intelligence ready data centers a core growth engine, said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Chris Muckensturm.

Singtel shares rose as much as 2.6% Monday, before paring the gains to 1.1%. The company has a market value of $60 billion.

Dow Jones reported on Sunday that a KKR-led consortium including Singtel was nearing a deal for STT GDC. Singtel said in an exchange filing following the report that it is in advanced discussions regarding the data center company but there’s no certainty of any definitive or binding agreement.

Representatives for GIC and Mubadala declined to comment. KKR and ST Telemedia didn’t respond to requests for comment.

STT GDC’s parent is ST Telemedia, which is backed by Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings Pte, owner of half of Singtel.

KKR and Singtel have been in talks with banks for a loan of around S$5 billion ($3.9 billion) to support the transaction, Bloomberg News reported in November, about four months after discussions between the firms emerged.

Based in Singapore, STT GDC is one of Asia’s largest data center operators with more than 100 such facilities across 20 markets including India, South Korea, Japan and Malaysia. It also has a presence in the UK, Italy and Germany. The company provides services such as co-location, connectivity and support.

Data centers are attracting a lot of investor interest, not least because of their role in the artificial intelligence boom. Investors led by BlackRock Inc.’s Global Infrastructure Partners agreed to buy Aligned Data Centers in a $40 billion deal in October. Just before year end, SoftBank Group Corp. agreed to acquire private equity firm DigitalBridge Group Inc. for about $3 billion in cash.

Still, some concerns have been brewing about the high levels of spending in AI infrastructure. Last week, people familiar with the matter said that SoftBank has halted talks about an acquisition of US data center operator Switch Inc., a setback to founder Masayoshi Son’s ambition to roll out Stargate AI infrastructure. –BLOOMBERG

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THE World Health Organization has been forced to slash its staff after the US and Argentina decided to pull funding, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Monday, characterizing 2025 as “one of our most difficult years.”

The Geneva-based organization lost its top donor with hundreds of millions of dollars in annual funding when the US completed its withdrawal last month. Argentina has also announced its intention to withdraw from the WHO, with the exit expected to take effect in February.

The cuts are already having a severe impact in countries where the WHO supports public health systems, including vaccination programs and outbreak response, Tedros said. He warned that the strain is coming as the world braces for a projected shortage of 11 million health workers by 2030.

The WHO is shedding about 25% of its workforce by mid-2026, according to a recent report by the body. The organization had 9,457 employees at the end of 2024, its highest headcount in 15 years.

Still, Tedros struck a more positive note for the year ahead, saying the WHO would be focused on recovery rather than belt-tightening. 

“2026 will not be about austerity but restore,” he said, adding that “the people of this organization continue to serve the world” despite the funding shock and deep staffing cuts.

The WHO’s executive board is holding its 158th session this week, with governments reviewing priorities that range from health emergencies and antimicrobial resistance to budgets, governance and digital health. Over six days, diplomats will spar over politically sensitive issues and set the agenda for bigger decisions later this year.

Those early signals will feed into May’s World Health Assembly, where countries must decide how much money and authority to give the WHO as it responds to crises and reshapes its role. Whether this week produces momentum or gridlock will help determine if those talks end in compromise or confrontation. –BLOOMBERG

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PRESIDENT Donald Trump is set to launch a strategic critical-minerals stockpile with $12 billion in seed money, a bid to insulate manufacturers from supply shocks as the US works to slash its reliance on Chinese rare earths and other metals. 

The venture — dubbed Project Vault — is set to marry $1.67 billion in private capital with a $10 billion loan from the US Export-Import Bank to procure and store the minerals for automakers, tech firms and other manufacturers. 

Details of the initiative, which would represent a first-of-its-kind stockpile for the US private sector, were described by senior administration officials, who asked not to be identified discussing a plan that has yet to be announced.

The effort is akin to the nation’s existing emergency oil stockpile. But instead of crude, its focus would be minerals — such as gallium and cobalt — used in products such as iPhones, batteries and jet engines. The stockpile is expected to include both rare earths and critical minerals as well as other strategically important elements that are subject to volatile prices.

It represents a major commitment to accumulate minerals deemed critical to the industrial economy — including the automotive, aerospace and energy sectors — and highlights Trump’s effort to wean US supply chains from China, the world’s dominant provider and processor of critical minerals. 

The project has participation from more than a dozen companies so far, including General Motors Co., Stellantis NV, Boeing Co., Corning Inc., GE Vernova Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google. Three commodities trading houses — Hartree Partners LP, Traxys North America LLC and Mercuria Energy Group Ltd. — have signed on to handle purchases of the raw materials to fill the stockpile. 

Ex-Im’s board is set to vote later Monday to authorize the record-setting 15-year loan, which is more than double the next-largest deal ever executed by the bank. 

Trump is set to meet Monday with GM’s chief executive officer Mary Barra and mining billionaire Robert Friedland, who represent both producers and users of critical minerals. 

The US already operates a national stockpile of critical minerals to serve the nation’s defense-industrial base but doesn’t have a stockpile for civilian needs. Under Trump, the US also has taken the rare step of investing directly in domestic minerals companies to boost the production and processing of rare earths at home. 

The administration has already inked cooperation agreements with Australia, Japan, Malaysia and other countries on the issue. It will press even more nations to pursue such pacts during a summit of dozens of countries set to take place in Washington on Wednesday.

The effort to reduce risk in the mineral supply chain gained new momentum last year, after China tightened export controls on some materials. That spurred some US manufacturers to dial back production and underscored the extent of Beijing’s leverage. 

The new venture will offer participating manufacturers a way to insulate their businesses from swings in prices for key materials without having to maintain their own stockpiles.

Those types of swings can expose companies to massive volatility in key raw material inputs that wreak havoc on balance sheets. For example, nickel saw a historic price surge shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, fed by fears buyers would no longer be able to purchase the metal from Russia, a top supplier. 

Some details about Project Vault’s structure were not immediately known, including the institutional investors providing the $1.67 billion. The senior administration officials said the project had been oversubscribed because investors are attracted by a credit-worthy group of manufacturers, their long-term commitments and the involvement of the US export-credit agency. 

The specific carrying costs that would be charged to those manufacturers, as well as the fees for the trading firms participating as procurement officers, weren’t disclosed. 

Under the arrangement, companies that make an initial commitment to purchase materials at a specified inventory price later — and pay some up-front fees — will be able to present Project Vault with a shopping list of preferred materials they need. 

The project, in turn, will seek to procure and store the materials, with the manufacturers charged a carrying cost for the expenses associated with interest on the loan and holding the elements. 

Manufacturers will be allowed to draw down their material stash as long as the firms replenish them. In the case of a major supply disruption, they will be able to access all of it, the officials said. 

A key element in the venture’s design is that manufacturers who commit to buy a specified amount of materials at a set price also commit to repurchase the same amount at that same cost in the future. The administration sees that acting as a stabilizing mechanism, helping suppress volatility. —BLOOMBERG

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IN A matter of months, Saudi Arabia has frozen rents, opened property ownership to foreigners, relaxed liquor laws and freed its stock market to investors everywhere.

The moves have come as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman seeks to turn the nation into an investment destination and better compete with nearby Dubai. They also hint at how the Gulf nation is trying to address oil-price volatility and budget deficits that threaten to slow progress on its $2 trillion economic diversification plan.

More foreign cash would help companies expand, drive infrastructure financing and ease the government’s investment burden. More critically, though, it could alleviate financial pressure.

Saudi Arabia has been in fiscal shortfall since 2022 as revenues trail spending, and it has run a current account deficit for five consecutive quarters. That has prompted more aggressive borrowing and a further pullback at so-called mega-projects. Slower credit growth is also adding to the squeeze.

“Fiscal and current account deficits and pressure on domestic funding mean the country needs FDI,” said Monica Malik, chief economist at Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank.

The recent rise in oil prices — Brent briefly topped $70 a barrel last week for the first time in months — followed by the plunge on Monday shows how quickly Saudi fortunes could turn. At the same time, the geopolitical tensions between the US and Iran that have stoked price swings may crimp the Middle East’s attraction as an investment destination. And crude prices remain far below the almost-$100 that Bloomberg Economics estimates is needed for the kingdom to balance its budget.

With around 35 million people, mostly under 35, and a $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund, Saudi Arabia’s potential for further growth has already captured global attention. But it needs to come up with more capital to diversify its economy, from tourism to tech and mining. 

Its goal is to bring in $47 billion in foreign direct investment this year and almost $60 billion in 2027. That compares with $32 billion in 2024, the last full year for which data is available, and one of its best hauls ever.

Net FDI inflows that account for disinvestments paint a less rosy picture — they’ve been in decline since 2022, according to the World Bank. The kingdom also last week announced a new privatization strategy to draw more than $64 billion in private capital investment by 2030.

“Attracting FDI is the critical issue,” said Mohamed Abu Basha, head of macroeconomic analysis at investment bank EFG Hermes. “It has been the main lacking piece in the story.”

Saudi regulators are now liberalizing the country’s $2.6 trillion stock market. Direct trading on the Tadawul All Share Index opened to all non-Saudis on Feb. 1, after being limited to those that met criteria like having $500 million in assets under management. The benchmark rose about 1% on Monday as global trading resumed after the weekend.

Now, investors are awaiting changes that would allow foreigners to take majority stakes in local companies, which could unlock $10 billion in fresh inflows, according to Wall Street firms including Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

“Any clarity on what’s next for the foreign ownership limits will be positively perceived by the market and then it will come down to the substance and the details,” said Fadi Arbid, founding partner at Amwal Capital Partners. “We could see far more foreign interest.”

Last month, the Saudis also allowed foreigners to own a wider range of real estate assets, including in the holy cities of Mecca and Madinah. Those sites have historically been closed to outsiders but are among the most coveted areas for ownership, in part due to a boom in religious tourism.

Back in Riyadh, where the city of 8 million still lacks enough housing, offices and schools, there are signs international firms are already swooping in.

The Trump Organization kicked off sales at $10 billion worth of Saudi projects last month to capitalize on the new rules, making it one of the most prominent foreign developers to date to enter the market. The projects are among several that US President Donald Trump’s business empire is pursuing, raising concerns about potential conflicts of interest.

“Saudi Arabia has become a developer’s playground,” Eric Trump, executive vice president of the Trump Organization, said in an interview in Riyadh. “They want you to go big. They want you to reach the heavens. And they need the investment.”

The rollout hasn’t been without snags. Saudi Arabia was expected to release details of where exactly foreigners can own property in January but said that information will now land during the first quarter.

In the last few years, there have also been updates to laws around investment, bankruptcy and disputes — though few have been tried and tested widely in the courts.

“Continuity of Saudi investment growth may ultimately depend on how effectively policy is integrated, implemented and communicated to the market,” said Said El-Saadi, chief executive officer of Access KSA, a Saudi-based adviser to foreign businesses.

Investors, analysts and economists also often note the need for more clarity on Saudi Arabia’s spending plans and how it’s recalibrating its priorities and projects.

For now, the nation continues to lag the United Arab Emirates, which has become a magnet for hedge funds, Wall Street giants and major corporations alike.

Riyadh suffers in comparison to Dubai, in particular, when it comes to its appeal as a place to live and work due to limited housing and schooling, along with lingering social restrictions, traffic congestion and a disruptive construction spree. 

Late last year, the kingdom began allowing high-earning residents to buy alcohol, Bloomberg has reported, while freezing rents for five years in a bid to boost its attraction.

Whether the flurry of reforms will be enough to help address current fiscal challenges remains unclear.

“Over the long haul money will come here,” Richard Miller, group managing director and chief investment officer at asset manager TCW Group Inc.’s private credit group, said in an interview in Riyadh. “It’s maybe not going to go from here to there as fast they want it to but there’s no way it doesn’t eventually get there.” –BLOOMBERG

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