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MILAN, Dec 13 (Reuters) - UniCredit (CRDI.MI) , opens new tab on Friday filed its buyout offer for rival Banco BPM BAMI.MI with Italy's market regulator, and CEO Andrea Orcel said the price was adequate. The filing makes the 10-billion-euro ($10.5 billion) all-share offer, which UniCredit announced on Nov. 25, binding and sets a price floor. UniCredit also applied to relevant authorities for regulatory approval. Shares in Banco BPM closed at 7.846 euros on Friday, well above the 6.657 euros a share UniCredit is offering based on the bid's exchange ratio, indicating investors are betting on an improvement of the proposal. "We consider our initial offer to Banco BPM shareholders to be fair and appropriate," Orcel said in a statement. Any deal must create shareholder value and be superior to the return from any UniCredit share buyback, he said. An M&A veteran, Orcel has said he wants any deal to return at least 15%. In announcing the bid , opens new tab for BPM, Orcel had signalled that UniCredit could consider topping it up with cash down the road. "We remain committed to our disciplined approach to all M&A, with any transaction having to prove a strategic fit and meeting, or exceeding, our core financial metrics," he said. While BPM has long been a target for UniCredit , Orcel, who built his fortune as a bank merger adviser, resisted buying BPM until now in part because of the M&A premium built into BPM's share price, sources previously told Reuters. Accelerating domestic consolidation forced his hand. Orcel said BPM investors would fare better holding UniCredit shares due to "its far greater resiliency and diversification going into a challenging year and two-times higher total distribution yield." UniCredit is offering 175 newly issued shares for every 1,000 BPM shares, a premium of just 0.5% to BPM share price prior to the bid. UniCredit says the terms are a 15% premium to BPM's share price before BPM bid for fund manager Anima Holding (ANIM.MI) , opens new tab on Nov. 6, a move that triggered gains in the stocks of both Anima and BPM. "Given the robustness of our approach, (the) premium put forward and the situation remaining the same to that existing at the time of our original offer, we are moving forward at such terms", Orcel said. UniCredit has also invited BPM's biggest shareholder Credit Agricole (CA) (CAGR.PA) , opens new tab to sit down for talks that are widely expected to focus on commercial partnerships . CA partners with both BPM and UniCredit. To strengthen its negotiating position, CA has applied to the ECB to reach a 19.99% holding in BPM and used derivatives to raise its BPM stake to 15% from just below 10%. "We are in continuous discussions with all relevant stakeholders," Orcel said. ($1 = 0.9528 euros) Sign up here. Reporting by Valentina Za; Editing by Cynthia Osterman Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. , opens new tabSeafood Market to Grow by USD 150.04 Billion (2024-2028), Report on AI's Impact on Market Trends and Rising Nutrition Awareness - TechnavioSaudi Arabia banned film for 35 years. The Red Sea festival is just one sign of the industry's rise
The has selected three companies to for efficient air conditioning and water heating applications in Department of Defense facilities. The selected companies will demonstrate heating and cooling technologies that would enable DOD installations to cut down their carbon footprint and greenhouse gas emissions, DIU said Wednesday. The effort is expected to reduce the estimated $4 billion that the agency spends annually on facility energy costs. Table of Contents Efficient Energy Use for DOD Bases From the 40 companies that participated in DOD’s Environmental Security Technology Certification Program—a.k.a. ESTCP—DIU picked GTI Energy to install and monitor air-water Lync heat pumps for domestic hot water use in barracks at Fort Gregg-Adams and Fort Moore. The Illinois-based company will also install four dual-fuel rooftop hybrid units Applied Instruction Hanger building at Fort Gregg-Adams. Meanwhile, Blue Frontier was tapped to install a liquid desiccant-enhanced dedicated outdoor air system in the commissary club at Fort Moore, Georgia and a bowling alley at Westover Air Reserve Base in Massachusetts. The system is designed to provide moisture removal efficiency and energy storage capability. Intellihot, the last contract awardee, will be tasked to install a tankless heat pump water heater technology in the base recreation building at the Westover Air Reserve Base. The selected companies are required to install, test and monitor the required systems from 2024 through 2025. Increasing Installation Resilience Through the ESTCP initiative, DIU is identifying and deploying new technologies to increase installation resilience and optimize future energy use on DOD bases.NASSAU, Bahamas (AP) — Chucky Hepburn had 16 points, 10 assists and seven steals, Noah Waterman also had 16 points and Louisville beat No. 14 Indiana 89-61 on Wednesday in the opening game of the Battle 4 Atlantis. Louisville (4-1) beat a ranked team for the first time since topping Virginia Tech 73-71 on Jan. 6, 2021. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings.
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Instagram's Adam Mosseri took to the app today to tease the upcoming launch of a generative AI editing feature that will enable users to "change nearly any aspect of your videos." Expected to roll out next year, the tool will be powered by Meta's Movie Gen AI model , which was unveiled in early October. Meta's Movie Gen AI model can generate HD videos (1080p resolution) from a text prompt, which -- the company claims -- is more "realistic" than videos generated by rival technology such as OpenAI's Sora text-to-video model. By bringing the Movie Gen technology to Instagram, the company aims to equip creators with more tools for "realizing" their ideas more easily. Also: I'm a long-time YouTube video producer - these 3 AI tools help me do it better and faster According to Mosseri , the new editing feature will enable creators to change nearly any aspect of users' videos with a simple text prompt. Moreover, the announcement video previews "early research AI models" that showcase examples of outfit and background transformations. One especially impressive snippet showed Mosseri transformed into a puppet, which speaks to the expansive capabilities of Movie Gen. Similarly, Gen AI models such as Open AI's Sora , Adobe's Firefly , and Google's Veo -- all released in 2024 -- emphasize a shift away from AI image generation and toward AI video generation, especially text-to-video tools. However, just like AI image generation, video generation raises concerns about harmful use cases such as digital blackface , AI-generated deepfakes , and disinformation . Also: This new Google AI tool lets you easily generate images from other photos - no prompt required Many creative professionals -- artists, writers, filmmakers, actors, and photographers -- have voiced frustrations with the impact of AI generators on their respective fields due to AI companies scraping the web to train their models. Because of such concerns, YouTube announced earlier this week that it will allow creators to opt into third-party AI training and recently partnered with the Creative Artists Agency to develop tools that give creators and artists more "control over how AI-generated content features their likeness, including their face, on YouTube at scale." Although Movie Gen has not rolled out, Instagram would be the first Meta-owned platform to use a text-to-video model. Google's new AI tool could be your new favorite learning aid - and it's free The best open-source AI models: All your free-to-use options explained I changed 5 ChatGPT settings and instantly became more productive - here's how The best AI search engines of 2024: Google, Perplexity, and more
When and where a vote takes place is a decision reserved for the municipal clerk, but the method is up to council, which settled on an online only election. The Municipal Elections Act sets out limits on what council can decide – only the method of the vote. It also outlines the many responsibilities of the clerk. Grey Highlands Clerk Amanda Fines-VanAlstine said that the help centre at the municipal office in Markdale will be open throughout the election period. Details on help centres in other locations will be released when those decisions are made. People who are confident with technology can just vote on their own devices after inputting a code that will be mailed out. DIFFERING OPINIONS The method had to be chosen now, so that the municipality could put out a tender for contracted services for the 2026 election. Originally, council considered a motion for telephone and internet voting. Coun. Tom Allwood shared that he heard criticisms of the phone voting, as did others, so that option was dropped. The vote to limit the vote to internet only with no polling stations and paper ballots was a narrow one – 4 to 3. Mayor Paul McQueen, Deputy Mayor Dane Nielsen and Coun. Dan Wickens were opposed. The Deputy Mayor said that while internet was a good option, he strongly supported that in-person voting be kept in a rural municipality such as Grey Highlands. “We need to have a voting booth on voting day – it’s a strong part of the democratic pride in our voting system,” he said. Mayor McQueen observed that many people like to vote on “Election Day”, even though there is a wider window for voting with alternate methods. And on the last day in the 2018 election, the only polling station open was at the municipal office. Mayor McQueen said he had heard from voters who turned out to spots where there had been prior help centres but there was nothing there. Clerk Fines VanAlstine said that communication would be a big part of the lead-up to the election. She said that, on election day itself, it’s easier if it’s one location. Computers to use for voting will be provided at other help centres and at the municipal office, as well as any assistance needed. The clerk commented that the electronic voting received many compliments when used at Grey Gables in 2022. Election Day is a Monday, when libraries are normally closed, Coun. Paul Allen noted. The clerk steered the conversation away from the topics of the operations side of the election, which for reason of impartiality is placed in the hands of the municipal clerk. MORE DISCUSSION Coun. Dan Wickens also argued in favour of the paper ballot. “I think there’s a large part of the population that are not comfortable even with telephone voting,” he said. “They don’t trust it – they want to see that piece of paper go in the box and they want to see a person count it”. With paper ballots tabulators are often used, and the clerk said those communicate online with voters’ lists, and there are very few suppliers. Mayor Paul McQueen said that both provincial and federal elections are in-person and that is what people are accustomed to, so keeping it consistent has advantages. While it has been argued that internet voting could increase participation levels in elections, that has not been the case. In 2018, there were server issues that caused long delays. An emergency was declared and the voting period extended. Another voting method that has been used in Grey Highlands in the past is a mail-in ballot. Both that method and computer voting are attempts to make it easier for property-owners who don’t live in the municipality to vote. The clerk said she had heard recently that there was one other municipality which had not chosen its voting method. All the others were using internet and telephone voting except Chatsworth, which is strictly the mail-in ballot, she said. During the discussion, Coun. Paul Allen asked if any member was opposed to computer voting, and no one spoke. So, it was really what if any alternatives would be provided that constituted the debate. The pricing for various options was provided in the staff report Internet voting is cost-effective, but councillors also raised participation levels and people’s trust in the process as other concerns. Coun. Joel Loughead said he finds the electronic voting at a help centre much like a paper ballot – “it’s about the act of being there and pressing the button”. Deputy Mayor Nielsen commented before the final vote, that going to a singular electronic voting method was a mistake. “I think this will turn off a segment of our population – I think the goal is to get as much buy-in and response as possible.” Coun. Wickens agreed. “I do think we will be alienating – maybe only a small portion of voters – but I think there are lots of people out there that do not trust the internet.” He said that using people to count ballots mean the vote would be independent of any possible interference or technical glitches. When facing the same decision for the election of 2022, members of the 2018 to 2022 council commented that with codes being issued by mail, they could go to the wrong households or be used by other individuals than those to whom they are addressed,. Other questions they raised were: -How many people thought they had voted, who actually hadn’t? -How many people gave up who would otherwise have voted? -How many were blocked by the system, because it had the wrong year of birth information or for some other reason? -If there were fraudulent votes cast – for example, by people voting in place of other household members, who would be able to prove it? 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