Wednesday, November 4, 2026

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The Buyback Shows Up (ESRT Q3 2026)

Empire State Realty Trust repurchased $85.8 million of shares at $4.56 each, using 1359 Broadway sale proceeds to fund buybacks and debt reduction.

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AI labs and data labeling companies (firms that turn experts’ knowledge into training data for the labs) could make my $12-19M sale range for Nubeva Technologies $NBVAF (TSXV: $NBVA) look conservative. My previous write-up’s sale comps were five cybersecurity companies buying small startups that detect, stop, or recover from ransomware, and I valued a Nubeva sale at $12-19M, the low end of those deals. AI labs and data labeling companies would widen the set of buyers beyond cybersecurity companies, but I found none that has bought a ransomware recovery company like Nubeva. The closest deals were for a stake in a ransomware recovery company, malware data, and specialist teams: → Microsoft $MSFT: Made an equity investment in Veeam, a data protection and ransomware recovery company, in February 2025, as part of a partnership to build AI-based threat detection and other Microsoft AI services into Veeam’s products. → Google $GOOGL: Owns VirusTotal, a malware-scanning site it bought in 2012, and Mandiant, the incident-response firm it bought for $5.4B in 2022. Its experimental Sec-Gemini model, introduced in April 2025, draws on Mandiant’s threat intelligence data. → OpenAI: Agreed to buy Promptfoo in March 2026 for an undisclosed price. Promptfoo, which tests AI systems for security holes, was valued at $86M after its July 2025 funding round, per PitchBook. → Mercor (a data labeling company): Agreed to buy Deeptune, which builds practice environments for AI agents, in July 2026, months after Andreessen Horowitz led Deeptune’s $43M Series A. The two 2026 deals didn’t disclose prices, and Mandiant and Veeam are far larger businesses than Nubeva, so I can’t put a new number on a sale. Still, my $12-19M range is probably conservative now, since it only counted cybersecurity companies as buyers, and an AI lab or data labeling company would be paying for Nubeva’s engineers and model rather than its ~$500K of FY2026 revenue. But an AI buyer wouldn’t get patents on what it’s paying for. Nubeva’s patents would cover how it recovers files and how it detects hidden encryption, but it won’t patent its binary analysis (figuring out what malware programs do) at all, and CEO Randy Chou explained why: “Anything you patent, that means you have to show how you did it. If you show how you did it, well, somebody can train an LLM to go do it.” So the model is only worth what Nubeva can prove it does, through a signed contract, a named partner, or test results.

New Ideas From The Road

Aurelion Research increased healthcare exposure and sees opportunities in banking and defense, alongside research on Alcoa, Nike, ONON and…

Oracle: The Party Is Almost Over

Oracle’s CDS spreads exceed 320 basis points as debt approaches $135 billion and fiscal 2027 capex targets $95 billion, amid heavy reliance…

Site Centers (NYSE:SITC)

Site Centers' $3 per-share return-of-capital distribution and December delisting leave a discounted liquidation stub, with two properties…

Coupang: 3Q26 Business Recap

Coupang’s product-commerce growth rose 9% as data-leak effects fade, while management expects margins to return to pre-incident levels by…

update on Gartner

Gartner’s growth has stalled after federal contract losses and cautious commercial spending, raising questions about its competitive…

Recycle Bin

Used aircraft engines can be repurposed as gas turbines, easing data center power constraints while tightening aviation supply.

AMRZ · long

Amrize

Amrize (AMRZ) produces aggregates, cement and roofing materials across the US and Canada.

AMD Earnings Review

AMD reported $13.4 billion in Q3 revenue, with Data Center sales up 97% to $8.5 billion, and guided Q4 revenue to $17 billion.

TWLO Q3 FY12/26 Earnings Review

Twilio's Q3 revenue rose 20% to $1.56 billion, but Q4 organic growth guidance fell to 11% to 12% and RPO declined 28%.

Namib Minerals: Research Flash

Namib Minerals accelerates Redwing’s restart, targeting first gold this month and a ramp from 338 ounces monthly to 835 ounces by Q2 2027.

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