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Fisher Investments Finalizes Strategic Partnership with Advent and ADIA with Completion of Minority Common Stock Investment

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Fisher Investments’ Founder Ken Fisher Maintains Majority Controlling Interest

PLANO, Texas, Jan. 7, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Fisher Investments (“FI”) announced that Advent International (“Advent”) and a wholly owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (“ADIA”) completed a previously announced minority investment in Ken Fisher’s namesake firm, Fisher Investments. The $3 billion common stock investment by Advent and ADIA values FI at $12.75 billion.

The transaction was part of Ken Fisher’s long-term estate planning and ensures FI’s long-term private independence, culture, growth evolution and devotion to exceptional client service. Ken Fisher remains active in his current role as FI’s Executive Chairman and Co-Chief Investment Officer and retains a majority of beneficial ownership and over 70% of voting shares in FI. FI CEO Damian Ornani continues to drive FI’s day-to-day operations and business strategy. In connection with the investment, David Mussafer, a Managing Partner at Advent, has joined the board of directors at FI, and Gabriela Weiss, a Principal at Advent, has joined as a board observer at FI.

As of 12/31/24, FI managed nearly $300 billion for over 170,000 clients globally, including over 130,000 US private clients and 200 of the world’s largest and most well-known institutional clients. This is the first outside investment in FI, with previous ownership solely among family and employees. There is no further FI investment transaction contemplated. The investment in common shares includes neither options nor non-common stock preferences and includes proportional voting to the investors’ beneficial ownership in FI.

Ken Fisher said, “While my health is excellent, this transaction is aimed dually at long-term estate tax and planning purposes should anything untoward happen to me. Advent and ADIA are truly exceptional partners who value us operationally and culturally, and are committed to preserving what differentiates FI in our industry.”

Damian Ornani, longtime FI CEO, said, “We welcome Advent and ADIA’s support of our mission to help more new clients around the world.”

David Mussafer said, “We are thrilled to cement Advent’s partnership with FI at a moment when there is a growing need for the smart, independent and personalized financial expertise that FI is recognized for providing for 45 years. We look forward to closely collaborating with Ken, Damian and the rest of the FI team to support the company’s continued growth, drawing on Advent’s deep expertise in helping financial services companies best capitalize on the opportunities ahead.”

J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and RBC Capital Markets served as joint financial advisors and Paul Hastings served as legal advisor to FI. Ropes & Gray served as legal advisor to Advent. Gibson Dunn served as legal advisor to ADIA.

About Fisher Investments
Founded in 1979, Fisher Investments is an independent, fee-only investment adviser. Fisher Investments and its subsidiaries manage nearly $300 billion across three principal businesses—Institutional, US Private Client, and Private Client International. Founder and Executive Chairman Ken Fisher wrote the Forbes “Portfolio Strategy” column for 32 ½ years until 2017, making him the longest running columnist in its history. He now writes monthly for the New York Post and discreet unique columns in native language, varying by country, in 26 major nations, spanning more countries and more total volume than any other columnist of any type in history. Ken has appeared regularly on major TV news like Fox Business and News, BBN Bloomberg and CNN International. Ken has written 11 investing and finance books, including four New York Times bestsellers. For more information, visit www.fisherinvestments.com.

About Advent International
Advent is a leading global private equity investor committed to working in partnership with management teams, entrepreneurs, and founders to help transform businesses. With 16 offices across five continents, we oversee more than USD $88.8 billion in assets under management* and have made more than 420 investments across 43 countries.

Since our founding in 1984, we have developed specialist market expertise across our five core sectors: business & financial services, consumer, healthcare, industrial, and technology. This approach is bolstered by our deep sub-sector knowledge, which informs every aspect of our investment strategy, from sourcing opportunities to working in partnership with management to execute value creation plans. We bring hands-on operational expertise to enhance and accelerate businesses.

As one of the largest privately-owned partnerships, our 650+ colleagues leverage the full ecosystem of Advent’s global resources, including our Portfolio Support Group, insights provided by industry expert Operating Partners and Operations Advisors, as well as bespoke tools to support and guide our portfolio companies as they seek to achieve their strategic goals.

To learn more, visit our website connect with us on LinkedIn.

*Advent assets under management (AUM) as of June 30, 2024. AUM includes assets attributable to Advent advisory clients as well as employee and third-party co-investment vehicles.

About Abu Dhabi Investment Authority
Established in 1976, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (“ADIA”) is a globally diversified investment institution that prudently invests funds on behalf of the Government of Abu Dhabi through a strategy focused on long-term value creation. For more information, visit www.adia.ae.

Media Contacts
For Fisher Investments
Naj Srinivas
Executive Vice President, Corporate Communications
n.srinivas@fi.com

For Advent International
Leslie Shribman
Head of Communications
lshribman@adventinternational.com

For ADIA
Garry Nickson
Corporate Communications & Public Affairs
garry.nickson@adia.ae

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Chef Robotics Physical AI Models Can Now Automate Baked Goods Packing

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SAN FRANCISCO, April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Chef Robotics, a leader in physical AI for the food industry, today announced that Chef robots can now automate tray assembly for baked goods packing. The application places baked products, such as burger buns, chocolate chip cookies, biscotti, butter cookies, biscuits, fortune cookies, granola bars, rusks, and shortbreads into trays and packaging containers before sealing.

Watch Chef robots in action.

Baked goods packing has historically been difficult to automate for high-mix production. Each item behaves differently on the production line—a granola bar compresses under the wrong grip, while a biscotti or rusk can crack if placed at the wrong angle. Surface textures range from glazed and smooth to crumbly and irregular, and strict presentation requirements leave little room for error. This variability has made it challenging for automation systems to reliably handle baked goods at production speeds, leaving food manufacturers dependent on manual labor and traditional bakery equipment.

To address this, Chef built its baked goods packing application on its existing piece-picking capability, which uses Chef’s AI-powered computer vision and physical AI models trained across diverse real-world production environments. This allows Chef robots to assess each item’s position, shape, and orientation in real time and determine how to pick the items from the pan and place them quickly and precisely without damaging them.

The baked goods packing application supports four distinct placement capabilities.

First, Chef’s vision system detects the angle at which each item sits in the pan and reorients it after picking, placing it on the tray at the exact angle required, regardless of its original position, enabling retail-ready presentation for SKUs that require precise angular placement.

Second, Chef robots can place multiple baked goods into the same packaging container in a single automated pass, completing full tray assembly without manual intervention.

Third, for packaging containers with multiple small compartments, Chef robots can precisely place items into each designated section, including multiple items in the same compartment, using Chef’s AI vision model to detect compartment positions and orientations in real time.

Fourth, Chef’s vision system identifies the exact center of each tray and places every item at a predefined offset from that center, ensuring a uniform, consistent arrangement across every pack regardless of how trays arrive on the conveyor.

For food manufacturers evaluating bakery systems and baked goods packaging automation, the application offers higher throughput, reduced labor dependency, and consistent presentation across shifts. The capability runs on Chef’s existing robotic hardware and software, allowing manufacturers to deploy it without requiring any changes to their production lines.

Chef’s baked goods packing application is available in the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the UK and is included as part of Chef’s robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) pricing model.

About Chef Robotics
Chef is the first company to have commercialized a scalable AI-driven food robotics solution. With over 104 million servings made in production, Chef leverages ChefOS, an AI platform for food manipulation, to offer a Robotics-as-a-Service solution that helps industry-leading food companies increase production volume and meet demand. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Chef aims to empower humans to do what humans do best by accelerating the advent of intelligent machines. Visit https://chefrobotics.ai to learn more.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chef-robotics-physical-ai-models-can-now-automate-baked-goods-packing-302756923.html

SOURCE Chef Robotics

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Chef Robotics Physical AI Models Can Now Automate Baked Goods Packing

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SAN FRANCISCO, April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Chef Robotics, a leader in physical AI for the food industry, today announced that Chef robots can now automate tray assembly for baked goods packing. The application places baked products, such as burger buns, chocolate chip cookies, biscotti, butter cookies, biscuits, fortune cookies, granola bars, rusks, and shortbreads into trays and packaging containers before sealing.

Watch Chef robots in action.

Baked goods packing has historically been difficult to automate for high-mix production. Each item behaves differently on the production line—a granola bar compresses under the wrong grip, while a biscotti or rusk can crack if placed at the wrong angle. Surface textures range from glazed and smooth to crumbly and irregular, and strict presentation requirements leave little room for error. This variability has made it challenging for automation systems to reliably handle baked goods at production speeds, leaving food manufacturers dependent on manual labor and traditional bakery equipment.

To address this, Chef built its baked goods packing application on its existing piece-picking capability, which uses Chef’s AI-powered computer vision and physical AI models trained across diverse real-world production environments. This allows Chef robots to assess each item’s position, shape, and orientation in real time and determine how to pick the items from the pan and place them quickly and precisely without damaging them.

The baked goods packing application supports four distinct placement capabilities.

First, Chef’s vision system detects the angle at which each item sits in the pan and reorients it after picking, placing it on the tray at the exact angle required, regardless of its original position, enabling retail-ready presentation for SKUs that require precise angular placement.

Second, Chef robots can place multiple baked goods into the same packaging container in a single automated pass, completing full tray assembly without manual intervention.

Third, for packaging containers with multiple small compartments, Chef robots can precisely place items into each designated section, including multiple items in the same compartment, using Chef’s AI vision model to detect compartment positions and orientations in real time.

Fourth, Chef’s vision system identifies the exact center of each tray and places every item at a predefined offset from that center, ensuring a uniform, consistent arrangement across every pack regardless of how trays arrive on the conveyor.

For food manufacturers evaluating bakery systems and baked goods packaging automation, the application offers higher throughput, reduced labor dependency, and consistent presentation across shifts. The capability runs on Chef’s existing robotic hardware and software, allowing manufacturers to deploy it without requiring any changes to their production lines.

Chef’s baked goods packing application is available in the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the UK and is included as part of Chef’s robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) pricing model.

About Chef Robotics
Chef is the first company to have commercialized a scalable AI-driven food robotics solution. With over 104 million servings made in production, Chef leverages ChefOS, an AI platform for food manipulation, to offer a Robotics-as-a-Service solution that helps industry-leading food companies increase production volume and meet demand. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Chef aims to empower humans to do what humans do best by accelerating the advent of intelligent machines. Visit https://chefrobotics.ai to learn more.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chef-robotics-physical-ai-models-can-now-automate-baked-goods-packing-302756923.html

SOURCE Chef Robotics

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Air Products to Expand Industrial Gas Supply for Samsung Electronics’ Next-Generation Semiconductor Fab in South Korea

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New investment underscores the company’s long-term commitment to Korea and its leading role in the global semiconductor industry 

LEHIGH VALLEY, Pa., April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Air Products (NYSE:APD), a world-leading industrial gases company and serving Samsung globally, today announced it has been selected by Samsung to supply industrial gases for its new advanced semiconductor fab in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea.

Under the agreement, Air Products will build, own and operate multiple state-of-the-art production facilities and a bulk specialty gas supply system to supply nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and hydrogen for Samsung’s new semiconductor fab. The new facilities are expected to come onstream in multiple phases from 2028 through 2030.

Air Products has a long track record of executing multiple phase expansions in Pyeongtaek to support Samsung’s growing manufacturing needs. This latest project represents Air Products’ largest investment to date in the semiconductor industry and will establish Pyeongtaek as the company’s single largest operations site globally supporting the electronics industry. 

“Air Products is honored to be selected once again by Samsung and to have their continued confidence as a trusted partner supporting their strategic growth plans,” said SR Kim, President, Air Products Korea. “This significant investment reinforces Air Products’ role as a leading global supplier to the semiconductor industry and underscores our long-standing commitment to supporting our strategic customers with safety, reliability, efficiency and excellent service.”

Air Products has served the global electronics industry for more than 40 years, supplying industrial gases safely and reliably to many of the world’s leading technology companies. The company has operated in Korea for more than 50 years and has established a strong position in electronics and manufacturing sectors.

About Air Products

Air Products (NYSE: APD) is a world-leading industrial gases company in operation for over 85 years focused on serving energy, environmental, and emerging markets and generating a cleaner future. The Company supplies essential industrial gases, related equipment and applications expertise to customers in dozens of industries, including refining, chemicals, metals, electronics, manufacturing, medical and food. As the leading global supplier of hydrogen, Air Products also develops, engineers, builds, owns and operates some of the world’s largest clean hydrogen projects, supporting the transition to low- and zero-carbon energy in the industrial and heavy-duty transportation sectors. Through its sale of equipment businesses, the Company also provides turbomachinery, membrane systems and cryogenic containers globally.

Air Products had fiscal 2025 sales of $12 billion from operations in approximately 50 countries. For more information, visit airproducts.com or follow us on LinkedInXFacebook or Instagram.

This release contains “forward-looking statements” within the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on management’s expectations and assumptions as of the date of this release and are not guarantees of future performance. While forward-looking statements are made in good faith and based on assumptions, expectations and projections that management believes are reasonable based on currently available information, actual performance and financial results may differ materially from projections and estimates expressed in the forward-looking statements because of many factors, including the risk factors described in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2025 and other factors disclosed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, we disclaim any obligation or undertaking to update or revise any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in the assumptions, beliefs or expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances upon which any such forward-looking statements are based.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/air-products-to-expand-industrial-gas-supply-for-samsung-electronics-next-generation-semiconductor-fab-in-south-korea-302757497.html

SOURCE Air Products

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