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R.J. O’Brien Agrees to Acquisition by StoneX Group

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Combination Strengthens Firms’ Position as a Leading Futures Brokerage and Clearing Firm 

CHICAGO and NEW YORK, April 14, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — R.J. O’Brien & Associates (RJO), the oldest futures brokerage and clearing firm in the United States, announced today that its parent company has reached a definitive agreement with StoneX Group Inc. (NASDAQ: SNEX), to merge all of RJO’s global businesses into StoneX, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. Upon the closing of the transaction, anticipated in the third quarter of this year, the combined firm will become a leading futures commission merchant (FCM) in the U.S., enhancing its role in the global financial market structure.

StoneX is a Fortune 100 company with operations in six continents and a market capitalization of over $3.5 billion. Privately held R.J. O’Brien has offices and affiliates in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. 

Sean O’Connor, Executive Vice-Chairman of StoneX, said: “This is a transformational transaction for StoneX, establishing us as a leading global derivatives clearing firm and reinforcing our position as an integral part of the global market structure across asset classes. Combining R.J. O’Brien’s extensive client network and proven clearing capabilities with StoneX’s deep liquidity, innovative OTC hedging solutions and leading risk management infrastructure, we are well-positioned to continue to deliver exceptional services, broader market access and industry-leading solutions to our combined client base. We are very pleased that Gerry Corcoran, who has been the CEO and driving force behind RJO, will continue on with StoneX in a senior leadership role.” 

RJO Chairman and CEO Gerry Corcoran said: “We’re extraordinarily excited about this partnership between two great companies that each bring over a century of history in the futures industry and complementary capabilities, products, services and cultures. We both prioritize a profound commitment to our clients and a focus on prudent risk management. RJO’s clients will continue to enjoy the same enduring relationships with the brokers they know so well and the high level of service they know they can expect from us. In addition to all the products we offer today, our clients and brokers will have a plethora of new products and services across asset classes available at their fingertips, bringing meaningful new trading and hedging opportunities. At the same time, our organization will benefit from new efficiencies, premier technologies and greater growth potential.” 

Speaking on behalf of the O’Brien family, the majority shareholders in RJO, Board member Bob O’Brien, Jr. said: “This transaction is the right step to take for all of our stakeholders to ensure we carry on the values that have made the firm successful while putting us in the strongest position to compete and meet the challenges of the evolving financial landscape. StoneX was founded just 10 years after my grandfather, John V. McCarthy, started our firm in 1914. Like RJO, it was one of the earliest clearing members of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. So many of our family members have been privileged to lead the company and provide guidance and counsel. We feel so close to our clients, brokers and employees; they’re extended family to us. This merger is the natural next step in the history of the company, and the O’Brien family is enthusiastic about playing a new role as major shareholders in another great company that will build on that legacy.”   

RJO Board member John O’Brien, Jr. said: “My father, John O’Brien, Sr. – and his father before him, Robert J. O’Brien, Sr. – led the firm to new heights. My dad worked harder than anyone I have ever met, and his focus on integrity and profound impact on the business were matched only by how much he loved to talk about and spend time with RJO’s clients, brokers and amazing employees. He would be the number one advocate for this transaction because it makes so much sense for all of our stakeholders – from employees and brokers to clients and shareholders. My father always said, ‘If you’re not growing, you’re dying.’ Gerry has done an incredible job leading the company and driving growth for over two decades while remaining true to our family’s principles. He found just the right home for us with StoneX. Both RJO and StoneX have remained leaders in the industry, evolving with the times and expanding to ensure clients were best served. Moving forward together is the best way to stay a leader in this space and operate at an even higher level.” 

Broadhaven Capital Partners is serving as exclusive financial advisor to RJO, and Mayer Brown LLP is serving as its legal advisor. 

The StoneX announcement about the transaction can be found at https://ir.stonex.com/press-releases. StoneX will host a conference call to discuss the transaction today at 9:00 a.m. Eastern time. A live web cast of the conference call as well as additional information to review during the call will be made available in PDF form on-line on the StoneX corporate web site at https://register.vevent.com/register/BIe20141cf7fd043c89fde461964a3582e approximately ten minutes prior to the start time. Participants may preregister for the conference call here.

About R.J. O’Brien 

Founded in 1914, R.J. O’Brien & Associates is the oldest independent futures brokerage and clearing firm in the United States, serving more than 75,000 institutional, commercial and individual clients globally, in addition to a network of approximately 300 introducing brokers (IBs). RJO services the industry’s most expansive global network of IBs, a vast array of middle market firms and many of the world’s largest financial, industrial and agricultural institutions. The firm offers state-of-the-art electronic trading and 24-hour trade execution on every major futures exchange worldwide. RJO received the FOW International Award for Non-Bank FCM of the Year for five consecutive years, and the firm and its UK affiliate have earned eight honors from the HFM Global publications (now With Intelligence) in recent years. 

About StoneX Group Inc. 

StoneX Group Inc., through its subsidiaries, operates a global financial services network that connects companies, organizations, traders and investors to the global market ecosystem through a unique blend of digital platforms, end-to-end clearing and execution services, high touch service and deep expertise. The Company strives to be the one trusted partner to its clients, providing its network, product and services to allow them to pursue trading opportunities, manage their market risks, make investments and improve their business performance. A Fortune 100 company headquartered in New York City and listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market (NASDAQ:SNEX), StoneX Group Inc. and its more than 4,400 employees serve more than 54,000 commercial, institutional, and payments clients, and more than 400,000 retail accounts, from more than 70 offices spread across six continents. Further information on the Company is available at www.stonex.com.  

 

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SOURCE R.J. O’Brien & Associates

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uSMART Securities Singapore Marks Third Branch Opening in Bugis with Lion Dance and K-pop

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SINGAPORE, Nov. 14, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — uSMART Securities Singapore officially opened its third branch at 516 North Bridge Road, #01-00, Singapore 188740 expanding its physical presence in Singapore with a new uSMART Investor Hub. The opening was marked by a private ceremony featuring a speech, a traditional lion dance and a K-pop dance performance, bringing together the uSMART team, esteemed guests and partners.

The Bugis opening marks another milestone in uSMART’s expansion in Singapore, following the launch of its first local branch at Robinson Road in July 2025 and its Somerset branch in October that year. The new branch reflects the company’s approach of combining digital trading with face-to-face support, offering clients an additional location to make enquiries, receive assistance with account opening and engage directly with the team.

Speaking at the ceremony, Mr Eng Thiam Choon (TC Eng), Chief Operating Officer of uSMART, highlighted the importance of maintaining physical branches alongside digital brokerage services. Clients may appreciate the opportunity to discuss opening their first investment account, gain a better understanding of products available on the app or receive assistance with any issues.

“Customers should have a choice in how they deal with us. If they’re comfortable doing everything on the app, that’s fine. If they’d prefer to come in and talk, we want to make that possible too,” said Mr Eng.

Drawing on its experience operating branches in Hong Kong, uSMART has tailored this approach to the Singapore market through ongoing engagement and conversations with local clients.

Mr Eng also highlighted the importance of understanding different trading rules, currency exposure and diversification as investors explore more markets. Seminars and conversations with the branch team will support these learning opportunities, equipping clients with the knowledge and information they need to make informed investment decisions.

“You don’t need to come with a decision already made. You can come with a question,” said Mr Eng.

Beyond the opening celebrations, Mr Eng highlighted the importance of consistent client service through attentive listening, clear communication and following through on commitments.

About uSMART Securities (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.

Established in March 2021, uSMART Securities (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. is the Singapore entity of uSMART Group, which holds a Capital Markets Services licence issued by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) (Licence No. CMS101161).

Through the uSMART platform, the company provides access to stocks across global markets, as well as ETFs, options, futures, funds, Contracts for Difference (CFDs) and forex products. Its services include digital trading tools and client account support.

In addition to its digital trading platform, uSMART offers structured investment solutions, including Fixed Coupon Notes (FCNs), catering to investors with different investment objectives and risk preferences. Through its growing network of physical branches, the company also provides face-to-face assistance, investor education and account support, complementing its digital services.

Branch Address

uSMART Securities – Bugis Branch
516 North Bridge Road, #01-00
Singapore 188740

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SOURCE uSMART Securities (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.

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Chinese Team Drops a “Game-Changer”: Motphys Launches MotrixSim 1.0, Sparking Industry Buzz

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BEIJING, Nov. 14, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — If the global expansion of Chinese-made robots defined the hardware boom in the first half of the embodied AI race, the second half will be won by those that can bring down the high cost of real-world trial and error and make robot training more universal and accessible. In this underlying physics engine race long dominated by Western players, a Chinese team is now bringing a potential game-changer to the field.

Recently, Chinese company Motphys was invited to attend CoRL 2026, where it showcased its fully in-house embodied intelligence simulation engine—MotrixSim 1.0. In extreme benchmark tests against leading international physics engines, MotrixSim 1.0 demonstrates extraordinary capabilities: overwhelming established open-source engines in the contact and grasping test and vastly surpassing mainstream GPU-accelerated simulation platforms in training efficiency.

In the past, simulation was primarily used for error-proof verification at the end of the design phase. But in the era of embodied AI, AI requires massive amounts of interaction experience.

“Simulation once served to validate how machines perform. Now, it is where they learn how to perform,” said Zhang Heng, co-founder and CTO of Motphys. Simulation has evolved from a “post-design validation tool” into a “physical experience production system”. To power this system, Motphys builds its physics engine entirely in-house, developing the core from the ground up in Rust rather than building on existing open-source engines. This equips MotrixSim 1.0 with strong memory safety and computation power, enabling it to compete with established international players at the underlying architecture level.

True technical strength is proven in extreme tests.

In a “devil-level” disturbance-rejection grasping test where a Franka arm grasps objects of different shapes, MotrixSim 1.0 is the only engine to achieve a 100% pass rate at both 2 ms and 10 ms simulation step sizes. In the microscopic critical friction point test, MotrixSim exhibits hold-and-slip behavior near the critical friction consistent with Coulomb’s law, achieving 0mm slip distance.

In terms of compute and training efficiency. Through its unique pipeline supporting CPU/GPU parallel computation, MotrixSim can achieve a physics simulation throughput of millions of physics steps per second across 4,096 parallel environments. In a controlled comparison conducted on the G1 whole-body tracking task, under the same task environment configuration and the same RL algorithm, MotrixSim reaches the current tracking score in about 10.2 minutes of end-to-end time, while the Isaac Sim-based solution takes 130.8 minutes—a gap of about 12.8×.

Furthermore, for the Strandbeest complex closed-loop mechanism with 92 linkages, when traditional engines fail to maintain the stability of the mechanism at a large time step of 5ms, MotrixSim solves closed-loop constraints together with the multibody dynamics in generalized coordinates, so the mechanism maintains its assembly relationships during motion.

Beyond extreme physical conditions and compute, MotrixSim 1.0 has achieved breakthroughs in multimodal perception and developer experience: LiDAR simulation throughput reaches 124 million rays per second; visual synthesis maintains stable throughput even when resolution surges 16 times. In terms of developer experience and industrial deployment, MotrixSim 1.0 streamlines development with high-speed solving in a single line of code (98.42% success rate) and a “zero-conversion + AI auto-modeling” workflow. Forge is also launched as the industry’s first Blender-based extension tool, enabling AI Agents to automatically generate physics scenes.

Zhang Heng emphasized that the core proposition of Physical AI is to transform expensive and slow “real-world physical experience” into digital learning resources that can be generated at scale.

Motphys’s relevant research has been accepted to top international conferences such as RSS and CoRL, and the company has built a simulation and real-robot training center for embodied AI in China. Currently, the world’s leading physics engines primarily include Google’s MuJoCo and NVIDIA’s Isaac Sim.

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SOURCE Motphys

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HiTHIUM Partners with the University of Cambridge to Advance International Industry-Academia Collaboration in Long-Duration Energy Storage

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XIAMEN, China, Nov. 14, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — On November 12, the Global Energy Storage Colloquium was held in Xiamen. During the colloquium, HiTHIUM and the University of Cambridge signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU), establishing a strategic partnership. The two parties will collaborate on frontier scientific research, key technology innovation and industrial applications in battery energy storage, bringing academic research into closer alignment with industry needs and exploring new models for international industry-academia collaboration. The partnership aims to contribute to the advancement of global energy storage technology and the industry.

The UK has a strong track record in the development of modern battery technologies and fundamental research. The University of Cambridge is one of the world’s leading universities, with internationally recognized expertise in engineering, materials science and fundamental research. As a leading global energy storage technology company, HiTHIUM has long focused on energy storage technology development and commercialization. It continues to advance integrated research and innovation across the value chain, from high-capacity energy storage cells to long-duration energy storage systems and grid integration technologies.

The collaboration is intended to bring internationally leading academic research into closer engagement with innovation across China’s energy storage industry. The University of Cambridge’s strengths in fundamental science, materials research and engineering will offer new perspectives and approaches to key scientific questions and emerging technologies in energy storage. HiTHIUM will bring its experience in long-duration energy storage (LDES), product development and large-scale deployment, connecting research with real industry needs and application scenarios, and supporting the engineering validation and commercialization of research outcomes. By drawing on the strengths of both research and industry, the partnership will strengthen the links between frontier innovation and practical applications.

Under the cooperation plan, the two parties will establish joint management and research collaboration mechanisms, bringing together academic resources and corporate R&D capabilities. They will work together to plan research projects, facilitate scientific exchange and support the translation of research outcomes, strengthening connections between fundamental research, technology development and industrial applications so that innovation in energy storage can better serve industry needs.

The partnership also marks an important step in HiTHIUM’s efforts to expand its international innovation network. Building on this collaboration with the University of Cambridge, HiTHIUM will further strengthen academic exchanges and research partnerships with leading universities and research institutions around the world. By bringing together international research resources and talent, the company aims to encourage collaboration across disciplines and technology fields, explore the development of technologies such as LDES from a global perspective, and bring technical challenges and application needs from the front lines of industry into research and innovation. This will help research and industrial practice reinforce one another.

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SOURCE HiTHIUM

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