Key transactions & industry newsWeekly Update 07/02/2026

What We Found Interesting This Week

June 30, 2026 – Alcoa Corporation (NYSE:AA, ASX:AAI), the leading pure-play upstream aluminum company, entered into a definitive agreement to acquire South32 Limited's (ASX:S32) bauxite mine, alumina refinery and aluminum smelter interests across Western Australia, Brazil and South Africa in a $4.1B transaction. (Alcoa)


Primary aluminum has become a hard business to own without scale, integration, and a defensible position on the cost curve, and Alcoa's roughly $4.1B purchase of South32's bauxite, alumina, and aluminum assets (an implied enterprise value near $4.7B) is a bet that owning more of the chain is the best defense. The assets fit what Alcoa already runs. Boddington and Worsley sit next to its Western Australian operations, Alumar and MRN deepen a Brazilian position it knows well, and Hillside adds smelting scale in South Africa. What is left out is Mozal, the South32 asset most visibly broken by power economics, placed on care and maintenance in March after a six-year effort to secure affordable electricity collapsed. Mozal is a clean illustration of how power now sets the appetite for a smelting asset, turning a viable operation into a stranded one once the electricity math stops working. Firm, cheap power is getting scarcer and more contested worldwide, and AI data centers have become an aggressive new bidder for it, with Alcoa's own CFO noting that smelters need power in the $30 to $40 per megawatt-hour range while data centers are paying more than $100. The same power squeeze cuts both ways. It turns secure, long-dated electricity into the genuinely scarce asset, which is the strongest case for owning the whole chain, and it also means no smelter in the portfolio is fully insulated, which is why Hillside's dependence on an unreliable Eskom grid is the open risk. Read that way, this is less a claim that Alcoa has solved the power problem than a bet that scale and integration are the best available hedge against it. The test is whether that hedge delivers real resilience through the cycle, or simply spreads the same escalating power and cost exposure across a wider base.

Recent M&A Transactions

Metals & Mining

June 30, 2026 – Alcoa Corporation (NYSE:AA, ASX:AAI), the leading pure-play upstream aluminum company, entered into a definitive agreement to acquire South32 Limited’s (ASX:S32) bauxite mine, alumina refinery and aluminum smelter interests across Western Australia, Brazil and South Africa in a $4.1B transaction. (Alcoa)

June 29, 2026 – H.I.G. Capital, LLC completed the acquisition of Premier Forge Group Holdings, Inc. (PFG), the Portland, Indiana-headquartered manufacturer of highly complex forgings for mission-critical aerospace and defense and specialty industrial applications produced from specialty alloys, titanium, carbon steel, and stainless steel with additional operations in Lebanon, Kentucky and Azusa, California, from Wynnchurch Capital, L.P., which originally acquired PFG in June 2019 as a corporate carve-out from Allegheny Technologies Incorporated (NYSE:ATI). (Wynnchurch)

Transportation & Logistics

July 1, 2026 – CMA CGM Group, the France-based global container shipping and logistics company, agreed to acquire FedEx Supply Chain, the contract logistics arm of FedEx Corp. (NYSE:FDX), for $1.4B in enterprise value, folding the business into CMA CGM’s Ceva Logistics subsidiary and nearly tripling Ceva’s North American contract logistics footprint to approximately 150 warehouses and 20,000 employees across more than 240 locations, with multi-year commercial agreements for air and ocean freight to follow at closing expected later this year. (FreightWaves)

June 30, 2026 – Virginia Railway Express (VRE), the nation’s 13th-largest commuter rail service connecting Central and Northern Virginia with Washington, D.C., acquired Seminary Yard in Alexandria, Virginia, a former Norfolk Southern freight yard, from the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority for $35.8M as part of a broader five-year, $155M agreement covering four separate property interests, with the yard to be used for midday train storage, expanded fleet capacity, and future evening and weekend service. (Progressive Railroading)

June 30, 2026 – Rush Enterprises, Inc. (NASDAQ:RUSHA, RUSHB), the largest commercial vehicle dealership network in North America, acquired certain assets of Peterbilt of Louisiana, adding five full-service Peterbilt dealership locations in Baton Rouge, Houma, Lafayette, Lake Charles, and New Orleans plus one collision center and one PacLease operation to its newly formed Gulf South Region. (Transport Topics)

June 29, 2026 – FTAI Infrastructure Inc. (NASDAQ:FIP), the Fortress-managed critical infrastructure investor across rail, ports and terminals, and power and gas, announced the completed acquisition of Tidewater Logistics (AP Shale Logistics ManagementCo LLC), a barge and rail transloading platform with operations in Ohio, West Virginia, and Texas serving producers, shippers, and industrial customers across the Appalachian Basin and Gulf Coast, for approximately $45M in cash. (GlobeNewswire)

Building Products & Materials

July 1, 2026 – QXO, Inc. (NYSE:QXO), the Greenwich, Connecticut-based building products distribution platform, completed its $17B acquisition of TopBuild Corp. (NYSE:BLD), the Daytona Beach-based largest distributor and installer of insulation and related building products in North America, following stockholder approval at both companies on June 29, 2026. (QXO)

June 29, 2026 – Martin Marietta Materials, Inc. (NYSE:MLM) entered into a definitive agreement to combine with Lhoist North America, Inc., the Belgian-headquartered Lhoist Group’s US subsidiary and a leading producer of hi-calcium lime, dolomitic lime and industrial mineral products, in a $13.5B transaction expected to close in the second half of 2026. (Martin Marietta)


Energy


June 30, 2026 – Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL) agreed to sell its 50% non-operated working interest in the Na Kika platform and associated Gulf of America fields, along with its 100%-owned Coulomb subsea tieback, to subsidiaries of Talos Energy Inc. (NYSE:TALO) and Ridgewood Energy Corporation in a $1.7B cash transaction subject to BP’s 30-day preferential right on the Na Kika interest, expected to close by year-end 2026. (Reuters)

June 29, 2026 – Fortum Consumer Solutions AS, a wholly owned subsidiary of Finnish energy major Fortum Oyj (HEL:FORTUM), announced a recommended voluntary cash tender offer to acquire Elmera Group ASA (OB:ELMRA), the Nordic retail electricity provider with an established position in Norway and challenger positions in Sweden and Finland, in a $513M transaction. (Fortum)

June 25, 2026 – Launch Two Acquisition Corp. (NASDAQ:LPBB), a special purpose acquisition company, entered into a definitive business combination agreement with NuCube Energy, Inc., the Idaho Falls-based advanced-nuclear technology company developing factory-built, solid-state microreactors that deliver firm, carbon-free power and high-temperature process heat for industrial, manufacturing and data center energy needs, in a $630M transaction that will result in NuCube becoming a publicly listed company on Nasdaq or NYSE upon closing. (SEC)

Others

July 1, 2026 – Ipsen (Euronext:IPN), the French specialty pharmaceutical company, entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Memo Therapeutics AG, the Swiss clinical-stage biotech developing potravitug for BK polyomavirus-associated nephropathy in kidney transplant recipients, in a transaction that could top $800M including milestones. (WSJ)

Top News Stories

Metals & Mining

Adani and Abu Dhabi’s IHC sign MoU for $11.5B aluminum complex in Odisha. India’s aluminum sector is poised for major expansion, as the Adani Group and Abu Dhabi-based International Holding Company (IHC) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to jointly develop an integrated aluminum complex in Odisha with an estimated investment of $11.5B.

APAA is pleased that Magnitude 7 Metals has restarted its aluminum smelter in Missouri. The American Primary Aluminium Association (APAA) has welcomed the decision by Magnitude 7 Metals to reopen its primary aluminum smelter in Marston, Missouri, calling the move a significant positive development for domestic aluminum production and U.S. manufacturing.


Slovalco to restart 75,000 tonnes of curtailed aluminum capacity, supplying a critical raw material for Europe. The aluminum plant Slovalco has reached an agreement with the Slovak government enabling the restart of 75,000 tonnes of primary aluminum production capacity.

Inola City Council approves moratorium that delays proposed aluminum smelter. The city council unanimously approved a 60-day moratorium to stop construction. The proposed $4B aluminum smelter has been the subject of months of debate in Rogers County, with supporters touting its economic impact and opponents raising environmental concerns.

Ghana signs $341.6M deal with Danieli to strengthen aluminum value chain. Ghana has moved a step forward to boost its aluminum industry after the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Ghana Integrated Aluminium Development Corporation and Italian engineering company Danieli & C. Officine Meccaniche S.p. A. for developing downstream aluminum processing infrastructure in the country.

Transportation & Logistics

New rail park aims to make Laredo more than a trucking gateway. Developers behind the newly approved Laredo Gateway Industrial Railway in South Texas say the project is designed to expand freight movement at the nation’s busiest U.S.-Mexico trade gateway by giving shippers a new option to move cargo between trucks and rail without leaving the region.

Borderlands Mexico: Port of Brownsville completes $295M ship channel deepening project. The Port of Brownsville has completed the $295.2M Brazos Island Harbor Improvement Project, an infrastructure investment that deepens the Brownsville Ship Channel by 10 feet.

Energy

Polish small nuclear plant developer SGE targets $46.5B fleet in Britain. Poland-based SGE ​plans to build a fleet of 14 small nuclear reactors at a ‌total cost of $46.5B, targeting power from the first project by 2034.

U.S. nuclear power regulator proposes changing rule protecting people from radiation. The U.S. nuclear ​power regulator proposed changes to a rule protecting people from radiation, the latest proposal pushed ‌by the Trump administration to change or soften rules to speed development and cut costs for new atomic reactors.

U.S. issues emergency order for PJM Interconnection as heatwave looms. The U.S. Department of Energy declared an emergency across the nation’s largest ​power grid, citing soaring demand and supply risks ‌as extreme heat grips the region.

Bloom Energy, Brookfield expand AI infrastructure power partnership to $25B. Bloom Energy and Brookfield expanded their partnership to ‌finance power projects for AI infrastructure, boosting their funding framework fivefold to $25B to accelerate the global deployment of Bloom’s ​fuel cells.

Stalled U.S. permits threaten $121B in wind and solar investment, report shows. Trump administration policies that have stalled permits for renewable energy projects are putting more than $121B of ​investment at risk and slowing development of wind, solar and storage ‌capacity needed to meet rising power demand.

Others

Warsh says inflation outlook has improved but won’t say if Fed should hike. Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh declined to say whether the central bank needed to consider a rate increase later this month but said his first weeks in the job have seen risks of higher inflation recede.

U.S. rejects longer USMCA renewal, opts for annual reviews. The U.S. decided against renewing its trade deal with Canada and Mexico, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said, choosing instead to conduct annual reviews of the pact in a move that risks adding uncertainty for companies producing goods across North America.

About RJM

RJM & Company is a specialized M&A and capital markets advisory investment bank. We provide boards and management teams of public and private companies with independent advice and expertise in a variety of sectors including road, rail and marine transportation, infrastructure, chemicals, energy, metals and mining, manufacturing, building materials, and other coverage areas of the industrial complex. RJM advises clients on all aspects of transactions including timing, structure, and pricing. RJM originates opportunities and helps negotiate and execute transactions already under evaluation.

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