Asset Management & Custody Banks

Ameriprise Financial has approved a new US$5.5b share repurchase authorization, a move that puts the stock's recent pullback in focus. The shares have eased roughly 9.3% over the past 30 days, even as the 1-year total shareholder return stands at 5.8% and the 5-year total shareholder return is about 85.7%. The most followed narrative pegs fair value at $579.45 using an 8.04% discount rate, compared with the latest close at $500.51, implying the stock is 14% undervalued. The company has returned approximately 85% to 90% of adjusted operating earnings to shareholders over time, illustrated by capital return of 88% and 91% of operating earnings in Q1 and Q2 2026, a 6% dividend increase, and repurchases of 3.3 million shares in the first half of 2026. The story could be knocked off course if adviser turnover continues to drain client assets or if asset management outflows remain elevated and put pressure on fees.

MLP SE raised its 2026 EBIT guidance to €110 million to €120 million and flagged significantly higher third quarter EBIT, citing performance-based pay, higher assets under management, and ECB rate effects. The guidance upgrade follows a strong rally in the shares, with a 30-day share price return of 17.9% and a 90-day move of 42.7%, while total shareholder return over the past year is 55.3%. MLP's most followed valuation narrative pegs fair value at €11.56, a touch above the last close of €10.72, and the company's P/E of 16.9x sits above both peers at 13.1x and the German Capital Markets average of 14.5x. The company points to rapid growth in assets under management and managed non-life insurance premium volumes, supported by expanding recurring revenues of nearly 70%, as a foundation for sustainable revenue growth. MLP warns the story can change quickly if capital markets remain volatile and if real estate development continues to deliver uneven earnings contributions.

Analysts have flagged Ameriprise Financial's positive Earnings ESP of 0.23% and Zacks Rank 3 (Hold), signaling growing optimism ahead of its late-October 2026 earnings release after the firm beat estimates in each of the past two quarters. The company has repurchased more than 7.0 million shares for roughly US$3.4 billion under its current buyback plan, a capital return that can support per-share results even as net client flows and institutional outflows weigh on asset growth. Ameriprise's narrative projects $22.9 billion in revenue and $4.8 billion in earnings by 2029, requiring 4.8% yearly revenue growth and about a $0.9 billion earnings increase from $3.9 billion today, and yields a $579.45 fair value, a 16% upside to its current price. Before this earnings signal, the most optimistic analysts assumed revenue of about US$23.2 billion and earnings of roughly US$5.0 billion, a brighter scenario than consensus that could be challenged if adviser legal or recruiting risks matter more than expected.

Ameriprise Financial's Excess Returns model estimates the company's intrinsic value substantially above its current share price of US$500.51, suggesting the stock may be 42% undervalued despite a new US$5.5 billion share repurchase authorization. The model uses a Book Value of $71.97 per share and a Stable Book Value of $95.98 per share, with a Stable EPS of $51.87 per share, a Cost of Equity of $8.97 per share, and an Excess Return of $42.91 per share. That implies an Average Return on Equity of 54.05%, far above the model's required return. The buyback authorization signals management is prepared to commit significant capital to repurchasing equity. A top community narrative on Simply Wall St values Ameriprise Financial at 14% undervalued, citing a continued shift in its Advice & Wealth Management mix toward durable fee-based earnings.

The U.S. Treasury has created nearly 70 million Trump Accounts for children under 18 and is directing initial contributions exclusively into State Street's low-fee SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 ETF, SPYM. The government-backed default funnel into a single State Street ETF gives the firm a rare chance to build early, long-term relationships with a vast cohort of future investors. State Street's existing narrative projects $17.5 billion in revenue and $4.5 billion in earnings by 2029, requiring 5.3% yearly revenue growth and a $1.3 billion earnings increase from $3.2 billion. Recent reports highlight a 32.2% operating margin and a five year return on equity of 10.4%, underlining that State Street is already running a profitable model even before any incremental benefit from Treasury-directed inflows into SPYM. Some of the most optimistic analysts were already projecting revenue near US$18.6 billion and earnings of about US$4.3 billion by 2029, and views on upside could shift meaningfully as the Trump Accounts decision filters into updated forecasts.

IREN Chief Commercial Officer Kent Draper said at the All-In Summit in Los Angeles that the company operates as a vertically integrated AI cloud provider, delivering compute services through company-owned data center infrastructure. Speaking to NYSE Live, Draper said controlling the underlying physical assets lets IREN support customers across a range of AI workloads while expanding capacity to meet growing demand. He identified land, power, labor, supply chains and execution as the central challenges in scaling AI infrastructure, calling the addition of new capacity one of the most important issues facing providers. Draper also pointed to evolving financing markets and growing capital availability for compute and data center expansion, tied to customer commitments and changing financing structures. He cited manufacturing, research and development, drug discovery, enterprise operations and customer-facing technologies as expanding real-world use cases, and highlighted physical AI, including robotics and AI-enabled manufacturing, as an area attracting increased attention.

BlackRock is positioned for another potential earnings beat, with a positive Zacks Earnings ESP of +0.51% and a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) heading into its next quarterly report, expected on October 14, 2026. The investment firm has topped consensus estimates by an average of 9.56% over the last two quarters. In the most recent quarter, BlackRock was expected to post earnings of $12.67 per share but reported $13.91 per share, a surprise of 9.79%. The prior quarter saw a consensus estimate of $11.46 per share against actual earnings of $12.53 per share, a surprise of 9.34%. Zacks research shows that stocks combining a positive Earnings ESP with a Zacks Rank #3 or better produce a positive surprise nearly 70% of the time.

Octopus Apollo VCT plc reported a net asset value total return of 1.0% for the six months ended 31 July 2026, with net assets rising to £573,339,000 from £541,059,000 at 31 January 2026. Net asset value per share was 48.3p, down from 49.1p at the prior year end, while total value per share, combining NAV with cumulative dividends of 93.9p, edged up to 142.2p from 141.7p. The board declared an interim dividend of 1.2p per share, payable on 23 December 2026 to shareholders on the register at 4 December 2026. During the period the company invested £23.9 million across new and follow-on holdings, including £11.2 million into AI-powered data analytics platform Hurree, the first investment completed under expanded VCT rules, and £3.7 million into AI-native customer operations platform Gradient Labs. Apollo closed its most recent offer for subscription having raised £89.6 million, bought back 34,158,939 shares for £15.9 million, and announced a further offer targeting £50 million with an over-allotment facility of up to £25 million. Portfolio company valuations rose by a net £12.4 million, with increases across 26 companies totalling £30.5 million offset by reductions across 21 companies totalling £18.1 million.

State Street has been named the exclusive default investment provider for the Treasury Department's new Trump Accounts program for minors. The Treasury has opened nearly 70 million Trump Accounts for children under 18, with initial contributions routed into State Street's SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 ETF. The default allocation into that single SPDR index fund is only one piece of the longer term State Street story, but it could create a large pipeline of future retail investors for the firm if the program remains in place as an ongoing savings vehicle. Onboarding the accounts positions State Street closer to millions of future retail savers than its usual institutional customer base, though concentrating millions of young investors into one low-fee ETF keeps fee compression front and center.

Hercules Capital, Inc. announced it has closed an upsized underwritten public offering of $400.0 million in aggregate principal amount of 6.700% notes due October 2029. The notes are unsecured, bear interest at 6.700% per year payable semiannually, mature on October 8, 2029, and may be redeemed at the company's option at par plus a make whole premium, if applicable. The notes were initially assigned ratings of Baa2 by Moody's Investors Service and BBB- by Fitch Ratings, Inc. Hercules expects to use the net proceeds to repay outstanding unsecured and/or secured indebtedness under its existing financing arrangements, fund investments in accordance with its investment objectives, and for other general corporate purposes. Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, SMBC Nikko Securities America, Inc. and MUFG Securities Americas Inc. acted as joint book-running managers, with Citizens JMP Securities, LLC, DZ Financial Markets LLC, RBC Capital Markets, LLC, R. Seelaus & Co., LLC, Synovus Securities, Inc., Wedbush Securities Inc. and Zions Direct, Inc. acting as co-managers.

IREN Limited reported fiscal 2026 revenues of $707 million, up 41.1% year over year, as the Bitcoin miner pivots to an AI cloud platform. AI Cloud Services revenues surged to $128.8 million from $16.4 million, while Bitcoin mining contributed $578.2 million, and fourth-quarter AI cloud revenues more than doubled sequentially to $70.5 million. The company announced $4 billion in contracted annualized run-rate revenue for its 2026 capacity, with $1 billion operational as of late August, though ARR represents annualized contracted activity rather than recognized revenues. IREN delivered its first 50-megawatt Horizon deployment to Microsoft in August, with three additional phases scheduled for delivery during the fourth quarter of calendar 2026, and management targets approximately 300 megawatts of cumulative IT capacity in 2026, rising to 800 megawatts in 2027. The company reported a fourth-quarter fiscal 2026 net loss of $684 million, largely driven by noncash impairment charges from retiring Bitcoin mining equipment, and management expects fiscal 2027 capital expenditures of $25-$30 billion. IREN shares have declined approximately 7.3% over the past three months, and the stock carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Shares of IREN Ltd fell over 6% in Wednesday trading after research firm SemiAnalysis published a series of critical posts on X reporting severe user complaints about infrastructure quality at the Bitcoin miner-turned-neocloud's data center facilities. According to SemiAnalysis, multiple neocloud customers and end users described Iren's legacy operational sites in Prince George and Mackenzie, British Columbia, as the "worst in the industry," citing multi-day power outages, network upgrade disruptions, storage failures, and air-quality control problems that triggered frequent link flaps and system errors. SemiAnalysis said its own internal testing of Iren GPU capacity, sourced directly and through third-party resellers, confirmed widespread technical shortcomings at those initial locations, though it acknowledged that newer builds in Childress and Sweetwater, Texas, represent a significant operational upgrade with far superior design standards. The firm noted that Iren's massive $2.1 billion investment from Nvidia should help ensure the company avoids cutting technical corners on future site buildouts, but it called on Iren to revise its public investor disclosures and stop claiming it provides fully managed cloud clusters, pointing to the company's most recent annual report on Form 10-K and contrasting comments from Iren's Chief Commercial Officer, who acknowledged the firm currently has no live managed cloud services. SemiAnalysis currently places Iren in the "Not Recommended / Underperforming" tier of its ClusterMAX rankings, well behind neocloud peers CoreWeave Inc and Nebius Group NV, which hold top-tier Platinum ratings.

UBS Group AG has agreed to transfer its former Credit Suisse fund administration businesses in Switzerland and Luxembourg to Northern Trust Corporation. Subject to regulatory approvals, the transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2027 and will cover Credit Suisse's traditional and alternatives fund administration businesses in both markets, with migration expected to take place in phases over two years as UBS Group exits the fund administration business. The deal builds on a long-standing relationship between the two firms, dating to 2017, when UBS Asset Management sold its Swiss and Luxembourg traditional fund administration operations to Northern Trust and entered into a long-term servicing agreement. The move comes as UBS Group approaches the final stages of integrating Credit Suisse, with that integration expected to be substantially completed by the end of 2026, and is intended to reduce infrastructure, resources and operational complexity while letting UBS focus on wealth management, asset management and investment banking. For Northern Trust, the expanded mandate creates a growth opportunity in fund administration and asset servicing, where custody and fund administration fees accounted for 67.4% of total asset servicing fees in the six months ended June 30, 2026. Separately, Deutsche Bank agreed in July 2026 to sell its retail banking, affluent private banking and wealth management business in India to Kotak Mahindra Bank, a deal expected to close by September 2027 subject to regulatory approvals and expected to be accretive to Deutsche Bank's CET1 ratio.

Blackstone has launched the Blackstone Private Markets Fund, or BXPM, for eligible non U.S. investors. BXPM offers a single allocation providing exposure to Blackstone's private equity, infrastructure, real estate, and credit strategies, structured to simplify access to the manager's private market capabilities compared with piecemeal allocations into separate vehicles. The launch positions BXPM as a one stop entry point into Blackstone's private markets platform, extending the perpetual, multi asset theme already central to the firm's strategy alongside vehicles such as BXMA and the broader Portfolio Solutions initiative. Blackstone is a US based alternative asset manager with a reported market value of about $138.9b. A key factor to monitor is whether BXPM gathers meaningful assets under management over the next few reporting periods, particularly in relation to other perpetual wealth and insurance linked platforms that management highlights as fee drivers.

Galliford Try Holdings PLC has landed a spot on the University of Oxford's new construction framework, the Oxford Inspire framework, which is worth up to £1.6 billion over eight years. Quantum Blockchain Technologies PLC has secured a US patent for its ASIC Ultra Boost Bitcoin mining technology and is now pushing towards licensing deals with hardware manufacturers. Futura Medical PLC reported strong results from its latest Eroxon Intense home user test, showing a bigger improvement than the previous study ahead of a 2027 launch. Helix Exploration PLC recorded its highest-ever helium readings at the Ollie #1 well in Montana, with the well coming in ahead of schedule and under budget. 88 Energy Ltd has received multiple bids for a farm-out of its South Prudhoe Project in Alaska and is now working to pick a partner ahead of its planned Augusta-1 well, while Powerhouse Energy Group PLC has signed a letter of intent for a new waste-to-energy research centre in Antigua focused on tackling the region's sargassum seaweed problem.

Bangkok Commercial Asset Management Public Company Limited, or BAM, has launched the "BAM Condos for Foreigners" project under the concept "Your New Chapter Begins in Thailand. Find condos that fit your lifestyle." The initiative aims to expand its customer base to foreigners who reside, work, or are planning to start a new life in Thailand. Dr. Raks Worakitpokatorn, Chief Executive Officer of BAM, said the project takes non-performing assets, or NPA, particularly condominiums in various locations, and develops them into housing options that better meet the needs of this customer group. Customers can choose to buy condominiums with cash or apply for loans through partner financial institutions if they meet the institutions' criteria. Loan approval, credit limits, interest rates, repayment periods, and other conditions are subject to each financial institution's consideration. The launch also reflects BAM's approach to upgrading NPA management from simply selling assets to connecting assets with opportunities by reaching new customer groups and bringing potential assets back into the economic system so they can generate benefits and value once again. Those interested can view the condominiums participating in the project and study further details at www.bam.co.th

Blue Owl is planning to increase the amount of insurance capital under its management, according to the Financial Times, citing comments from co-chief executive Doug Ostrover at a summit. "We're realising that if we had a bigger pool of capital, meaning insurance capital, we could provide really unique solutions . . . It's something we're going to make a big push in," Ostrover told the Financial Times. Ostrover added, however, that Blue Owl will not acquire an insurer outright.

Bridgepoint Group Plc raised its 2026 earnings forecast after a third-quarter revaluation of ProEnergy, an asset held in its Energy Capital Partners V fund, lifting both its 2026 performance related earnings and its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation above current consensus. Bridgepoint holds a 13% share of the fund's carried interest, and it expects performance related earnings to make up about 37-39% of total income for the year to December 2026, while ECP V's money multiple is expected to rise to over four as at Sept. 30. Over the medium term, the company now expects performance related earnings to be 25-30% of total income, up from the 20-25% it guided to at its July 17 interim results, and it expects an EBITDA margin of around 60% in 2026 and 2027. Chief Executive Raoul Hughes said Bridgepoint could now introduce a new capital distribution policy while maintaining the necessary firepower to invest in the business, targeting total capital returns of 40%-60% of Cash from Profits over five years through an annual ordinary dividend of 40%-45% of earnings per share paid quarterly plus additional ordinary or special dividends or share buybacks. The company expects cash receipts of about £1.1 billion from co-investments and performance related earnings through 2030, exceeding the roughly £500 million received over the past five years, and it declared a second interim dividend of 5.0 pence per share for the third quarter alongside the 4.8 pence interim dividend announced in July, with quarterly dividends beginning in 2027. Bridgepoint reached its €28 billion fundraising target for the 2024-2026 cycle one quarter early, with Bridgepoint Direct Lending IV closing at €5.1 billion and ECP VI closing at $8.1 billion, while Bridgepoint Europe VIII has raised €7.8 billion of commitments and is expected to be fully allocated later this year at its €8.65 billion hard cap. Shareholder and fund investor approvals for the Kayne Anderson Real Estate acquisition announced on June 29 have been received, with the transaction expected to close on Jan. 4, 2027, and the guidance covers Bridgepoint Group and excludes KARE.

Bangkok Commercial Asset Management Public Company Limited, or BAM, has launched the "BAM Condos for Foreigners" project to expand opportunities for selling condominiums to foreign customers who want to live and build their lives in Thailand, under the concept "Your New Chapter Begins in Thailand. Find condos that fit your lifestyle." Dr. Raks Varakitphokathorn, Chief Executive Officer of BAM, said the project is another important step in expanding BAM's customer base to foreigners who reside, work, or are planning to start their lives in Thailand, by using the potential of non-performing assets, or NPA, especially condominiums in various locations, and developing them into housing options. Customers can choose to buy condominiums with cash or apply for loans through partner financial institutions if they meet the institutions' criteria. Loan approval, credit limits, interest rates, repayment periods, and other conditions depend on each financial institution's consideration. Those interested can view the condominiums participating in the project and study further details through BAM's channels at www.bam.co.th

Bangkok Commercial Asset Management Public Company Limited, or BAM, has launched the "BAM Condos for Foreigners" project to expand its customer base to foreigners who reside, work, or plan to live long-term in Thailand. The company is developing non-performing assets, or NPA, consisting of condominiums in a variety of locations and price ranges, into housing options for this customer group under the concept "Your New Chapter Begins in Thailand. Find condos that fit your lifestyle." Dr. Raks Vorakitpokatorn, Chief Executive Officer of BAM, said Thailand remains one of the destinations that draws foreign interest in terms of work, lifestyle, and long-term residence, so the company sees an opportunity to connect its existing assets with the needs of this customer group, bringing the assets back to life and creating value once again. Customers can choose to buy condominiums with cash or apply for loans through partner financial institutions if they meet the specified criteria. Loan approval, credit limits, interest rates, repayment periods, and other conditions depend on the consideration of each financial institution. This launch reflects BAM's approach of upgrading its management of NPA assets from a focus on simply selling assets to creating market opportunities by reaching new customer groups, especially foreigners, which will help add channels for bringing potential assets back into the economic system and create benefits and added value for the assets once again. Those interested can find more details at www.bam.co.th

BlackRock's US head of equity ETFs, Jay Jacobs, said the recent reduction of in-kind transfer minimums to about $2 million has opened the floodgates for investors moving spot Bitcoin exposure into the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF, ticker IBIT. Speaking on Bloomberg Crypto, Jacobs said the lower minimums have driven a wave of wealth-management clients to reach out about shifting money into IBIT. He said investors are drawn not only by outsourcing custody so they no longer hold Bitcoin directly, but also by the ability to financialize the asset through custom options strategies, hedging, and borrowing against positions. Jacobs said BlackRock has had many conversations about the move from Bitcoin into IBIT and the use of its SpiderRock SMA capabilities for custom options overlays. He described the shift as a major trend in the wealth segment, where clients are increasingly asking not whether to hold more or less Bitcoin but what is the best way to own it in a portfolio.

Strive purchased 2,000 bitcoin for approximately $169 million, nearly six times the 334 bitcoin that Strategy announced buying the previous day, bringing Strive's total holdings to 29,462 bitcoin at an average price of $84,422 per coin. CEO Matt Cole said SETA preferred stock sales accounted for 61.5% of the capital raised, with warrant exercises generating another $56.7 million, and Strive now carries roughly $1.29 billion of SETA preferred stock with about $168 million in annual dividend obligations. Separately, the SEC approved the CBOE's request to list the first US products delivering three times the daily returns of bitcoin and ether, to be operated by Volatility Shares using regulated bitcoin and ether futures rather than the tokens themselves, doubling the previous 2X cap on US crypto funds. The CFTC also floated a new federal framework for leveraged retail crypto trading, proposing a crypto asset market registration category with token listing standards, market surveillance and anti-manipulation rules, proof of reserves for pooled customer assets, capital requirements, segregation of customer assets, risk disclosures, and KYC and anti-money laundering controls, while stating it cannot require crypto to trade on its platforms without Congress. Treasury withdrew a 2020 self-hosted wallet rule and a 2023 crypto mixer reporting rule, citing concerns over a chilling effect on legitimate activity, and Rain filed an application with the OCC to establish Rain National Trust Bank, following similar moves by Modern Treasury as community banks sue the OCC over federal trust charters for crypto companies. Ondo Finance also launched Ondo private markets with tokenized pre-IPO AI exposure, beginning with an unnamed pre-IPO AI business, offering tokenized notes linked to the company's economic performance rather than actual shares.

Strive purchased 2,000 bitcoin for approximately $169 million, nearly six times the 334 bitcoin buy that Strategy announced a day earlier. The company now holds 29,462 bitcoin, putting it within roughly 6,000 bitcoin of Marathon, the next largest holder in the corporate treasury space, and it paid an average of $84,422 per bitcoin this week. According to CEO Matt Cole, sales of the company's Seta preferred stock accounted for 61.5% of the capital raised, while warrant exercises generated another $56.7 million for the purchases. Strive now carries approximately $1.29 billion of Seta preferred stock with about $168 million in annual dividend obligations, and while it remains debt-free, those preferred shareholders are paid ahead of common shareholders at a dividend above 12%.

Alpha Compute Corp. announced it signed a binding contract on September 30, 2026 for its ALPHA-02 cluster, delivering a high density NVIDIA B300 GPU deployment in a 100% hydropowered data center in Sweden, with a total value of $71.9 million. The Master Services Agreement is expected to add $24 million in new annual contracted revenue bringing the Company's projected annual revenue to $47 million. The ALPHA-02 cluster is purpose-built to accelerate high-density AI training and inference workloads, and securing the binding offtake agreement ahead of full deployment locks in long-term utilization. Chief Business Development Officer Yury Mitin said the agreement reflects the company's commitment to tailored high-performance compute solutions, while Chief Executive Officer Brittany Kaiser noted that signing two major contracts over the past two quarters highlights the team's operational excellence. Alpha Compute, which trades on Nasdaq under the ticker ALP, operates globally with offices in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Amsterdam, and Toronto.

KKR has agreed to acquire Gen II Fund Services from Hg, General Atlantic and other minority investors through a core private equity strategy at a total enterprise value of $5.1B. Gen II is a private-capital fund administrator serving more than 275 investment managers that represent over $2T in private-fund capital, providing fund administration, tax, compliance, treasury, and technology-enabled services. Since Hg and General Atlantic invested in the company in 2020, Gen II has expanded its U.S. and European operations and broadened its services, quadrupling revenue and EBITDA over that period through organic growth and four strategic acquisitions. Gen II CEO and co-founder Steven Millner will continue to lead the company, and KKR plans to support its global expansion and invest in technology and AI capabilities. The transaction is expected to close in 2027.

KKR said on Tuesday it agreed to acquire Gen II Fund Services for an enterprise value of $5.1 billion, expanding its exposure to the growing private-markets infrastructure business. KKR will buy Gen II from Hg, General Atlantic and other minority investors through its Core Private Equity strategy, while Gen II CEO and co-founder Steven Millner and the existing leadership team will remain in place. The deal is expected to close in 2027, subject to regulatory approvals and customary conditions. Gen II provides fund administration and related tax, compliance, treasury and technology services to more than 275 investment managers representing over $2 trillion in assets. The company was founded in 2009 and has expanded its U.S. and European footprint since Hg and General Atlantic invested in 2020, with revenue and EBITDA both quadrupling over that period. KKR said it plans to support Gen II's expansion in the U.S. and internationally, broaden its services across asset classes, invest further in proprietary technology and AI-enabled solutions, and introduce a broad-based employee ownership program.

US-based Strive purchased an additional 2,000 bitcoin for about $169 million between September 28 and October 2, raising its holdings to 29,462 BTC. The average acquisition price, including fees and expenses, was about $84,422 per bitcoin. The purchases were disclosed in a Form 8-K filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on October 5, and mark the company's largest buying spree since it acquired 2,500 BTC between May 23 and June 1 and announced it on June 2. The gap with MARA's disclosed holdings of 35,577 BTC now stands at 6,115 BTC. According to CEO Matt Cole, preferred stock SATA accounted for 61.5 percent of the capital raised during the period, while warrant exercises brought in $56.7 million. The company also disclosed preliminary, unaudited data for the third quarter of 2026, during which it acquired 8,137 BTC at an average price of $78,885, and held 28,000 BTC plus about $284.7 million in cash and cash equivalents as of September 30. Strive aims to become the world's second-largest publicly listed corporate bitcoin treasury, but the current number two, Metaplanet, held 44,000 BTC as of September 30, a gap of 14,538 BTC.