WASHINGTON — The Biden administration will hold off enforcing a requirement laid out in an executive order this month that Nippon Steel abandon its $14.9 billion bid for U.S. Steel, the companies said on Saturday.

President Joe Biden blocked Nippon Steel’s planned acquisition of U.S. Steel on national security grounds on Jan. 3, and his Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said this week that the proposed deal had received a “thorough analysis” by interagency review body, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

The delay will give the courts time to review a legal challenge brought by the parties earlier this month against Biden’s order. The parties previously had 30 days to unwind their transaction.

“We are pleased that CFIUS has granted an extension to June 18, 2025 of the requirement in President Biden’s Executive Order that the parties permanently abandon the transaction,” the companies said in a joint statement.

“We look forward to completing the transaction, which secures the best future for the American steel industry and all our stakeholders,” they said.

U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel alleged in a lawsuit on Monday that the CFIUS review was prejudiced by Biden’s longstanding opposition to the deal, denying them of a right to a fair review. They asked a federal appeals court to overturn Biden’s decision to allow them a fresh review to secure another shot at closing the merger.

The U.S. Treasury secretary chairs the CFIUS panel, which screens foreign acquisitions of U.S. companies and other investment deals for national security concerns. CFIUS normally decides directly on cases or submits recommendations to the president, but in the U.S. Steel-Nippon Steel case, the panel failed to reach consensus on whether Biden should to approve or reject it, leaving the decision to him.

Both Biden and his successor, President-elect Donald Trump, had voiced opposition to the Japanese company acquiring the American steelmaker as the candidates courted union votes in the November election.

CFIUS has rarely rejected deals involving the Group of Seven closely allied countries, which include Japan.

As the boutique fitness sector starts to buckle, Barry’s Bootcamp on Monday announced new investment from Princeton Equity Group.

“The reason why this [boutique fitness] works for Barry’s is that our positioning in the marketplace is premium,” said Joey Gonzalez, Barry’s co-CEO, in an interview with CNBC. “We always want to minimize risks to any sort of brand dilution, and we only ever want to elevate the Barry’s experience.”

Gonzalez said this funding round will be focused on investing in client experience and brand positioning in a highly saturated industry. Barry’s offers high-intensity running, lifting and training classes in its trademark red-lit rooms.

Barry’s has 89 studios globally that saw more than 7 million visits in 2024.

Princeton is a franchisor and consumer services-focused private equity firm with $1.2 billion in assets under management. It has invested in other wellness brands such as spa chain Massage Envy and athletic training facility D1 Training.

The size of the investment was not disclosed.

The fresh capital for Barry’s adds to a list of private equity investments dating back nearly two decades from firms including LightBay Capital and North Castle Partners.

Gonzalez said Barry’s will use the investment in part to fund expansion in 12 U.S. cities this year, including Charleston, South Carolina; Hoboken, New Jersey; and Salt Lake City, as well as locations in Madrid, Athens and Dublin.

″[This partnership] is enabling us to consolidate our operations in the UK and Canada,” Gonzalez said. “We will now be overseeing operations in these countries where we can foster a closely knit community and create efficiencies.”

The broader global boutique fitness studio market was valued at nearly $48 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow to $86 billion in 2030, according to estimates from Research and Markets. Still, several high-profile brands have struggled to grow their customer base.

Xponential Fitness, a franchisor of health and wellness brands, divested from two struggling boutique chains — Stride Fitness and Row House — last year.

Jefferies analyst Randal Konik cited industry headwinds including macroeconomic concerns that could cause a pullback in consumer spending, and said fitness has proven to be more need-based with more people prioritizing health and wellness.

“Tailwinds will be the focus on health and wellness coming out of Covid,” Konik said, “as well as a move towards strength training, [which] has lifted demand for all types of fitness classes and gym membership.”

Piper Sandler analyst Korinne Wolfmeyer cited “uncertainty around unit growth” at Xponential as one of the main reasons to stay on the sidelines of the stock.

Gonzalez said his company is bucking the trend.

“I think of Barry’s as one of the originals, and a very back-to-basics approach to fitness with efficacy at the heart,” said Gonzalez. “What Barry’s has really done is stick to our core competency: fitness experience, immersive experience, member experience.”

Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment announced on Monday a joint venture with Comcast Spectacor to build a new arena in South Philadelphia for the NBA’s 76ers and the NHL’s Flyers.

The deal represents a reversal from previous plans to build an arena in the Center City district of Philadelphia.

Harris Blitzer and Comcast Spectacor have entered into a binding agreement for a 50-50 stake in the project at South Philadelphia’s Sports Complex, which is slated to open in 2031. It will include the revitalization of Market East in Center City, the original proposed location for an arena. In December, the Philadelphia 76ers received approval to build a $1.3 billion arena downtown after more than two years of contentious negotiations.

The deal announced Monday will give Comcast a minority stake in the 76ers and naming rights to the arena. The Philadelphia-based company will also join HBSE’s bid to bring a WNBA team to the Liberty City.

Comcast Spectacor is already majority owner of the Philadelphia Flyers.

“From the start, we envisioned a project that would be transformative for our city and deliver the type of experience our fans deserve,” said HBSE’s Josh Harris, David Blitzer and David Adelman in a statement. “By coming together with [Comcast CEO Brian Roberts] and Comcast, this partnership ensures Philadelphia will have two developments instead of one, creating more jobs and real, sustainable economic opportunity.”

In committing to both investments, the companies say they will create thousands of jobs and generate billions of dollars in economic activity for the region.

“This has the potential to benefit our city for generations to come,” said Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker during a news conference Monday.

Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of CNBC.

Microsoft is forming a new group focused on developing AI apps and providing tools for third-party customers, the company announced Monday.

The new group will be led by Jay Parikh, the former CEO of cybersecurity startup Lacework and former global head of engineering at Meta. The group will be called Core AI — Platform and Tools, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a memo to employees that was also published as a blog post. The mission, he said, is “to build the end-to-end Copilot & AI stack for both our first-party and third-party customers to build and run AI apps and agents.”

The announcement comes 10 months after Microsoft hired DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman to lead Copilot AI initiatives. In that role, Suleyman is an executive vice president, reporting directly to Nadella.

In Monday’s post, Nadella said Parikh will work closely with Suleyman as well as Scott Guthrie, who runs cloud, technology chief Kevin Scott and other top tech leaders at the company. Parikh joined Microsoft in October as an executive vice president, also reporting to the CEO.

Artificial intelligence has become the primary theme in tech since OpenAI’s launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, and Microsoft, as the principal investor in OpenAI, has been at the center of the boom. Microsoft counts on OpenAI’s large language models for internal AI use when it comes to areas like content generation and code creation and also serves as the startup’s main cloud partner.

At the same time, Microsoft is developing products and tools that compete with some OpenAI services. Over the summer, Microsoft added OpenAI to its list of competitors in its SEC filings, and Nadella used the phrase “cooperation tension” while discussing the relationship with investors Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley on a podcast released last month.

“Ultimately, we must remember that our internal organizational boundaries are meaningless to both our customers and to our competitors,” Nadella wrote in Monday’s memo.

The new group will bring together people working on developer and AI platforms, as well as teams from the Office of the CTO, Nadella said.

“Our success in this next phase will be determined by having the best AI platform, tools, and infrastructure,” he wrote.

Parikh joined Microsoft from Lacework, which had been a rapid growing and high-profile startup, soaring to a valuation of $8.3 billion in 2022, seven years after its founding. However, the company’s fortunes turned when the market shifted away from risk, and Lacework was forced to dramatically cut staff to try and turn profitable. In August, security software vendor Fortinet closed its acquisition of Lacework for $149 million.

— CNBC’s Jordan Novet contributed to this report.

Barry Diller’s IAC said Monday that its board approved the spinoff of Angi, the home improvement marketplace the company acquired in 2017.

IAC said it expects the transaction to close in the second quarter of the year. The two companies will post their respective fourth-quarter results when IAC reports on Feb. 11. Angi was founded in 1995 as Angie’s List, which went public on the Nasdaq in 2011.

As part of the spinoff, IAC CEO Joey Levin will leave his role and become an advisor to the company. Levin will also take on a new role as Angi’s executive chairman, serving as the marketplace’s senior executive alongside CEO Jeff Kip, IAC said.

“Joey Levin has been an exemplary leader of IAC, creating significant value during his nearly decade-long tenure as IAC CEO,” Diller, IAC’s chairman, said in a statement.

Upon Levin’s vacancy, IAC will operate without a new CEO, the company said. IAC’s top execs will report directly to Diller, as will publisher Dotdash Meredith, the company’s largest business. The rest of IAC’s units will report to operating chief Christopher Halpin.

IAC has previously used no-CEO structures when reorganizing its businesses. Most recently, in 2013, then-CEO Greg Blatt stepped down from the role to become chairman of the newly formed Match Group division.

“Each of IAC and Angi has a vigorous future, and I expect to remain an active participant in both,” Levin said in a statement.

As part of the spinoff, IAC shareholders will get direct ownership of Angi, IAC said.

IAC first announced it was considering a spinoff of Angi in November. At the time, the company said Angi’s revenue declined 16% year over year to $296.7 million during the third quarter. The company attributed the slide to reduced sales and marketing spend, which led to a decrease in service requests and lower acquisition of new professionals.

IAC acquired Angie’s List in a deal valued at more than $500 million. It merged the site with HomeAdvisor, creating a new public company. Angi currently has a market cap of about $770 million, and IAC owns 85% of it.

The spinoff has been under consideration for several years, but IAC postponed the effort in 2019 as it completed the Match Group transaction. Match owns dating services including Tinder, Match and Hinge.

IAC has become known for incubating businesses and spinning them off into separate companies. It’s done the same with Expedia, Ticketmaster and LendingTree, among others.

Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment announced on Monday a joint venture with Comcast Spectacor to build a new arena in South Philadelphia for the NBA’s 76ers and the NHL’s Flyers.

The deal represents a reversal from previous plans to build an arena in the Center City district of Philadelphia.

Harris Blitzer and Comcast Spectacor have entered into a binding agreement for a 50-50 stake in the project at South Philadelphia’s Sports Complex, which is slated to open in 2031. It will include the revitalization of Market East in Center City, the original proposed location for an arena. In December, the Philadelphia 76ers received approval to build a $1.3 billion arena downtown after more than two years of contentious negotiations.

The deal announced Monday will give Comcast a minority stake in the 76ers and naming rights to the arena. The Philadelphia-based company will also join HBSE’s bid to bring a WNBA team to the Liberty City.

Comcast Spectacor is already majority owner of the Philadelphia Flyers.

“From the start, we envisioned a project that would be transformative for our city and deliver the type of experience our fans deserve,” said HBSE’s Josh Harris, David Blitzer and David Adelman in a statement. “By coming together with [Comcast CEO Brian Roberts] and Comcast, this partnership ensures Philadelphia will have two developments instead of one, creating more jobs and real, sustainable economic opportunity.”

In committing to both investments, the companies say they will create thousands of jobs and generate billions of dollars in economic activity for the region.

“This has the potential to benefit our city for generations to come,” said Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker during a news conference Monday.

Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of CNBC.

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday said two related Robinhood broker-dealers agreed to pay $45 million in combined penalties to settle administrative charges that they violated more than 10 separate securities law provisions related to their brokerage operations.

The violations by Robinhood Securities LLC and Robinhood Financial LLC are related to failures to report suspicious trading in a timely manner, failing to implement adequate identity theft protections and failing to adequately address unauthorized access to Robinhood computer systems, the SEC said.

The two Robinhood entities also had longstanding failures to maintain and preserve electronic communications, failed to retain copies of operational databases, and failed to maintain some customer communications as legally required between 2020 and 2021, according to the agency.

The SEC said that Robinhood Securities alone failed for more than five years “to provide complete and accurate securities trading information, known as blue sheet data” to the agency.

According to an SEC order made public Monday, “During the [Electronic Blue Sheets] Relevant Period, in response to requests from the Commission, Robinhood Securities made at least 11,849 EBS submissions to the Commission that contained inaccurate information or omissions, resulting from eleven types of errors.”

“Those errors resulted in the misreporting of EBS data for at least 392 million transactions,” the order said.

Sanjay Wadhwa, the acting director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, in a statement, said, “It is essential to the Commission’s broader efforts to protect investors and promote the integrity and fairness of our markets that broker-dealers satisfy their legal obligations when carrying out their various market functions.”

“Today’s order finds that two Robinhood firms failed to observe a broad array of significant regulatory requirements, including failing to accurately report trading activity, comply with short sale rules, submit timely suspicious activity reports, maintain books and records, and safeguard customer information,” Wadhwa said.

Robinhood Markets General Counsel Lukas Moskowitz, in a statement, said, “We are pleased to resolve these matters. As the SEC’s order acknowledges, most of these are historical matters that our broker-dealers have previously addressed.”

“We are well-positioned to continue leading the industry in developing the innovative products and services our customers want and need to participate in U.S. and global financial markets,” Moskowitz said. “We look forward to working with the SEC under a new administration.”