Kei bringing over three decades of financial leadership and governance experience

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Feb. 05, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- General Fusion Inc. (“General Fusion” or the “Company”), a leader in the global race to make commercial fusion energy a reality, announced that Wendy Kei has joined General Fusion as a strategic advisor to support the Company with public company readiness, advisory support to the audit committee, and oversight of financial reporting. Kei brings more than three decades of distinguished public company financial and governance experience across a wide range of industries, including energy. Kei's arrival comes at a pivotal moment for General Fusion. The Company recently announced its plans to go public through a business combination (the transactions contemplated by the business combination, collectively, the “Proposed Business Combination”) with Spring Valley Acquisition Corp. III (NASDAQ: SVAC) (“SVAC”).

“General Fusion is redefining what's possible in the pursuit of commercial fusion energy and has firmly established itself as a leader in the global effort to bring this technology to life,” said Kei. “I'm excited to work with a company whose practical, cost-focused approach is engineered to overcome the traditional barriers to commercialization. Their disciplined execution and remarkable ingenuity have created a strong foundation and significant long-term value.”

Kei currently serves as Board Chair for Ontario Power Generation Inc. (OPG). This is in addition to her roles as Chair of the Audit Committee for Centerra Gold Inc. and Board member with the Institute of Corporate Directors (“ICD”). Her previous leadership roles include Chief Financial Officer of Dominion Diamond Corporation (formerly Harry Winston Diamond Corporation and Aber Diamond Corporation) and Director-in-Residence for ICD's Board Oversight of Climate Change program. She has chaired numerous publicly traded boards and committees, including Audit, Human Resources & Corporate Governance, and Special Committees.

“Wendy brings a unique combination of board leadership, governance expertise, and financial acumen,” said General Fusion CEO Greg Twinney. “Her strategic perspective, shaped by years of experience executing complex transactions, will be invaluable as we move through this next chapter, accelerating toward commercialization and working to make fusion power a reality.”

About Wendy Kei

Throughout her career, Wendy has brought a strong focus on board leadership, corporate governance, financial expertise, corporate strategy, ESG, and risk management, along with significant experience in executing complex mergers and acquisitions.

Wendy is a Fellow Chartered Professional Accountant (FCPA, FCA), a Fellow of the Institute of Corporate Directors (F.ICD), holds an ESG Designation (GCB.D) from Competent Boards and holds a Bachelor of Mathematics from the University of Waterloo. She has been widely recognized for her contributions, including being named the BMO Celebrate Women on Boards Lifetime Achievement Honouree in 2025 and receiving the Women Corporate Directors Visionary Award for Strategic Leadership in 2024. She was also a BMO Celebrate Women on Boards Honouree in 2022, one of Canada's Top 100 Most Powerful Women in 2020, and a Diversity 50 Candidate in 2016.

Quick Facts:

• General Fusion's Magnetized Target Fusion (“MTF”) technology is designed to solve barriers to entry for fusion energy, which comes at a critical time as demand for electricity is surging and nations around the world race to commercialize fusion power.
• As a technology, MTF is intended to achieve fusion in a practical way, avoiding superconducting magnets and high-powered lasers, and enabling the use of existing materials for durable machines that would produce cost-effective energy.
• In early 2025, General Fusion announced that it had designed, built, and begun operating its world-first fusion demonstration – Lawson Machine 26 (“LM26”) – in under two years. LM26 is the first MTF demonstration machine to be built at a commercially relevant scale. It mechanically compresses plasma with a lithium liner at 50% commercial-scale diameter.
• LM26 aims to achieve key fusion technical milestones: plasma heating to 1 keV (10 million degrees Celsius), then 10 keV (100 million degrees Celsius), and ultimately the Lawson criterion—the combination of fusion parameters that can produce net fusion energy in the plasma.

About General Fusion

General Fusion is pursuing a fast and practical approach to commercial fusion energy and is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada. The Company was established in 2002 and is funded by a global syndicate of leading energy venture capital firms, industry leaders, and technology pioneers. Learn more at www.generalfusion.com. General Fusion announced in January 2026 it plans to go public through the Proposed Business Combination with Spring Valley Acquisition Corp. III (NASDAQ: SVAC).

About Spring Valley Acquisition Corp. III

Spring Valley Acquisition Corp. III is a part of a family of investment vehicles formed for the purpose of acquiring or merging with a business focused on the energy and decarbonization industries. Over the past 5 years, Spring Valley has raised $690 million in three IPOs. Spring Valley I successfully completed its business combination with NuScale Power, a leading U.S. small modular reactor (“SMR”) technology company, and Spring Valley II has announced a pending merger with Eagle Energy Metals, a next-generation nuclear energy company that combines domestic uranium exploration with proprietary SMR technology. SVAC maintains a corporate website at https://sv-ac.com.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements included in this document are not historical facts but are forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements other than statements of historical facts contained in this document are forward-looking statements. Any statements that refer to projections, forecasts or other characterizations of future events or circumstances, including any underlying assumptions, are also forward-looking statements. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by words such as “estimate,” “plan,” “project,” “forecast,” “intend,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “seek,” “strategy,” “future,” “opportunity,” “may,” “target,” “should,” “will,” “would,” “will be,” “will continue,” “will likely result,” “preliminary,” or similar expressions that predict or indicate future events or trends or that are not statements of historical matters, but the absence of these words does not mean that a statement is not forward-looking. Forward-looking statements include, without limitation, SVAC's, General Fusion's, or their respective management teams' expectations concerning the Proposed Business Combination and expected benefits or timing thereof; the outlook for General Fusion's business, including its ability to commercialize MTF or any other fusion technology on its expected timeline or at all; statements regarding the current and expected results of General Fusion's LM26 program; the ability to execute General Fusion's strategies, including on any expected timeline or anticipated cost basis; projected and estimated financial performance; anticipated industry trends; future capital expenditures; government regulation of fusion energy; and environmental risks; as well as any information concerning possible or assumed future results of operations of General Fusion. The forward-looking statements are based on the current expectations of the respective management teams of SVAC and General Fusion, as applicable, and are inherently subject to uncertainties and changes in circumstance and their potential effects. There can be no assurance that future developments will be those that have been anticipated. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties or other assumptions that may cause actual results or performance to be materially different from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, (i) the risk that the Proposed Business Combination may not be completed in a timely manner or at all, which may adversely affect the price of SVAC's securities; (ii) the failure to satisfy the conditions to the consummation of the Proposed Business Combination, including the adoption of the Business Combination Agreement by the shareholders of SVAC and the receipt of regulatory approvals; (iii) market risks; (iv) the occurrence of any event, change or other circumstance that could give rise to the termination of the Business Combination Agreement; (v) the effect of the announcement or pendency of the Proposed Business Combination on General Fusion's business relationships, performance, and business generally; (vi) risks that the Proposed Business Combination disrupts current plans of General Fusion and potential difficulties in its employee retention as a result of the Proposed Business Combination; (vii) the outcome of any legal proceedings that may be instituted against General Fusion or SVAC related to the Business Combination Agreement or the Proposed Business Combination; (viii) failure to realize the anticipated benefits of the Proposed Business Combination; (ix) the inability to maintain the listing of SVAC's securities or to meet listing requirements and maintain the listing of the combined company's securities on Nasdaq; (x) the risk that the Proposed Business Combination may not be completed by SVAC's business combination deadline and the potential failure to obtain an extension of the business combination deadline if sought by SVAC; (xi) the risk that the price of the combined company's securities may be volatile due to a variety of factors, including changes in laws, regulations, technologies, natural disasters, national security tensions, and macro-economic and social environments affecting its business; (xii) laws and regulations governing General Fusion's research and development activities, and changes in such laws and regulations; (xiii) any failure to commercialize MTF on the expected timeline or at all, including any failure to achieve the objectives of the LM26 program; (xiv) environmental regulations and legislation; (xv) the effects of climate change, extreme weather events, water scarcity, and seismic events, and the effectiveness of strategies to deal with these issues; (xvi) fluctuations in currency markets; (xvii) General Fusion's ability to complete and successfully integrate any future acquisitions; (xviii) increased competition in the fusion industry; (xix) limited supply of materials and supply chain disruptions; and (xx) the risk that the proposed private placement of convertible preferred shares and warrants by General Fusion (the “PIPE Financing”) may not be completed, or that other capital needed by the combined company may not be raised on favorable terms, or at all, including as a result of the restrictions agreed to in connection with the PIPE Financing. The foregoing list is not exhaustive, and there may be additional risks that neither SVAC nor General Fusion presently know or that SVAC and General Fusion currently believe are immaterial. You should carefully consider the foregoing factors, any other factors discussed in this document and the other risks and uncertainties described in the “Risk Factors” section of SVAC's final prospectus for its initial public offering, which was filed with the SEC on September 4, 2025 (the “Final Prospectus”; the risks to be described in the registration statement on Form F-4 to be filed by SVAC with the SEC in connection with the Proposed Business Combination (the “Registration Statement”), which will include a preliminary proxy statement/prospectus; and those discussed and identified in filings made with the SEC by SVAC from time to time. General Fusion and SVAC caution you against placing undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which reflect current beliefs and are based on information currently available as of the date a forward-looking statement is made. Forward-looking statements set forth in this document speak only as of the date of this document. Neither General Fusion nor SVAC undertakes any obligation to revise forward-looking statements to reflect future events, changes in circumstances, or changes in beliefs. In the event that any forward-looking statement is updated, no inference should be made that General Fusion or SVAC will make additional updates with respect to that statement, related matters, or any other forward-looking statements. Any corrections or revisions and other important assumptions and factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from forward-looking statements, including discussions of significant risk factors, may appear, up to the consummation of the Proposed Business Combination, in SVAC's public filings with the SEC, which are or will be (as applicable) accessible at www.sec.gov, and which you are advised to review carefully.

Important Information for Investors and Shareholders

In connection with the Proposed Business Combination, SVAC intends to file with the SEC the Registration Statement, which will include a prospectus with respect to SVAC's securities to be issued in connection with the Proposed Business Combination and a proxy statement to be distributed to SVAC's shareholders in connection with SVAC's solicitation of proxies for the vote by SVAC's shareholders with respect to the Proposed Business Combination and other matters to be described in the Registration Statement (the “Proxy Statement”). After the SEC declares the Registration Statement effective, SVAC plans to file the definitive Proxy Statement with the SEC and to mail copies to SVAC's shareholders as of a record date to be established for voting on the Proposed Business Combination. This document does not contain all the information that should be considered concerning the Proposed Business Combination and is not a substitute for the Registration Statement, Proxy Statement or for any other document that SVAC may file with the SEC. Before making any investment or voting decision, investors and security holders of SVAC and General Fusion are urged to read the Registration Statement and the Proxy Statement, and any amendments or supplements thereto, as well as all other relevant materials filed or that will be filed with the SEC in connection with the Proposed Business Combination as they become available because they will contain important information about General Fusion, SVAC and the Proposed Business Combination. Investors and security holders will be able to obtain free copies of the Registration Statement, the Proxy Statement and all other relevant documents filed or that will be filed with the SEC by SVAC through the website maintained by the SEC at www.sec.gov. In addition, the documents filed by SVAC may be obtained free of charge from SVAC's website at https://sv-ac.com or by directing a request to Spring Valley Acquisition Corp. III, Attn: Corporate Secretary, 2100 McKinney Avenue, Suite 1675, Dallas, Texas 75201. The information contained on, or that may be accessed through, the websites referenced in this document is not incorporated by reference into, and is not a part of, this document.

Participants in the Solicitation

General Fusion, SVAC and their respective directors, executive officers and other members of management and employees may, under the rules of the SEC, be deemed to be participants in the solicitations of proxies from SVAC's shareholders in connection with the Proposed Business Combination. For more information about the names, affiliations and interests of SVAC's directors and executive officers, please refer to the Final Prospectus and the Registration Statement, Proxy Statement and other relevant materials filed or to be filed with the SEC in connection with the Proposed Business Combination when they become available. Additional information regarding the participants in the proxy solicitation and a description of their direct and indirect interests, which may, in some cases, be different than those of SVAC's shareholders generally, will be included in the Registration Statement and the Proxy Statement, when they become available. Shareholders, potential investors and other interested persons should read the Registration Statement and the Proxy Statement carefully, when they become available, before making any voting or investment decisions. You may obtain free copies of these documents from the sources indicated above.

No Offer or Solicitation

This document shall not constitute a “solicitation” as defined in Section 14 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. This document shall not constitute an offer to sell or exchange, the solicitation of an offer to buy or a recommendation to purchase, any securities, or a solicitation of any vote, consent or approval, nor shall there be any sale, issuance or transfer of securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale may be unlawful under the laws of such jurisdiction. No offering of securities in the Proposed Business Combination shall be made except by means of a prospectus meeting the requirements of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or an exemption therefrom.

Investor Relations Contact:
You can contact General Fusion's Investor Relations team by email at: investors@generalfusion.com. 
If you are based in North America, you may also leave a toll-free voicemail at +1 (833) 717-1519. Callers outside North America can reach us at +1 (236) 253-6968.

Media Relations Contact:
media@generalfusion.com
1-866-904-0995

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/13742c18-40d7-44bb-8169-965f64106d5e.