3M Co. shares rose Wednesday after the industrial company said it would pay $7.35 billion over nine years to settle personal-injury claims tied to PFAS, chemicals often called forever chemicals, Reuters reported¹.

Reuters said the stock reached an 8 1/2-year high as investors reacted to the deal covering people who said the chemicals injured them¹.

In a Nov. 3 statement, 3M said the pretax nominal commitment of $7.35 billion has a present value of $5.8 billion and is meant to resolve PFAS personal-injury claims at the center of the Aqueous Film-Forming Foam multidistrict litigation in federal court in South Carolina².

The company said the agreement addresses about 99% of current personal-injury claims inside and outside that MDL, involving about 115,000 to 120,000 eligible plaintiffs, including all personal-injury claims that have been the focus of the MDL².

3M said it will pay $50 million in 2026, make no payments in 2027, and that about 20% of payments fall in the final two years, a schedule it said aligns with other legacy settlement obligations². Remaining and future claims would be handled through settlement mechanisms, including a $680 million reserve inside the overall commitment, the company said².

Chairman and Chief Executive William Brown said the settlement substantially reduces litigation uncertainty². 3M said the agreement is not an admission of liability and that it will record a $5.8 billion pretax charge in the fourth quarter of 2026 as a special item, without changing previously issued 2026 guidance².

The Reuters dispatch's full text was not available without a paywall; the stock-move details rest on Reuters' published headline and summary¹. Independent confirmation of the legal terms comes from 3M's own news-center release².