■REAL ESTATE
Cathay buys Neihu building
Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽), Taiwan’s biggest life insurer, bought a building in Neihu Technology Park (內湖科技園區) for NT$3 billion (US$96 million), its second property investment in Taipei this year. Cathay Life paid NT$410,000 per ping (3.3m²) for the headquarters of Gala Television Corp (八大電視), the Taipei-based insurer said in a stock exchange filing through parent Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控), the country’s biggest financial services company by market value, yesterday. The value per ping was a record for Neihu District, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported yesterday. Cathay Life won a tender for 2,629m² of land in downtown Taipei with a NT$2.39 billion bid last month.
■BANKING
Taishin sues Chiu Yi
Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控), whose shareholders include billionaire George Soros, has filed civil and criminal charges against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) for alleging its 2005 bid for Chang Hwa Commercial Bank (彰化銀行) was illegal. Complaints of libel and obstruction of credit were filed on Friday with the Taipei District Court, Taishin said in a stock exchange filing after market closed on Friday. The company denies all allegations made by Chiu, it said in the statement. Taishin is seeking a public apology from Chiu, the Economic Daily News reported yesterday, citing Lin Keh-hsiao (林克孝), president of the Taipei-based financial company.
■INVESTMENT
Park draws NT$1.8bn
Total investment in the Kaohsiung Software Technology Park (高雄軟體科技園區) as of this month reached nearly NT$1.8 billion (US$57.19 million), the Export Processing Zone Administration of the Ministry of Economic Affairs said on Friday. A spokesman for the administration said the investment came from 56 approved investors who have decided to set up shop in the software park, and that the amount represented a substantial increase from the NT$12.2 billion recorded in June. Of the accumulated total of NT$1.8 million, NT$713 million was invested in the first eight months of this year by 23 companies, the spokesman said.
■SPONSORSHIP
NBA inks deal with Tsingtao
The National Basketball Association signed a multiyear sponsorship agreement with Tsingtao Brewery Co (青島啤酒) in which China’s largest brewer will fund sports and dance competitions related to the league in the world’s most populous nation. Tsingtao, China’s biggest beer company by sales, will sponsor a nationwide search for an NBA China Dance Team, help finance basketball tours in the country and assist in an All-Star Game balloting system, the NBA said in a statement yesterday. Terms weren’t disclosed.
■AVIATION
Boeing may not rebid
US aerospace giant Boeing said on Friday it may exit the rebidding for a US$35 billion contract to build US Air Force aerial refueling tankers unless allowed more time to rework its proposal. The Department of Defense was forced in June to rebid the contract after congressional auditors found flaws in the air force’s decision to award it to Northrop Grumman and the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), parent of Airbus. The Pentagon contract is for 179 aircraft, the initial phase of a fleet replacement project worth some US$100 billion over the next 30 years.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day