■INVESTMENT
S African accused of fraud
An expatriate South African businessman accused of running a massive pyramid scheme that cost wealthy investors up to US$1.2 billion has denied any wrongdoing, reports said yesterday. Barry Tannenbaum, who lives in Sydney, has been accused of fleecing rich South Africans in what has been billed as one of the country’s biggest Ponzi-style investment scandals, local and South African media reported. But Tannenbaum had denied running a scam in which he allegedly offered 200 percent annual returns for people investing in his pharmaceutical import businesses, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. Tannenbaum, 43, is a relative of one of the founders of South African pharmaceuticals giant Adcock Ingram.
■INSURANCE
Ping An to buy bank stake
China’s Ping An Insurance Group (平安保險), the nation’s second-largest insurer, said yesterday it planned to buy a stake worth up to 22 billion yuan (US$3 billion) in Shenzhen Development Bank (深圳發展銀行). The Hong Kong-listed group said in a statement on its Web site it had agreed to buy up to 1.1 billion shares in the financial institution from the bank itself and from Newbridge Capital, the Asian arm of private equity firm TPG. The Ping An Group currently holds a 4.7 percent stake in Shenzhen Development Bank, but these deals will enable it to acquire up to 30 percent of the firm.
■BANKING
Lehman haggles over assets
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, nine months after it filed bankruptcy and sold its brokerage to Barclays Plc, is still fighting with the British bank over who owns what, including the investment bank’s own furniture. Lehman, once the fourth-largest investment bank, asked a bankruptcy judge in New York last week to let it pay Barclays US$5.9 million to buy back desks, chairs, tables, cubicles, audio-video equipment and security paraphernalia it currently uses in a building at 1271 Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan. The repurchase is necessary because “Barclays has asserted that certain of the office furniture, fixtures and equipment that is located in the building and used by the debtors was previously sold to Barclays,” Lehman said in a June 4 filing in US Bankruptcy Court in New York.
■TRADING
Glitch disrupts NYSE
A computer glitch that halted trading on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) for more than 200 stocks is being resolved, the exchange said. The disruption hit 242 stocks, including American Express Co, General Electric Co, Merck & Co and Exxon Mobil Corp, but they continued to be traded electronically without disruption. About 3,100 stocks are traded at the NYSE. Technicians installed new equipment and the affected stocks were trading an hour later.
■THAILAND
Steel tariffs may be waived
In a bid to assist 15 Japanese auto manufacturers based in the kingdom, Thailand’s finance minister has proposed waiving import tariffs on steel brought in for vehicle production by Japanese firms, media reports said yesterday. Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij said the waiver would fall under the Japan-Thailand Economic Partnership Agreement, a partial free-trade agreement inked recently. “Now any company that imports steel for auto production will get the privilege,” Korn told the Nation newspaper. The minister, however, will need Cabinet approval before the waiver goes into effect.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”