■FOOD AND BEVERAGES
Super Group to list TDRs
Super Group Ltd (超級集團), the largest instant coffee producer in Southeast Asia, will list its Taiwan depository receipts (TDRs) on the Taiwan Stock Exchange on Thursday, underwriter Polaris Securities (寶來證券) said on Friday. Super Group has issued 40 million TDRs, which will each represent 0.5 common shares, to raise NT$560 million (US$17.55 million) for the Taiwan listing, according to the company’s prospectus. The TDRs have been set at NT$14 each, which represents a 25.52 percent premium over the company’s closing price on the Singapore Exchange on Wednesday, it said.
■ELECTRONICS
Toshiba recalls laptops
Japanese electronics maker Toshiba has recalled 41,000 laptop computers worldwide because of a fire risk, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission said. “The notebook computers can overheat at the notebook’s plug-in to the AC adapter, posing a burn hazard to consumers,” the commission said in a notice issued on Thursday. The computers involved are the Satellite T135, Satellite T135D and Satellite ProT130. The safety commission said that Toshiba has received 129 reports of the computers overheating and deforming the plastic casing area around the AC adapter plug.
■CHINA
Lending to polluters curbed
China has ordered banks to stop new lending to companies that pollute excessively or consume too much energy, as part of a drive to make its economy more energy efficient, state media said yesterday. Shao Fujun (邵伏軍), director of the People’s Bank of China’s credit department, said the central bank had established a database to help banks review companies’ environmental records, the Shanghai Securities News reported. More than 30,000 pieces of information regarding companies’ environmental violations are in the database, the report said.
■ENVIRONMENT
BK boycotts palm oil maker
Environmentalists praised Burger King’s (BK) decision yesterday to stop buying palm oil from an Indonesian company accused of destroying rainforests. The US hamburger chain giant — which sealed a deal on Thursday to sell itself for US$3.26 billion to 3G Capital — said on Friday that it was canceling its contract with PT Sinar Mas Agro Resources and Technology over concerns it had not adopted sustainable farming practices. It cited an independent audit that found the company’s plantations had violated several regulations, including planting in peatland swamps and secondary forests.
■RETAIL
Carrefour sets India date
French supermarket giant Carrefour said on Friday it would open its first wholesale store in India by November, joining other foreign chains aiming to break into the country’s vast retail sector. The world’s second-largest retailer hopes the wholesale outlet in New Delhi will pave the way for a string of hypermarkets to serve consumers in the fast-growing economy.
■ENTERTAINMENT
Mattel suing MGA
Toymaker Mattel Inc has filed a lawsuit alleging MGA Entertainment fraudulently transferred hundreds of millions of dollars to keep Mattel from collecting on a judgment. The lawsuit filed on Wednesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court alleges MGA’s chief executive Isaac Larian and his family members received US$430 million between 2004 and 2008 to keep the money from MGA’s creditors, including Mattel.
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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