PROPERTY
Goldman building sold
Hong Kong-based property group Chinese Estates (華人置業) has bought a building in London which houses the European headquarters of investment bank Goldman Sachs for £280 million (US$444 million), an intermediary in the deal said on Friday. The group run by billionaire Joseph Lau (劉鑾雄) has purchased River Court in Fleet Street, the largest of two buildings which house Goldman’s European operations, according to Gresham Down Capital Partners, an investment consultancy. Gresham Down said the deal was “the largest direct purchase by the Chinese in the London commercial market so far.”
INSURANCE
AIG recapitalization closes
The recapitalization of bailed-out insurer American International Group Inc (AIG) closed on Friday, leaving the government with a 92 percent stake that it plans to sell quickly, a source said. AIG chief executive Bob Benmosche, in an interview, said the company was hoping to pick the deal’s managers as soon as was practical, although he gave no timeframe. Benmosche was in Washington for lunch with US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. The person said if all goes well with the sales process — particularly if AIG can meet a challenge to sell itself and its new structure to investors — then a share offering of at least US$15 billion was entirely possible in the near future.
INDIA
Ambani investment barred
Indian billionaire Anil Ambani has been barred from investing in the stock market until December, authorities said on Friday, in a settlement of a long-running regulatory inquiry into some of his companies. The settlement was agreed between Ambani, ranked as the world’s 36th-richest man last year, and the regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), which has been probing the source of investments by his firms since last year. Two of Ambani’s group companies, Reliance Infrastructure and Reliance Natural Resources Ltd, are also banned from investing in stock markets until December 2012, SEBI said in an order released on Friday.
ICELAND
Ex-Landsbanki chief held
Police have detained the former chief of failed bank Landsbanki and another senior executive as part of a probe into alleged crimes in the lead-up to the bank’s collapse, the special prosecutor said on Friday. The two being held on suspicion of market manipulation ahead of the financial meltdown that hit the island’s economy are former Landsbanki chief executive Sigurjon Arnason and Ivar Gudjonsson, former head of the bank’s investments arm. A municipal court judge on Friday remanded Arnason and Gudjonsson in custody until Jan. 25 and Jan. 21 respectively, a court spokeswoman said.
GREECE
Fitch downgrades bonds
Fitch credit ratings agency on Friday downgraded Greek bonds to below investment grade with a negative outlook — a blow Athens called unfair given its painful efforts to restore battered public finances. The agency said that while Greece’s economic and fiscal performance has in many respects exceeded expectations, its heavy public debt burden renders fiscal solvency highly vulnerable to adverse shocks. Fitch added that Greece looked unlikely to regain access to bond markets by 2012. Fitch said it was cutting Greece’s rating by one notch, from BBB- to BB+, or junk status, which will further hurt the struggling country’s ability to borrow.
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