INVESTMENT
China staying in eurozone
China said yesterday it was a “long-term investor” in the European debt market and hoped eurozone nations would achieve stable growth, as Greece teetered on the brink of defaulting on its loans. “China is a long-term investor in the European securities market,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Hong Lei (洪磊) said. “We hope Greece can realize stability and development through cooperation between the EU and the international community. We hope the relevant countries will realize stable economic growth.”
IPO
Global Ports eyes London
Russia’s Global Ports said it plans to raise up to US$572 million from a London initial public offering (IPO) for owner N-Trans and itself, betting on investors’ interest in the fast-growing container market. The company, a unit of private transportation and infrastructure holding group N-Trans, set a US$14.70 to US$16.10 price range for the offer that is expected to comprise 35.5 million shares, it said yesterday. The majority of the offer will comprise existing shares to be sold by N-Trans, it said, while the company itself is eyeing gross proceeds of around US$100 million from new shares to fund its investment in the Russian ports segment.
ENERGY
Total takes over SunPower
French oil producer Total SA completed its US$1.3 billion takeover of solar power company SunPower Corp, boosting the oil giant’s renewable-energy presence. Total said on Wednesday it closed the deal, buying a 60 percent share of SunPower shares with an all-cash tender. SunPower CEO Tom Werner said the sale would help SunPower expand by boosting its market access and research and development program. SunPower designs and delivers solar electricity systems for businesses and homes.
INTERNET
Alibaba splits up Taobao
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd 阿里巴巴), China’s biggest online-commerce company, reorganized its Taobao (淘寶) retail unit into three companies to better meet customer demands, chief executive Jack Ma (馬雲) said. The unit will be split into Taobao Mall for consumers to shop from businesses, eTao for shopping-related searches and Taobao Marketplace for consumers to buy and sell goods from each other, Alibaba said in a statement yesterday. The move was supported by the group’s board and shareholders, while Alibaba investor Yahoo was informed before the announcement.
ENERGY
Japan in deal with Caracas
Japan will lend US$1.5 billion to oil company PDVSA in exchange for 3 million barrels of crude oil over the next five years, a Japanese diplomat said on Wednesday. “We have 54 nuclear plants and more than 30 are not in use because of the accident at Fukushima, so this agreement with Venezuela is very important to us for thermo-electric energy in Japan,” said Takashi Kondo, the spokesman for the Japanese embassy in Caracas. The agreement between the two countries will be formally signed on June 28.
ENTERTAINMENT
Sony releases music app
Sony has released an app making its Music Unlimited online streaming available on smartphones running Google’s Android system, as well as devices such as the PlayStation3, Internet-connected Sony televisions and Blu-ray players. The app will be available to users in the US, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Britain, Australia and New Zealand.
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
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
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