INTEREST RATES
Bank of Japan maintains rate
Japan’s central bank yesterday kept its key interest rate unchanged at virtually zero to help the world’s No. 3 economy weather a strong yen and worries about a global slowdown. The Bank of Japan’s nine-member policy board voted unanimously at a two-day meeting to maintain the overnight call rate target at zero to 0.1 percent. It described the economy as “picking up steadily” and said the supply problems triggered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami were mostly resolved.
ENERGY
Fund to cover Bohai spill
ConocoPhillips yesterday said it would set up a fund to cover costs of an oil spill in China’s Bohai Bay that has drawn intense criticism from marine authorities and environmentalists. The company said the fund would be to cover its responsibilities under Chinese law and to “benefit the general environment in Bohai Bay,” off China’s eastern coast. It did not say how much money would go into the fund, saying it was still working on the details. The government ordered ConocoPhillips to halt all production in the affected oil field, Penglai 19-3, pending a full cleanup and review to ensure no more oil seeps into the sea.
ENERGY
Vallares to buy Genel
Investment vehicle Vallares said it was buying Turkish oil explorer Genel Energy to create a Kurdistan-focused oil and gas group via an all-share reverse takeover. Vallares, which former BP chief executive Tony Hayward established with financier Nat Rothschild and banker Julian Metherell, will issue new shares worth US$2.1 billion. The enlarged company will be known as Genel Energy and Genel’s existing shareholders will own half of the group, Vallares said.
INVESTMENTS
Carlyle announces IPO plan
The Carlyle Group, a leading global asset manager that oversees more than US$150 billion in assets, on Tuesday announced plans for an initial public offering (IPO). The Washington-based firm set a tentative target to raise US$100 million from the share offering in its registration statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Carlyle did not give a date for the IPO, and it said the number of common units to be offered and the price range for the offering had not yet been determined.
SERVICES
Groupon might delay IPO
Groupon Inc, the biggest provider of online daily-deal coupons, is postponing its initial public offering and pushing back meetings with investors amid stock market swings, three people familiar with the matter said. Groupon and its bankers were planning to pitch investors starting next week, said the people, who declined to be named because the company’s plans are private. Chicago-based Groupon may still be able to sell shares before the end of the year, two of the people said. Groupon spokeswoman Julie Mossler declined to comment.
ENERGY
Shaw to drop Westinghouse
Engineering and construction company The Shaw Group Inc will sell its minority investment in nuclear power plant company Westinghouse Electric Co LLC back to Toshiba Corp. The sale will help Shaw shed some debt and strengthen its balance sheet. However, it also means that there will no longer be any US investors in Westinghouse, which is more than 100 years old and is based in Pennsylvania.
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],”
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
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