AVIATION
UTC to buy Goodrich Corp
United Technologies Corp (UTC) has reached a US$16.5 billion cash deal to acquire aircraft components maker Goodrich Corp in the diversified US manufacturer’s biggest deal in a decade. United Tech said on Wednesday it would pay US$127.50 a share for Goodrich, a 47 percent premium over the stock’s closing price on Thursday last week. The deal, if completed, would be the diversified US manufacturer’s largest takeover in a decade and boost United Tech’s presence in the commercial aviation business. It also includes US$1.9 billion in assumed debt.
AUTOMAKERS
Nissan expands OEM deal
Nissan and Mitsubishi are strengthening their cooperation by expanding the number of models they make for each other in Japan. Nissan and Mitsubishi have had an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) deal since December last year. They manufacture specific vehicle models for each other and sell them under their own brands. Nissan yesterday said it would provide the Fuga luxury sedan to Mitsubishi, starting from next summer. They have also started talks on Mitsubishi providing the Minicab-MiEV electric car to Nissan in the fiscal year that begins next April.
SOUTH KOREA
Alleged LCD cartel probed
The Fair Trade Commission yesterday said it was investigating 10 LCD makers in Taiwan, South Korea and Japan for allegedly operating a cartel. A commission spokesman confirmed the disclosure made by its chief, Kim Dong-soo, in an interview with the JoongAng Daily. “We plan to complete our probe by the end of this year,” Kim told the paper. He said a similar probe was underway into five TV tube glassmakers from South Korea and Japan.
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