TRADING
Knight keeps up the fight
Knight Capital Group Inc, fighting to stay afloat after a US$440 million loss spurred by a software bug, scrambled with its advisers to find a buyer or investor. The market maker responsible for about 10 percent of US equity volume turned to Goldman Sachs Group Inc on Wednesday to buy the firm out of trading positions acquired by mistake when a computer program malfunctioned, a person with knowledge of the matter said. It has until the close of business today to complete the transaction. “There’s a lot of questions about their liquidity — do they have the money to get through the trade settlement on Monday?” Patrick O’Shaughnessy, an analyst at Raymond James & Associates Inc, said in an interview with Pimm Fox on Bloomberg Television’s Taking Stock. Knight made it to the weekend after receiving short-term financing for market making, according to a person familiar with the matter who requested anonymity.
HONG KONG
Man held for hacking threats
Police said yesterday they had arrested a 21-year-old man after he reportedly said on Facebook that he planned to hack several government Web sites. Police said the man, who was later released on bail, was held on suspicion of “access to a computer with criminal or dishonest intent” after he allegedly threatened to hack seven government Web sites between June and this month. “The Internet is not a virtual world of lawlessness,” a police spokesman said, adding that the man was required to report back to the police in October. The unidentified man was arrested on Friday before being released on bail, the spokesman said, and faces up to five years imprisonment if found guilty.
EGYPT
Government plans bond sale
The government plans to sell 5 billion Egyptian pounds (US$822 million) of Treasury bills today as it prepares to resume loan talks with the IMF later this month. Cairo will seek bids for 4 billion pounds of nine-month notes and 1 billion pounds of three-month bills, according to central bank data on Bloomberg. Yields on both securities declined at every auction last month to 15.65 percent and 14.2 percent respectively. Cairo contacted the IMF to start negotiations for a US$3.2 billion loan after the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, Finance Minister Momtaz El-Saieed said yesterday. Talks have been on and off for more than a year during which national borrowing costs rose to record highs and net international reserves slumped by more than half to US$15.5 billion as of the end of June.
FINANCE
US jobs make rich richer
The 740 richest people on the planet added US$19.4 billion to their collective net worth on Friday after an increase in US jobs and positive earnings reports erased losses sustained last week. The day’s biggest gainer was Spanish retail tycoon Amancio Ortega, who added US$2.8 billion to his fortune as shares of Inditex SA, the world’s largest clothing retailer, jumped 5.4 percent. Bernard Arnault’s fortune increased US$474 million during the week. Shares of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA, the world’s largest luxury goods maker, rose 3.1 percent in Paris. Carlos Slim, 72, remains the world’s richest person. Slim’s fortune lost US$569 million. He now has a net worth of US$74.9 billion. Bill Gates, 56, is US$12.2 billion behind Slim. No. 3 on the index is Warren Buffett, 81, worth US$45.9 billion.
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