AVIATION
AIG sells 90% of ILFC
American International Group Inc (AIG) says it will sell up to 90 percent of its airplane leasing unit International Lease Finance Corp (ILFC) to an investor group led by Weng Xianding (翁先定), chairman of New China Trust Co (新華信託), for approximately US$5.28 billion. The investor group, which includes New China Trust, China Aviation Industrial Fund (中國航空產業基金) and P3 Investments Ltd, will acquire 80.1 percent of ILFC for approximately US$4.23 billion, with an option for an additional 9.9 percent stake. AIG will keep at least 10 percent of the company. ILFC will remain based in Los Angeles. The agreement needs approval from US and Chinese regulatory authorities.
RETAIL
PPR acquires jewelery brand
The French owner of the Gucci label, PPR, announced late on Sunday that it had acquired a “majority” stake for an undisclosed amount in rising Chinese luxury jewelery brand Qeelin (麒麟). PPR said the transaction should be completed next month and that Qeelin has “tremendous intrinsic growth potential.” Hong Kong-based Qeelin has developed a network of boutiques in prestigious shopping districts around the world. It currently operates 14 stores. While most are in China or Hong Kong, it also has boutiques in London and Paris.
FRANCE
Bank confirms forecast
The central bank said yesterday it expected the eurozone’s second-largest economy to shrink by 0.1 percent in the last quarter of this year compared with the third, repeating a forecast it made in October. Reporting results of an economic survey last month, the Bank of France also said its industrial climate indicator dipped a further 1 point to 91, while a similar measure of sentiment in the services sector held steady at 91. GDP grew 0.2 percent in the third quarter, contrary to predictions that the economy would stagnate or even shrink, but economists said the outlook was gloomy.
GERMANY
Trade surplus contracts
The nation’s trade surplus contracted in October as imports grew faster than exports, official data showed yesterday. Europe’s biggest economy exported goods worth a total 92.8 billion euros (US$119.8 billion) in seasonally-adjusted terms in October, an increase of 0.2 percent from September, the national statistics office Destatis said. Imports, on the other hand, grew by 2.5 percent to 77.6 billion euros, so that the seasonally adjusted trade surplus fell to 15.2 billion euros in October from 16.9 billion euros in September. Taking the 10 months to October as a whole, however, Exports rose by 4.8 percent to 924.4 billion euros, this time in unadjusted terms, while imports were up 1.7 percent at 752.2 billion euros.
AUTOMOBILES
India car sales fall
India’s car sales slid more than 8 percent last month from a year earlier, industry data showed yesterday, underscoring the overall slowdown gripping Asia’s third-largest economy. Domestic car sales fell 8.25 percent to 158,257 units last month, according to India’s Society of Automobile Manufacturers. Two months ago, the industry group slashed its car sales growth forecast for the financial year to March next year to between 1 and 3 percent from an earlier 10 to 12 percent forecast. Commercial vehicle sales, another key pointer to economic vigor, tumbled 7.3 percent to 61,410 last month, SIAM figures show.
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