United Parcel Service Inc (UPS) said it appealed the EU regulator’s January decision to block its 5.16 billion euro (US$6.7 billion) bid for TNT Express NV, saying the move aims to clarify the legal reasoning rather than renew its interest in the Dutch rival.
“The reason to appeal would be to ensure a more accurate assessment of the EU competitive landscape and that there’s no precedent that could limit international growth opportunity,” Peggy Gardner, a spokeswoman for Atlanta-based UPS, said by telephone on Sunday.
The world’s largest package-delivery company ended its pursuit of TNT on Jan. 14 after the European Commission’s antitrust regulators indicated they would prohibit the deal. The purchase would have doubled UPS’s footprint in Europe and helped it compete with Deutsche Post AG’s DHL unit.
“The appeal is intended to clarify the EC’s legal assessment of the dynamics of the European express market,” TNT said in a statement yesterday. “It does not imply a renewal or reconsideration of the previously proposed UPS offer.”
The EU formally rejected UPS’s takeover later that month, saying UPS failed to find a suitable buyer for parts of TNT to ensure competition would not be stifled. UPS was trying to divest parts of TNT to La Poste SA’s DPD unit.
The EU blocked the deal because combining UPS and TNT would have increased express-delivery prices in 29 countries, EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said on Jan. 30.
While the EU had said FedEx was “the only possible suitable purchaser” for the assets that would need to be divested, that company’s limited reach across Europe meant customers would only be able to choose between UPS-TNT and DHL for next-day deliveries.
TNT “continues to focus on the execution of its updated strategy and profit improvement plan” that includes selling businesses in China and Brazil and cutting 4,000 jobs, the Netherlands-based company said.
On March 28, the company said it would sell its Hoau Chinese domestic road operations to an affiliate of Citic Group Corp.
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