FINANCE
Russel, LSE in talks
The London Stock Exchange Group (LSE) is in talks with the parent company of Russell Investments about a possible acquisition of the asset management and stock index firm. Life insurance company Northwestern Mutual started exploring a sale of Russell, which has US$259.7 billion in assets under management, in January after deciding it was not a core part of its business. Sources said last month that Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, the fifth-largest bank in Canada, was considering a bid for Seattle-based Russell, which provides services including pension consulting, investment management and indexes such as the Russell 1000 Global Index. Private equity firms CVC Capital Partners and Silver Lake have also teamed up to pursue a bid, as have Warburg Pincus and TPG Capital, the sources said.
PAYMENTS
Vantiv to buy Mercury
Payment processor Vantiv says it will spend US$1.65 billion to buy Mercury Payment Systems, which helps retailers process credit, debit and check payments. Cincinnati-based Vantiv says the purchase will expand its online commerce business, and it expects the deal to close during the current quarter. It says the acquisition will add to its adjusted profit in 2014 and will raise its annual revenue growth by 1 or 2 percent per year. Mercury Payment Systems is owned by the private equity firm Silver Laker Partners and is based in Durango, Colorado. It had US$237 million in revenue last year and processed US$34 billion in payments.
BANKING
BNP Paribas in US talks
BNP Paribas chief executive Jean-Laurent Bonnafe met with top US officials last week seeking lower penalties for violating US sanctions laws, a person familiar with the matter said on Monday. US prosecutors have told BNP Paribas they want France’s largest publicly traded bank to plead guilty to charges it did business with sanctioned parties in Iran, Sudan and elsewhere; pay a large fine; and fire 12 employees involved in the transactions, the person involved in the talks said. Bonnafe offered to plead guilty on behalf of the bank’s BNP Paribas USA subsidiary, but US regulators rejected that proposal, the person added.
AUTOMAKERS
Nissan secrets arrest made
A former Nissan Motor employee was arrested yesterday, news reports and officials said, after allegedly stealing corporate secrets from the Japanese automaker. Police in Kanagawa, southwest of Tokyo, arrested Kenichi Okamura, 37, for allegedly violating laws preventing unfair competition, Japan’s public broadcaster NHK and other outlets said. Police suspect the man secretly accessed Nissan’s computer systems in July last year and copied details of its sales plan for sports utility vehicles, the news reports said. Okamura, who was working at the company’s office in Atsugi when the incident occurred, denies involvement.
AEROSPACE
Airbus doubles profit
Airbus Group, formerly EADS, reported on Tuesday a near doubling of quarterly net profit, a rise in sales driven by helicopters, but a fall in new orders after an exceptional performance last year. Net profit for the quarter rose by 93 percent to 439 million euros (US$604.5 million). The value of orders taken fell by more than half to 21.1 billion euros from 49.5 billion euros. This reflected orders taken for 103 aircraft on a net basis, after allowing for cancellations. That was far short of the figure of 410 in the first quarter of last year.
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