BANKING
Greece deal nearly done
The private-equity arms of Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Deutsche Bank AG were close to sealing a deal to purchase the buyout unit of National Bank of Greece SA (NBG), Bloomberg reported yesterday, citing sources. Goldman Sachs Asset Management and DB Private Equity were in talks with one of Greece’s big four banks to buy NBGI Private Equity Ltd for about £300 million (US$506 million), two people with knowledge of the matter told the news agency. Although no final decision had been taken, NBGI Private Equity’s management, lead by chairman and chief executive officer Pavlos Stellakis, were negotiating terms that would allow the buyout business to remain based in London after the deal was inked, the sources told Bloomberg.
RETAIL
Prices in UK’s shops fall
Prices in British shops fell last month at the fastest rate since records began seven-and-a-half years ago, the British Retail Consortium said yesterday, marking 15 months of declining prices. The consortium said retail prices last month were 1.9 percent lower than a year earlier, marking the largest drop in shop prices since the series started in Dec. 2006. Prices had fallen by 1.8 percent in June. Food prices rose just 0.3 percent, also the smallest rise on record, compared with 0.6 percent in the previous month, while those for furniture, electrical goods and gardening tools fell at a faster rate last month, the consortium said.
TRADE
Canada, EU settle on deal
Canada and the EU have settled on the final text of a landmark free-trade deal, which is expected to come into force in the middle of 2016, Canadian officials said on Tuesday. The 1,500-page document — which is to eliminate 98 percent of tariffs on goods and services, increase cross-Atlantic worker mobility and harmonize professional qualifications — must still be translated into 23 languages and be reviewed by lawyers, trade officials in Ottawa said. That could take up to two years, and then lawmakers must still ratify the agreement — which has not yet been made public.
BANKING
Bankruptcy plans panned
US regulators warned on Tuesday that 11 giant banks have submitted unrealistic contingency plans in the event of bankruptcy, warning that unprepared lenders could plunge the world into a new financial crisis. The US Federal Reserve and US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) said the 11 titans, popularly known as “those too big to fail,” must make better plans to restructure their firms in the event of failure. FDIC Vice Chairman Thomas Hoenig said they had failed to show “how, in failure, any one of these firms could overcome obstacles to entering bankruptcy without precipitating a financial crisis.”
COMMUNICATIONS
Sprint abandons buyout bid
US wireless carrier Sprint has decided to abandon a bid for rival T-Mobile, viewing the tie-up as unlikely to win regulatory approval, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. Sprint, which is controlled by Japan’s Softbank, had been close to a deal valued at about US$32 billion, according to several reports. The Journal said Sprint gave up after officials from the US Department of Justice and the US Federal Communications Commission indicated they would oppose a deal merging the the third-largest carrier Sprint with the fourth-largest T-Mobile.
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