BANKING
London trader dismissed
Bank of New York Mellon Corp, the world’s largest custody bank, dismissed a London currency trader earlier this year for violating its code of conduct, according to a person briefed on the matter. The trader was suspended in February and terminated in May, the person said. The dismissed employee is Jon Smailes, another person said. The UK Financial Conduct Authority was informed of the action, one of the people said.
BEVERAGES
Firms ink bottling deal
SABMiller PLC and Coca-Cola Co yesterday agreed to combine bottling operations for non-alcoholic beverages in southern and eastern Africa. SABMiller will hold 57 percent of Coca-Cola Beverages Africa, with Coca-Cola holding 11.3 percent and Gutsche Family Investments owning the rest, London-based SABMiller said in a statement. As part of the transaction, Coca-Cola will buy SABMiller’s Appletiser brands on a global basis and gain rights to another 19 non-alcoholic drinks in Africa and Latin America for about US$260 million.
COLOMBIA
Taxi apps regulated
Taxi drivers and users of Uber are butting heads over a government ban on the ride-sharing company. Amid threats of a strike by yellow taxis, the Ministry of Transportation this week declared illegal all smartphone applications that facilitate the hiring of cabs that are not registered for that purpose. However, the service has won an especially loyal following in the nation since arriving earlier this year. The reason is simple: a fear of being ripped off or even assaulted by taxi drivers, who have a reputation for violence.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Twitter to track apps
San Francisco-based Twitter on Wednesday said it would begin tracking what other applications people have installed on their mobile devices in a bid to better target ads and content. The types of applications Twitter users have on their phones and tablets will be used for purposes such as recommending who they might like to “follow” at the service, as well as for targeting ads spotlighted as promoted content. Twitter users can prevent their app lists being harvested by activating the “Limit Ad Tracking” or “Opt out of interest-based ads” features on Apple or Android mobile devices respectively.
SOUTH KOREA
Account surplus rises
The nation’s current account surplus rose to US$9 billion last month on growing exports of ships, memory chips and steel, state data showed yesterday. The preliminary figure compared with a revised surplus of US$7.4 billion in September, the Bank of Korea said. The current account — the broadest measure of foreign trade in goods and services — has been in the black for two years and eight months. Asia’s fourth-largest economy has racked up an accumulated current account surplus of US$70.6 billion as of last month.
AIRLINES
Italian carrier gets new boss
Former Ferrari head Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, was on Wednesday named as the head of Italy’s national carrier, Alitalia. The announcement follows a rescue deal between Alitalia and the Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways, which will take a 49 percent stake in the debt-laden carrier. Etihad is expected to invest 560 million euros (US$750 million) in the Italian airline, which has gone from crisis to crisis for years.
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