BANKING
CICC seeks US$1bn in IPO
China International Capital Corp (CICC, 中金公司), the nation’s first Sino-foreign investment bank, plans to seek about US$1 billion from an initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong this year, people with knowledge of the matter said. The Beijing-based company aims to start the share sale in the second half, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the information is private. It has yet to seek approval from the territory’s stock exchange, they said. The once-dominant investment bank, which has lost ground to rivals, is pushing ahead after a delay caused by the departure of its longtime chief executive officer Levin Zhu (朱雲來) in October last year. The firm hired Hopu Investment Management Co (厚朴投?管理公司) partner Bi Mingjian (畢明建) as its chief executive officer in a move that should help smooth the listing plan, a person with knowledge of the matter said this month.
CHIPMAKERS
ARM royalty sales grow
ARM Holdings PLC, the chip designer whose technology is in more than 95 percent of smartphones, reported accelerating royalty revenue growth as the market for quicker, more powerful handsets expanded. Royalty sales in the fourth quarter advanced 13 percent, compared with 7 percent a year earlier, the Cambridge, England-based company said yesterday in a statement. The company had said that type of revenue — the fees ARM collects when customers use its technology — would return to more “normal” growth levels in the fourth quarter after five slower quarters. The acceleration will continue this year, driving a 10 percent increase in total sales in the first three months, the company said. Faster 4G mobile networks are pushing customers to upgrade to new phones that take advantage of them, like Apple Inc’s iPhone 6.
COMMODITIES
Glencore to cut spending
Glencore PLC cut its capital spending projection for this year after metal prices slumped and the commodities trader temporarily shuttered some of its coal mines. Glencore will cut planned expenditure this year to US$6.5 billion to US$6.8 billion from a target of US$7.9 billion in December last year, the Baar, Switzerland-based company said in a statement yesterday. Miners will scale back spending by US$20 billion this year, according to Macquarie Group Ltd, as they cut growth plans amid waning demand for raw materials. Glencore said it is also planning to distribute its 23.9 percent holding in platinum producer Lonmin PLC to its own shareholders. The Swiss commodities supplier plans to complete the divestment of the stake, acquired in the 2013 takeover of Xstrata PLC, in the first half of this year.
TRANSPORTATION
Uber adds panic button
Uber Technologies Inc yesterday added a panic button and tracking features to its taxi hailing app in India after the US-based company was banned in New Delhi last year over rape allegations against one of its drivers. Uber’s India app now has a “send status” feature to enable passengers to share ride details with their contacts in real time. The app also has an “SOS” button to call the local police directly. A spokesman said the functions were the first market-specific safety features launched by Uber. The company also said it plans to launch safety features in other nations soon. While the service remains officially banned in Delhi, Uber resumed operations there last month and has since said it has stepped up background checks on all its Indian drivers.
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