PHARMACEUTICALS
Hikma to buy US operation
Hikma Pharmaceuticals PLC said it would buy German drugmaker Boehringer Ingelheim’s US specialty generic drugs business for about US$2.65 billion in cash and stock to bolster its presence in the US. Hikma said it will pay about US$1.18 billion in cash and issue 40 million new Hikma shares, or about 16.71 percent of its issued share capital, for Boehringer’s Roxane Laboratories Inc and Boehringer Ingelheim Roxane Inc on closing of the deal. The Jordanian company said the deal would make it the sixth-biggest US generics provider.
INTERNET
Baidu returns to growth
Baidu Inc (百度) returned to profit growth as an expansion in mobile services spurred record revenue at China’s largest Internet search provider. Second-quarter net income climbed 3.3 percent to 3.66 billion yuan (US$590 million), compared with the 3.9 billion yuan average of analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Sales climbed 38 percent to 16.6 billion yuan, matching expectations, the company said on Monday. Mobile accounted for 50 percent of sales, in line with the prior quarter, it said.
OIL
BP reports US$5bn loss
BP PLC yesterday reported a second-quarter loss of US$5.82 billion after the London-based oil company set aside another US$10.8 billion to cover the cost of the Deepwater Horizon accident. The report is the first since BP announced a deal that will provide a further US$18.7 billion to five US states affected by the 2010 accident that killed 11 workers and spewed millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. BP said the settlement would bring its full obligations to US$54.6 billion.
TIRE MAKERS
Michelin’s earnings rise
Michelin & Cie, Europe’s biggest tire maker, yesterday said that first-half earnings jumped 8.9 percent to 1.26 billion euros (US$1.4 billion) from 1.16 billion euros a year earlier as volume rose and the weaker euro helped revenue. First-half sales rose 8.5 percent to 10.5 billion euros. Second-half earnings growth are to be held back as sales of less-expensive tires rise faster than demand for pricier products and contracts limit Michelin’s ability to pass raw-material costs on to automakers.
AIRLINES
Delta seeks Chinese deal
US-based Delta Air Lines Inc said it will pay US$450 million to buy a stake in China Eastern Airlines Corp (中國東方航空) as the Atlanta-based airline seeks to expand into China’s fast-growing travel industry. The deal will give Delta a 3.55 percent stake in Shanghai-based China Eastern and an observer seat on China Eastern’s board of directors, the companies said on Monday. The boards of both airlines still need to approve the deal, and the companies did not say when that is expected to happen.
TRADE
Kazakhstan to join WTO
Kazakhstan is to become the 162nd member of the WTO after the Geneva-based body formally approved the nation’s membership on Monday. The largest former Soviet republic in Central Asia is rich in natural resources and a key transit country for goods between Asia and Europe. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said the nation is committed to opening up its financial and telecommunications sectors as agreed during its 19-year accession process.
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
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts