STOCK MARKET
HTC dropped from index
Shares of smartphone maker HTC Corp (宏達電) will be removed from the Taiwan 50 Index after a quarterly index review by the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) and FTSE Group, the exchange said on Friday. The TWSE said that as HTC’s market capitalization was ranked 61st among the more than 800 listed companies on the main bourse, the exchange and FTSE have decided to remove the stock from the Taiwan 50 Index, in which the constituents are among the top 50 in terms of market capitalization. Instead, textile manufacturer Eclat Textile Co (儒鴻) will be added to the Taiwan 50 Index, the exchange said. The changes will take effect on Sept. 21.
FINANCE
Cathay completes deal
Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控) on Friday said its brokerage unit, Cathay Securities Co (國泰證券), had completed the acquisition of Horizon Securities Corp’s (宏遠證券) subsidiary in Hong Kong. Cathay Financial announced the HK$40 million (US$5.16 million) deal in February. The nation’s biggest financial services provider by assets has shifted its merger and acquisition (M&A) focus to overseas targets as candidates abroad present much better value, company president Lee Chang-ken (李長庚) said last Monday.
BANKING
CHB posts NT$9.9bn profit
State-run Chang Hwa Commercial Bank (CHB, 彰化銀行) on Friday posted NT$1.43 billion (US$43.6 million) in pre-tax income for last month, the lender said in a statement. Pre-tax profit totaled NT$9.9 billion for the first eight months of the year, with NT$8.36 billion in net income, or earnings per share of NT$0.99, the statement said.
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],”
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
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