MEDIA
UMB to sell unit to Cision
UBM PLC said it had agreed to sell its press release distributor PR Newswire to Cision Inc, a business controlled by GTCR Canyon Holdings, for US$841 million, allowing UBM to focus on its events business. UBM, which has been looking to sell the business since April, said it would return £245 million (US$371.3 million) of proceeds to shareholders as a special dividend and use the remaining for bolt-on acquisitions. The deal includes US$810 million in cash and US$31 million of preferred equity, UBM said.
FINANCE
Sumitomo to buy GE arm
Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc agreed to buy General Electric Co’s (GE) Japanese finance and leasing business for about US$4.8 billion to further expand its operations outside of banking. The purchase by the Japanese lender’s leasing unit is expected to be completed by April next year, the companies said in a statement yesterday. It is the second acquisition of a GE business by Sumitomo Mitsui this year, after it bought the US industrial giant’s European buyout financing arm for US$2.1 billion. The deal is to help the bank’s Sumitomo Mitsui Finance & Leasing Co unit expand in commercial lending, as well as the leasing of automobiles, office equipment and construction machinery.
IMAGING
GoPro falls on ratings shift
GoPro Inc slumped the most in six weeks after Morgan Stanley cut its rating and price target on the stock based on slower consumer pickup of drones and a later rollout of its next-generation action camera. Morgan Stanley analyst James Faucette reduced his rating to underweight and set a price target of US$12, down from US$23. GoPro plunged 9.6 percent to US$17.31 at the close in New York, its biggest drop since Oct. 29. The stock is down 73 percent this year. “Likelihood that high inventory persists into 2016, slower consumer drone opportunity and later assumed HERO 5 compels us to cut estimates,” Faucette wrote in a note to investors.
CLOTHING
H&M profit falls on weather
H&M Hennes & Mauritz AB reported fourth-quarter revenue that missed analysts’ estimates as unseasonably mild weather weighed on demand in North America and Europe. Revenue excluding sales tax reached 48.7 billion kronor (US$5.8 billion), Stockholm-based H&M said in a statement yesterday. Analysts predicted 49.5 billion kronor, according to the average of 20 estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Last month’s sales rose 4 percent in local currencies, which also missed estimates. It is only the second time this year that the retailer’s monthly sales growth has fallen to less than 10 percent. H&M attributed the underperformance to unpredictable weather, including in Germany, where it gets about a fifth of its sales.
CONSUMER GOODS
Newell to buy rival Jarden
Newell Rubbermaid Inc is buying rival Jarden Corp in a US$15.4 billion cash-and-stock deal that creates a global consumer goods giant, the US companies announced on Monday. Newell Rubbermaid, maker of Rubbermaid storage containers, Sharpie pens and Calphalon cookware, said the combination of the two companies into the new Newell Brands would create a powerful portfolio of strong global brands with US$16 billion in annual revenue. Jarden’s brands include Coleman tents, Yankee Candle candles, AeroBed inflatable mattresses, Crock-Pot cookers and Mr Coffee coffeemakers.
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
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
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],”
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