TECHNOLOGY
Xiaomi listing held back
Xiaomi Corp (小米) chief executive officer Lei Jun (雷軍) on Saturday said the Chinese handset maker, valued at US$45 billion by a 2014 funding round, was not planning a public listing “at the moment.” Lei, speaking to reporters at the opening of the National People’s Congress in Beijing, said he wants Xiaomi’s initial public offering to be a natural process and said that he is already the de facto controller of several publicly traded companies. While not ruling out a listing for Xiaomi, he said it would not be for “the time being.”
FAST FOOD
KFC operations valued
The investor group buying Kuwait Food Co has valued the operator of KFC restaurants in the Middle East and North Africa at about US$4 billion in their agreement to buy out the company’s family owner, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Adeptio LLC plans to take the Kuwaiti company, known as Americana, private. The consortium, led by Emaar Properties PJSC chairman Mohamed Alabbar, is conducting due diligence on the deal and terms might change based on the outcome, the people said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Chambers head suspended
The Financial Times newspaper said the British Chambers of Commerce director-general has been suspended after saying the UK should leave the EU. Director-general John Longworth told the organization’s convention this week that Britain faced a choice between “the devil and the deep blue sea.” He told Sky News that “the UK would be better off taking a decision to leave” the EU. The group, which represents hundreds of businesses, said it would not campaign on either side in Britain’s EU membership referendum.
CONSTRUCTION
Inversora to bid for FCC
Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim’s holding company Inversora Carso on Friday said it would launch a bid for all of Spain’s debt-laden construction group FCC. The company said it would pay 7.60 euros (US$8.36) for each share of FCC which it does not already own. Inversora Carso said it had increased its stake in FCC to 36.6 percent after a 709.5 million euro rights issue and was required to launch the takeover bid under Spanish law.
RETAIL
Lotte faces sibling rivalry
Shareholders of Tokyo-based Lotte Holdings Co, a key unit of Korean-Japanese retail conglomerate Lotte Group, yesterday voted to oppose a measure to remove chairman Shin Dong-bin at an extraordinary general meeting. Family-controlled Lotte Group is in the midst of a power struggle between Shin Dong Bin and his older sibling, who was stripped of his executive positions at the Japan unit in January last year.
BANKING
Bank of America equity woes
Bank of America Corp has generated less revenue from its equity and fixed-income trading businesses so far this year than in the same period last year, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The second-largest US lender’s revenue from fixed-income trading, which includes credit, currencies and commodities, dropped about 10 percent from a year earlier, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing the firm’s performance. The bank has collected 11 percent to 12 percent less from equity trading this quarter than last year, one of the people said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last