BONDS
Deutsche Bank probed
Deutsche Bank AG is the target of a criminal probe into government bond market manipulation, the German bank and plaintiffs said on Friday. Five former Deutsche Bank top managers are being investigated by a prosecutor in Trani, southern Italy, including its ex-chief executive Josef Ackermann, consumer associations Adusbef and Federconsumatori said after filing their legal complaint. They accuse Deutsche Bank of selling “massive” amounts of Italian government debt between January and June 2011 while publicly stating that the Italian debt situation was “sustainable.”
STOCKS
GE sells Czech bank shares
General Electric Co (GE) raised US$749 million selling shares of its Czech banking unit in the nation’s biggest initial public offering in almost a decade. The US company priced the 51 percent stake in Moneta Money Bank AS, previously known as GE Money Bank AS, at 68 Czech koruna per share, according to an e-mailed statement on Friday. That values the lender at 34.75 billion Czech koruna (US$1.47 billion) and compares with GE’s initial target range of between 68 koruna and 85 koruna. GE is placing the unit’s shares as part of a year-old plan to sell most of its financial assets worldwide and focus on its industrial business.
INVESTMENT
Berkshire net profit up 8%
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc on Friday confirmed that its first-quarter net profit rose 8 percent to US$5.59 billion, while operating profit fell 12 percent to US$3.74 billion, below analyst forecasts, as its BNSF railroad unit was hurt by falling oil prices and coal demand. The conglomerate, which operates about 90 businesses, nonetheless said its book value per share, rose to US$157,369 per Class A share as of March 31 from US$155,501 three months earlier, while revenue rose 8 percent from a year earlier to US$52.4 billion.
COMMODITIES
Rio Tinto passes mine hurdle
Mining giant Rio Tinto Ltd on Friday announced the launch of the next stage of a US multibillion-dollar gold and copper mine in Mongolia following delays and political tension over revenue sharing and the foreign role in resource industries. The underground portion of the Oyu Tolgoi mine is to go ahead after Rio Tinto, the Mongolian government and another partner agreed on a US$5.3 billion investment plan, the Anglo-Australian miner said, adding that production should begin in 2020.
AVIATION
Private plane sales drop
Sales of new private aircraft fell 16 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, as demand weakened for the largest planes. Jet airplane billings were about US$3.53 billion in the first quarter, down from US$4.2 billion a year earlier, the General Aviation Manufacturers Association said. That was the biggest decline in almost five years. However, shipments of medium-sized jets increased to 76 from 69, a sign that smaller US companies are still returning to the market as customers. Excluding Dassault Aviation SA, which does not report first-quarter shipments, 122 total business jets were delivered in the first three months of the year, down from 128.
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],”
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
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