NETWORKS
Ericsson working with US
Ericsson AB, the Swedish maker of wireless networks, said it has been cooperating with US authorities since receiving a March 2013 request to provide information on its operations and that it is working “diligently” to answer the questions. The questions pertain to the company’s anti-corruption program and the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Ericsson said on Friday, declining to provide further details. Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet on Thursday reported that the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the US Department of Justice are investigating Ericsson for suspected corruption, including at its operations in China.
AUTOMAKERS
Mitsubishi doling out cash
Mitsubishi Motors Co is giving ¥100,000 (US$960) to each Japanese owner of its cars as a compensation for inflated mileage and extra gas costs. The Japanese automaker on Friday said it will take a ¥50 billion charge to cover mileage-rigging expenses, including for the eK minicar models sold in Japan since 2013, and also under the Nissan label, as well as ¥30,000 compensation each for some other Mitsubishi models.
MINING
Vale in talks to sell stake
Vale SA is holding discussions with Asian mining companies about a potential sale of a minority stake in its Brazilian iron-ore assets that could fetch as much as US$7 billion, people familiar with the matter said. The world’s top iron-ore producer might also consider streaming deals, they said. No agreements have been reached and the talks might not result in a deal, the people added. A representative for Vale declined to comment.
RETAIL
Tesco agrees to sell chain
Tesco PLC agreed to sell its Dobbies Garden Centres chain for £217 million (US$309 million) as the UK’s biggest retailer continues to sell peripheral assets to focus on reviving its main supermarket business. Dobbies, which operates 35 garden-center stores across Scotland, England and Northern Ireland, will be bought by an investor group led by Midlothian Capital Partners and Hattington Capital, Tesco said in a statement on Friday.
ELECTRONICS
iPhones available in China
Apple Inc said its iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were still available for sale in China after Beijing’s intellectual property regulators barred their sales saying the designs had infringed a patent held by a Chinese company. “We appealed an administrative order from a regional patent tribunal in Beijing last month and as a result the order has been stayed pending review by the Beijing IP [intellectual property] Court,” Apple said in a statement on Friday.
CHEMICALS
Albemarle to sell division
Albemarle Corp agreed to sell a surface-treatment division to BASF SE for about US$3.2 billion in cash as it looks to pay down debt from its acquisition of Rockwood Holdings Inc. The Chemetall unit provides anti-corrosion chemicals to treat car chassis prior to spray-painting. The deal is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to close by year end, Albemarle said in a statement.
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