ENERGY
Brexit hits crude oil price
Crude oil traded near US$48 per barrel as market volatility continued after the UK last week voted to leave the EU. Futures pared a loss of as much as 1.5 percent to trade little changed in New York after slumping 4.9 percent on Friday last week, the biggest drop in four months. Oil prices might plunge further if the shock of the UK’s vote to exit the EU is combined with a boost in output, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said. Oil capped a second weekly drop on Friday last week as prices slid with industrial metals and European equities after the UK voted to quit the EU following more than four decades of membership. Nigerian output might return to about 2.2 million barrels a day next month after the repair of a pipeline as talks with militants continue, Nigerian State Minister for Petroleum Resources Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu said.
BANKING
London to lose regulator
The EU is preparing to move its European Banking Authority from London following the UK’s vote to leave the union, EU officials said on Sunday, setting up a race led by Paris and Frankfurt to host the regulator. Coming a day after the UK’s Jonathan Hill resigned and was replaced as European commissioner for financial stability, financial services and capital markets by the Commission’s “Mr Euro,” Valdis Dombrovskis, the move underlines how the City of London can expect to be frozen out of EU financial regulation — and possibly from Europe’s capital markets — depending on the terms of the Brexit deal. While those who argued for the UK to leave the EU said the financial industry would thrive without EU shackles, some of its biggest employers, including JPMorgan, are scouring Europe to find new locations for their traders, bankers and financial licenses.
INTERNET
Line delays IPO pricing
Line Corp, Japan’s most popular messaging service, plans to delay the setting of a price range for its initial public offering (IPO) after the UK’s vote to exit the EU sent global equity markets into turmoil, according to a person familiar with the matter. The Tokyo-based company might proceed with the pricing as soon as tomorrow, said the person, asking not to be identified because the matter is private. Line said earlier this month it is seeking to raise as much as ¥113 billion (US$1.1 billion) from the sale of new and existing shares, which would make it the largest IPO by a technology company this year.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Sanofi, Boehringer ink deal
Sanofi has agreed to a 22.8 billion euros (US$25.1 billion) asset swap with Germany’s Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH to bolster the French drugmaker’s business in selling over-the-counter drugs. The companies reached a definitive agreement after announcing exclusive negotiations in December last year, they said in a statement yesterday. The terms are unchanged from the original announcement — Sanofi will trade its Merial animal-health business, valued at 11.4 billion euros, for Boehringer’s 6.7 billion euros consumer-health operation. Closely held Boehringer is also to pay Sanofi 4.7 billion euros in cash. The deal helps chief executive Olivier Brandicourt reshape Sanofi, whose pharmaceuticals division has grappled with declining sales of its best-selling insulin. It also adds to the consolidation in consumer health.
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],”
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
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