INSURERS
Firms eye Aetna assets
Health insurers including WellCare Health Plans Inc and Centene Corp have offered to buy assets that Aetna Inc may have to sell to gain regulatory approval for its proposed US$37 billion takeover of Humana Inc, a person familiar with the matter said. WellCare and Centene have separately bid for Aetna’s Medicare Advantage policies that are up for sale, covering about 350,000 people. Other health insurers are eyeing pieces of the business, the person said on Saturday. Aetna covers about 1.3 million people in Medicare Advantage plans, while Humana covers 3.2 million. Aetna presented the divestiture plan on Friday at a meeting with US Department of Justice antitrust officials. The insurer is seeking to show that there is sufficient competition in the market for private health plans for the elderly to allow the Humana deal to go forward.
AUTOMAKERS
VW eyes electric batteries
Volkswagen AG (VW) is considering teaming up with electric-car battery specialists such as LG Chem Ltd or Panasonic Corp as it overhauls its strategy to emerge from the diesel-emissions scandal, according to people familiar with the matter. The carmaker’s supervisory board also discussed investing between 1.7 billion euros and 2 billion euros (US$1.89 billion and US$2.21 billion) per factory at several sites around the world, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are confidential. Concrete decisions are expected by the end of the year, they said. Volkswagen confirmed it is examining options and considering multiple locations to make batteries for a sales volume of between 2 million and 3 million purely electric-powered cars by 2025, declining to comment on details of the potential sites.
CUBA
Drastic cuts planned
The government is drastically cutting electricity, imports and investment, as well as reducing fuel consumption by 28 percent through the end of the year, Minister of Planning and Economy Marino Murillo said on Friday in a closed-door speech to the National Assembly published by official media on Saturday. The measures are sure to put the import-dependent economy into negative territory, despite a tourism boom in the wake of a growing detente with the US. They also represent a huge setback for a country struggling to reform an already decapitalized and often dysfunctional system. Cuba’s economy grew just 1 percent in the first half of this year after expanding 4 percent last year, the government said.
TELECOMS
Telefonica pares stake
Telefonica SA, facing roadblocks in the planned sales of its assets following Britain’s vote to leave the EU, is paring a stake in China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd (中國聯通) to raise as much as US$367 million. The sale of 361.8 million shares began today and the stock is being offered at HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 apiece, according to terms of the deal seen by Bloomberg News. The deal has demand for all the stock on offer, said people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named while the transaction is underway. Telefonica risks having its credit rating cut if the carrier does not come up with a clear way to reduce debt by year end, Moody’s Corp analyst Carlos Winzer said last month. Telefonica shelved plans to sell a stake in its British wireless carrier O2 amid market volatility following the country’s referendum. The firm also delayed a listing of its Spanish infrastructure unit Telxius, people familiar with the matter had 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
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”