Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group Co (大連萬達集團) is in talks to buy a stake in US film studio Paramount Pictures, according to a report, marking the Asian company’s latest move to expand its entertainment empire.
Wanda, which in January bought production giant Legendary Entertainment for US$3.5 billion, is seeking 49 percent of Paramount from parent company Viacom Inc, the Wall Street Journal quoted “people familiar with the discussions” as saying.
It did not say how much the deal would be worth.
The agreement would give Paramount — which is behind the multibillion-dollar Star Trek and Indiana Jones franchises — a crucial foothold in the vast Chinese market, but the Wall Street Journal said hurdles remain before any deal.
The report came as Viacom is embroiled in a bitter internal power struggle that pits controlling shareholder Sumner Redstone and his family against other executives.
In late February, chairman and chief executive Philippe Dauman said the firm would sell a significant minority stake in the movie studio and had received expressions of interest.
Later Redstone said he opposed any such sale in what he considered the jewel in the Viacom empire.
Wanda, which was founded by one of China’s richest men, Wang Jianlin (王健林), has its origins in commercial property, but is diversifying into areas ranging from entertainment to sport.
The Chinese company bought US movie theater chain AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc in 2012 for US$2.6 billion and AMC just days ago announced it was buying London-based Odeon & UCI Cinemas Group from private equity firm Terra Firma in a deal worth about US$1.2 billion.
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