TAXES
Singapore, Australia ink deal
Singapore and Australia have agreed to automatically exchange financial data of tax residents of the two countries by September 2018 in an effort to prevent tax evasion. Offshore wealth centers Singapore, Switzerland and Hong Kong are among 101 jurisdictions committed to start exchanging information to combat tax evasion by 2018. Last year Singapore, a trading hub for the world’s largest commodity companies, came under scrutiny from the governments of some resource-producing countries such as Australia who said they suspect the companies are using units based in the city-state to avoid tax.
ENERGY
Crude price rises in Asia
Crude oil prices rose in Asia yesterday after Russia and Saudi Arabia pledged to work on addressing a global supply glut, but analysts said gains would likely be limited after the two sides provided scant detail about their plans. News that the two sides were about to make an announcement sent both contracts soaring on Monday, but the gains were all but wiped out after the statement. At about 3am GMT, the US benchmark West Texas Intermediate was up US$0.84, or 1.89 percent, at US$45.28 and Brent added US$0.05, or 0.10 percent, to US$47.68.
STOCKS
European shares edge up
European shares rose slightly on Monday and held near their highest levels since April supported on the day by the energy sector and a jump in shares of healthcare firm Fresenius which rose following an acquisition in Spain. The pan-European STOXX 600 Index was up 0.1 percent, with the intraday peaks in April proving to be a hurdle for the index. Underscoring investor skittishness and low tolerance for earnings disappointments, French payments firm Ingenico Group dipped nearly 13 percent in heavy volumes, after cutting its full-year targets in the wake of a “sudden and significant decline” in US sales.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Bayer woos Monsanto
The German pharmaceutical group Bayer on Monday said it would sweeten its offer for US rival Monsanto. Bayer said it would raise its offer for the US seed giant to US$127.5 per share from US$125. That would bring the deal’s total value to almost US$66 billion including debt. Monsanto rejected Bayer’s previous offer in mid-July, saying it was willing to continue negotiations. With the new offer, Bayer also said it has no intention of carrying out a hostile takeover. The German daily Handelsblatt in the middle of last month reported that Bayer was considering a hostile bid if faced with ongoing opposition from Monsanto. A deal would create a global leader in genetically modified seeds and pesticides.
ACQUISITIONS
ChemChina circles Syngenta
State-owned China National Chemical Corp (ChemChina, 中國化工) yesterday said it will extend its US$43 billion agreed takeover for Swiss pesticide and seed giant Syngenta AG until November. The company said the offer for all Syngenta shares would be by far the biggest-ever overseas acquisition by a Chinese firm was now open until at least Nov. 8. The offer for Syngenta shares, announced in February, was extended in May and July, and was due to expire on Tuesday next week. Last month a US national security regulator approved the merger, and the companies said a number of anti-trust regulators around the world still need to approve the deal. Syngenta rebuffed US rival Monsanto three times last year before accepting ChemChina’s offer.
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
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
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts