SOVEREIGN DEBT
S&P negative on UK outlook
Standard & Poor’s (S&P) on Friday said it was keeping a negative outlook on Britain’s “AA” sovereign credit rating due to ongoing uncertainty about the country’s future outside the EU, after downgrading it in the wake of June’s referendum. Factors that could trigger a further downgrade include weaker-than-expected growth, a decision by foreign central banks to sell some of their holdings in the pound or a new referendum on Scottish independence, the ratings agency said. “In our opinion, ‘Brexit’ presents a significant risk to the UK’s track record of strong economic performance, and to its large financial sector in particular,” S&P said.
INTERNET
EU warns WhatsApp
European privacy watchdogs on Friday warned WhatsApp over sharing user information with parent company Facebook Inc. The Italian antitrust watchdog on Friday also announced a separate probe into whether the popular messaging service obliged users to agree to sharing personal data with Facebook. The EU’s 28 data protection authorities said in a statement they had requested WhatsApp stop sharing users’ data with Facebook until the “appropriate legal protections could be assured” to avoid falling foul of EU data protection law.
ENERGY
Exxon profits drop 38%
Exxon Mobil Corp, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, on Friday reported a 38 percent drop in quarterly profit that still beat Wall Street’s expectations as cost cuts partly offset declining crude oil prices. The company reported third-quarter net income of US$2.65 billion, or US$0.63 per share, compared with US$4.24 billion, or US$1.01 per share, a year earlier. Earnings fell in all of the company’s divisions, including the refining arm, which has generally bolstered profits when oil prices are low. Production fell about 3 percent to 3.8 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, the company said.
ENERGY
PetroChina profits fall 77%
PetroChina Co (中石油) posted a 77 percent decline in third-quarter profit as a suppressed international oil market and lower domestic natural gas prices eroded earnings at the country’s biggest producer. Net income fell to 1.2 billion yuan (US$177.96 million) in the July-to-September period, the Beijing-based company said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange on Friday. Higher earnings from refining and chemicals were overwhelmed by losses on production and weaker performance from its natural gas and pipelines units. Revenue dropped 3.8 percent to 411.4 billion yuan.
BREWERS
Anheuser-Busch downbeat
Belgium-based brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev NV has scaled down its revenue forecast for the year following poor results in Brazil. The maker of Budweiser, Corona and Stella Artois had earlier predicted that net revenue would grow ahead of inflation. However, the company on Friday said in a statement that “given the weak results in Brazil, we now expect growth in line with inflation.” The news comes a month after shareholders approved AB Inbev’s takeover of SABMiller PLC, the maker of Fosters and Miller beer.
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],”
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
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