REAL ESTATE
London property rebounds
House prices rose at their fastest pace in a year last month as high-value London property showed signs of a rebound. The 0.6 percent increase in values lifted the average to £297,832 (US$363,295), Acadata and LSL said in a report yesterday. Nevertheless, annual price growth softened for the 12th month to 2.4 percent, the lowest since 2013. According to regional data for January, London home prices gained 0.4 percent from December last year, snapping a two-month decline, and gains in the high-value areas of the capital contributed to the increase last month. The city’s property market “still faces challenges,” Acadata said, noting that the annual gain in prices was the weakest in almost five years and transactions have slumped 22 percent over the past three months compared with a year earlier.
TECHNOLOGY
Computacenter revenue up
British IT services provider Computacenter said its full-year adjusted revenue rose 6.3 percent, helped by a favorable currency impact and strong growth in Germany. The company’s adjusted revenue on actual currency basis rose to £3.25 billion (US$3.97 billion) from £3.05 billion a year earlier. However, adjusted revenue was down 0.5 percent on a constant currency basis. The company, which provides computer services to customers including Domino’s Pizza and department chain John Lewis PLC, has been impacted by weakness in its domestic market as the UK prepares to leave the EU. Computacenter said it expect its UK business to see “modest” improvements this year with professional services and supply chain helping overall performance. Adjusted revenue from its UK business fell 1.1 percent to £1.39 billion last year.
ENERGY
Wood bids for Amec
Oilfield services firm John Wood Group yesterday said it proposed to buy smaller peer Amec Foster Wheeler for a recommended all-share offer valued at about £2.2 billion (US$2.68 billion). Shares of Amec Foster rose 18.60 percent to £5.80 in morning trading, well above the offer price of £5.64 per share. After hitting their lowest in more than a decade of US$27.1 in January, oil prices have seen an uptick and has largely held above US$50 this year, boosting the industry. The all-stock deal represents a 15.3 percent premium to Amec Foster’s Friday close of £489.2. Amec Foster shareholders will receive 0.75 of new Wood Group share for each share held, the company said. The deal will result in Amec Foster Wheeler shareholders owning about 44 percent of the combined company, the companies said. The companies also said the deal is expected to add to earnings per share on an adjusted basis for Wood Group and Amec Foster in the first full year after completion of the deal.
BANKING
HSBC appoints Tucker
Banking giant HSBC yesterday announced the appointment of Briton Mark Tucker as its new chairman as part of a management overhaul following a massive drop in profits last year. Tucker, who is chief executive and president of insurance group AIA, is to take over from Douglas Flint in October. He will lead the hunt for a new chief executive to replace Stuart Gulliver, who is set to retire next year, the bank said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange. The changes come after HSBC profits plunged last year, with the bank attributing the decline to protectionist fears and policy uncertainty.
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