RIDE HAILING
Rivals team up against Uber
Uber Technologies Inc is facing another alliance of rivals as smaller operators team up across different regions for ride-hailing services. Careem Inc, a Dubai-based service that is valued at about US$1 billion, is to partner with China’s Yidao Yongche (易到用車網) and share resources, according to a statement. They plan to use London-based start-up Splyt Technologies Ltd to coordinate their fleets and payments so that passengers using one app can travel abroad to use the drivers of others without downloading new software. Uber has been able to build leadership in ride-hailing with a single app that customers can use to get a ride around the world. Splyt holds local bank accounts in regional currencies and makes its money by charging a commission on the currency exchange.
COAL
Adani eyes Australia mine
India’s Adani Enterprises said work on a giant coal mine near Australia’s Great Barrier Reef would begin in August despite mounting opposition to the long-delayed project, local media outlets reported on Sunday. The controversial US$16 billion Carmichael mine has encountered numerous regulatory and legal hurdles, leading to more than six years of delays. Company chairman Gautam Adani said his board was expecting final approvals from the Australian government by May or June, after which construction could begin in Queensland State. The project still faces several legal challenges, with a final investment decision by Adani reportedly pending. The plan is for a massive open-cut and underground coal mine 160km northwest of Clermont in central Queensland, and a 189km rail link to a port. The coal would be exported to India.
BANKING
Chang quits Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley banker Peter Chang, a managing director who worked on South Korea mergers and acquisitions, has resigned after 18 years with the US firm, according to people familiar with the matter. Chang, head of Morgan Stanley’s transaction development group and restructuring in the Asia-Pacific region excluding Japan, is to stay on for a few months before departing officially, the sources said. Morgan Stanley Hong Kong-based spokesman Nick Footitt declined to comment. While Chang was not part of the firm’s mergers and acquisitions (M&A) team in his most recent role, he assisted with originating and executing specific M&A deals. Morgan Stanley’s mergers advisory business in Asia outside Japan pulled in record fees last year and the firm gained market share in equities, helping to partially shield it from an investment-banking contraction that prompted competitors like Goldman Sachs Group Inc to cut jobs.
REAL ESTATE
Onyx to buy Hansteen arm
Blackstone Group LP and M7 Real Estate Ltd venture agreed to acquire Hansteen Holdings PLC’s continental European properties as an improving economy boosts demand for logistics assets. The Onyx venture is to pay about 1.3 billion euros (US$1.4 billion) to Hansteen for the properties in Germany and the Netherlands, London-based Hansteen said in a statement yesterday. The price is a premium of about 76 million euros, or 6 percent, to the firm’s valuation at the end of last year. “This is a compelling opportunity to crystallize both the revaluation gains from these German and Dutch assets achieved by our active asset management and the gains from foreign exchange movements,” Hansteen joint chief executive officers Morgan Jones and Ian Watson said in the statement.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last