INSURANCE
AXA planning IPO
AXA SA, Europe’s second-largest insurer, is planning an initial public offering (IPO) of its US operations to fund expansion and potentially return money to shareholders. AXA intends to list a minority stake in its US businesses and expects to include its US Life and Savings unit and stake in money manager AllianceBernstein Holding LP in the IPO, the company said in a statement yesterday. The listing would take place in the first half of next year, subject to market conditions, helping speed up AXA’s achievement of its 2020 profit goals. Axa plans to reinvest the proceeds into its priority businesses, which include health, protection and commercial property and casualty lines.
TECHNOLOGY
Apple to monitor sleep
Apple Inc already tracks its users footsteps and fitness levels and now it wants to analyze people’s sleep. The Cupertino, California-based technology giant has acquired Beddit, a maker of sleep-tracking hardware and software, according to a message on the Finland-based company’s Web site. Beddit sells a US$150 sensor strip that can be placed under bed sheets and transfers sleep-related information to an iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch for analysis. The accompanying Beddit app can tell users how long they slept and break down the night into categories such as “restless sleep,” “snoring” and “awake.” Like the Apple Watch, it also provides heart rate data to an iPhone. The deal would allow Apple greater access to the health tracking business. The company has been working on sleep tracking functionality for the Apple Watch for a number of years. Beddit’s technology is expected to help with that.
RESTAURANTS
Merger faces probe
Just Eat PLC’s £200 million (US$259 million) acquisition of Hungryhouse faces an in-depth probe by UK regulators over concerns it could lead to poorer service for British restaurants using either delivery service. The planned merger is to be referred to a Phase 2 investigation, the British Competition and Markets Authority said in a statement yesterday. Its concerns are based on the fact that the two are close competitors because of similar services and broad geographical coverage and a merger could lead to “worse terms” for its restaurant clients, the regulator said. Just Eat in December last year agreed to buy Hungryhouse from Delivery Hero Holding GmbH to fend off growing competition from competitors like Deliveroo, UberEATS and Amazon Restaurants, which were also cited in the authority’s statement.
FINANCE
Credit Suisse hiring in US
Credit Suisse Group AG is adding 1,200 jobs to its offices in Raleigh, North Carolina. Credit Suisse is to increase its finance, technology and operations workforce this year through a combination of moving roles from New York and making new hires, the bank said. The firm already employs about 1,500 people in the area and is to receive US$40.2 million in tax reimbursements over 12 years if it meets hiring and investment targets, the state’s governor said in a statement. While Credit Suisse is retrenching globally as part of a turnaround plan, its cost-cutting efforts have been a boost to the operations in North Carolina’s Research Triangle area. Global banks including Deutsche Bank AG and Goldman Sachs Group Inc have been moving a greater portion of employees to lower-cost locations as part of plans to trim expenses amid low interest rates, weak trading revenue and legal bills tied to past misconduct.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
Clambering hand-over-hand, sweat dripping into his eyes, a durian laborer expertly slices a cumbersome fruit from a tree before tossing it down to land with a soft thump in his colleague’s waiting arms about 15m below. Among Thailand’s most famous and lucrative exports, the pungent “king of fruits” is as distinctive in its smell as its spiky green-brown carapace, and has been farmed in the kingdom for hundreds of years. However, a vicious heat wave engulfing Southeast Asia has resulted in smaller yields and spiraling costs, with growers and sellers increasingly panicked as global warming damages the industry. “This year is a crisis,”
HIGH-TECH: As leading-edge process technologies become more complicated, only a handful of players are able to provide design services, the company’s CEO said Artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) yesterday said that revenue would grow significantly again in 2026 after adding a major AI chip customer, reversing moderation amid a product transition next year. The Taipei-based application-specific IC (ASIC) designer reiterated its strong revenue growth forecast for this year and 2026 after its stock plummeted about 23 percent to NT$3,145 from a peak of NT$4,085 on March 6 amid growing competition. Alchip said it has built strong partnerships with cloud service providers (CSP), denying that it had lost orders to smaller competitors such as Faraday Technology Corp (智原). Faraday said it has secured