HEALTHCARE
NMC looking at Saudi market
London-listed NMC Health PLC, the biggest privately owned healthcare company in the United Arab Emirates, is looking to buy hospitals and other medical facilities in Saudi Arabia where the government has announced privatization plans as part of efforts to reform the nation’s economy. NMC Health, which has a market capital of nearly US$6 billion, is especially interested in the bidding process for the healthcare unit of Saudi Arabian Airlines, NMC Health non-executive chairman and founder Bavaguthu Raghuram Shetty said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. Saudi Arabia is looking into privatization of all industries as part of reforms to wean its economy off oil while reducing state spending and narrowing the fiscal deficit. NMC Health has no plans for a dual listing as a result of Brexit “since we are doing extremely well,” Shetty said.
TELECOMS
Telkom sets record dividend
Telkom SA SOC Ltd raised its full-year dividend to a record high as South Africa’s biggest landline provider enters a new phase of growth by giving more autonomy to its four business units. The annual payout to shareholders increased 56 percent to 4.22 rand a share, the Pretoria-based company said in a statement yesterday. Earnings per share excluding one-time items increased by 12 percent to 7.31 rand in the year through March, while operating revenue gained 9.8 percent. The integration of 2015 acquisition BCX into the business-to-business division and the accelerated growth of the mobile phone unit helped drive the earnings increase, the firm said. Following a three-year turnaround strategy that returned Telkom to profit, the company’s four business units have more independence to boost earnings further. The telephone operator started a mobile unit to sit alongside landline and Internet services in a retail division. BCX — which provides IT services to corporate customers — a real-estate portfolio and wholesale broadband make up the other three units.
UNITED STATES
‘Committed’ to environment
The nation is committed to the environment despite President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of a 2015 global agreement to fight climate change, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry said yesterday. Trump’s decision last week prompted criticism from allies and environmentalists alike, but Perry, in Tokyo to discuss energy issues, said the US would continue to work to cut emissions. Perry said the US and Japan would continue working together in decommissioning the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, wrecked by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011, which he visited on Sunday.
ENERGY
Qatar cut won’t affect LNG
Japan’s JERA Co, the world’s biggest buyer of liquefied natural gas (LNG), said yesterday it had been informed by Qatargas that there would be no effect on LNG supplies after several Middle Eastern nations cut ties with Qatar. There would be “no conceivable impact on LNG supplies” from the rift, JERA said in a statement, adding “this is also a geopolitical issue in the Middle East and there is a possibility that this could be closely related to the energy market, so we will continue to keep watch on the movements.” Qatar is the world’s biggest exporter of LNG, while Japan is the largest importer, taking in about one-third of global shipments. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain severed their ties with Qatar on Monday, accusing it of supporting terrorism.
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