BANKING
Ex-Barclays execs deny fraud
Four former Barclays PLC executives, including a former CEO, told a London court that they would plead not guilty to charges that they conspired to commit fraud over a 2008 fundraising with Qatar. Former CEO John Varley, Roger Jenkins, Thomas Kalaris and Richard Boath on Monday informed the court of their intentions at their first hearing in London before a packed room of journalists and lawyers. The case was transferred to a higher court for the next hearing on July 17. The men are the most senior UK banking executives to face criminal charges since the financial crisis, which sent banks scrambling to raise funds to cover billions in losses. The Serious Fraud Office case relates to £322 million (US$417 million) in fees Barclays paid the Qatar Investment Authority and a US$3 billion loan facility it made available to the nation as part of side deals to the £12 billion fundraising from the Qataris and others.
ENERGY
US drills lift Hunting sales
Oilfield services company Hunting PLC yesterday said that its first-half revenue was boosted by onshore drilling in the US, particularly in shale oil regions such as the Permian basin in west Texas. The company, which provides drilling and infrastructure support to oil explorers, said it had recommissioned a previously mothballed facility and added personnel to its perforating systems unit to meet the increased demand. However, US offshore and international drilling markets remained weak due to low oil prices, Hunting said, adding that drilling budgets continued to be reduced by oil companies, hurting the prospects of oil services firms. US oil drillers cut two rigs last week, the first time since January, to 756, and the pace of additions slowed this quarter due to declines in crude prices despite an OPEC-led effort to cut production and end a multiyear supply glut.
RESTAURANTS
Subway expanding in UK
The Subway franchise of sandwich restaurants plans to open another 500 outlets in the UK and Ireland over the next three years, creating about 5,000 jobs, as it seeks to capitalize on a growing appetite for cheap food on the go. Subway, which sells a wide range of freshly made submarine sandwiches, as well as salads, yesterday said it was targeting 3,000 stores by 2020, up from 2,500 now. “The expansion plans are in response to consumer demand,” it said. Britain’s food-to-go market is forecast to be worth nearly £22 billion by 2021, up from £16.1 billion lat year, industry research group IGD said. Other major food-to-go specialists in the UK include Pret A Manger and Greggs.
BANKING
Paschi rescue on course
The European Commission might approve the state-backed rescue of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA as soon as yesterday, completing a six-month review of the restructuring of the world’s oldest bank, people familiar with the matter said. EU approval would pave the way for a precautionary recapitalization of the lender, making it the third Italian bank to obtain state aid this year. Last month, European authorities and Italian officials reached an agreement in principle on a rescue plan that might include a capital increase of about 8.3 billion euros (US$9.4 billion) and the sale of about 26 billion euros of bad loans through a securitization, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private.
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],”
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
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