AUTOMAKERS
Tesla bonds slip below par
Tesla Inc bonds slid a week after they were sold, as excitement over Tesla chief executive Elon Musk’s ambitious rollout of the Model 3 was tempered amid geopolitical tensions and second thoughts among investors about how little they are getting paid. The company’s US$1.8 billion of 5.3 percent notes due in 2025 slipped below par almost immediately, trading as low as 97.4 cents on the US dollar on Friday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The eight-year securities had priced a week ago at a record-low yield for a bond of its rating and maturity — a touch higher than initial talk of 5.25 percent — and Tesla had added US$300 million to the offering to meet demand.
ENERGY
Calpine bought for US$5.6bn
Private equity firm Energy Capital Partners and a consortium of investors struck a deal to buy US power generator Calpine Corp for US$5.6 billion in cash. Calpine investors are to get US$15.25 per share, the Houston-based company said in a statement on Friday, 13 percent more than Thursday’s closing price. The investor group includes Access Industries and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. The Energy Capital deal includes a 45-day “go-shop” period, during which Calpine can solicit other offers. The investor consortium is to receive a US$142 million fee if the agreement is terminated for a better proposal.
AUTOMAKERS
GAC denies Fiat takeover
China’s Guangzhou Automobile Group Co Ltd (GAC, 廣州汽車集團) has no plans to acquire automaker Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) NV, a company spokesperson said on Friday. “Currently, we don’t have plans to acquire Fiat Chrysler,” GAC said in a statement. FCA shares soared on Monday after trade publication Automotive News reported the automaker rebuffed a takeover from an unidentified Chinese automaker. Several Chinese automakers have since publicly denied they plan to buy FCA.
CYBERSECURITY
Baratov accepts extradition
A Canadian man accused in a massive hack of Yahoo Inc e-mails is to forgo his extradition hearing and face charges in the US. Karim Baratov was arrested in March in Hamilton, Ontario, under the Extradition Act, after US authorities indicted him and three others, including two alleged officers of Russia’s Federal Security Service. They are accused of computer hacking, economic espionage and other crimes. Baratov on Friday signed documents agreeing to waive the hearing before a Canadian judge.
COMMODITIES
Goldman loses US$100m bet
Goldman Sachs Group Inc lost money trading natural gas in the second quarter, one reason its commodities business posted the worst financial results since the firm went public in 1999. The loss resulted from failing to properly hedge bets on the direction of gas prices and was one of several areas in which the business suffered, a person familiar with the matter said. Goldman Sachs lost more than US$100 million on a wager that gas prices in Ohio and Pennsylvania would rise, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. Instead, prices fell sharply in May and June. A spokesman for the New York-based company declined to comment on the loss.
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