China Unicom (Hong Kong Ltd, 中國聯通) is to raise as much as HK$88.1 billion (US$11.3 billion) by selling new shares to its parent as part of a government-led ownership overhaul of the nation’s second-largest wireless carrier.
Unicom plans to sell as many as 6.65 billion new shares to unlisted China Unicom (BVI) Ltd at HK$13.24 apiece, or 10 percent higher than the stock’s last closing price, according to a filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange late on Tuesday.
The deal is subject to shareholder approvals, it said.
The funds, which are to be invested into upgrading Unicom’s mobile network, would come after the US$11.7 billion share sale announced earlier this week by Unicom’s parent, which drew investors such as Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊) and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) as part of a Chinese government push to draw private capital into its state-owned enterprises.
Unicom was among six state-owned enterprises picked by China’s economic planner last year for a pilot program in mixed ownership — China’s preferred term for such private investments.
Separately, VIPKid, an online education company that matches Chinese students with North American teachers, raised US$200 million as it expands into new markets and broadens its academic offerings.
Internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊) and Sequoia Capital China (紅杉資本) are investing in the Beijing-based company. Its existing backers include Sinovation Ventures (創新工場) and Alibaba founder Jack Ma’s (馬雲) Yunfeng Capital (雲峰基金).
The start-up’s valuation is now more than US$1.5 billion, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing private details.
VIPKid has seen explosive growth as Chinese parents seek out high-quality education for their children, particularly in English. The four-year-old start-up has expanded to more than 20,000 teachers and 200,000 students.
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