MINING
Tycoon eyes Anglo shares
Anil Agarwal, an Indian mining billionaire, plans to purchase as much as £1.5 billion (US$2 billion) of additional Anglo American PLC shares, increasing his stake in the blue-chip British miner that has benefited from a recovery in commodity prices. Agarwal on Wednesday said the purchase, which is the equivalent of about 9 percent, was a family investment and he does not intend to make a takeover offer for the company, according to a statement. It comes on top of the 12.43 percent stake he has built since an announcement in March that his Volcan unit was investing in the company.
REAL ESTATE
CapitaLand to buy tower
CapitaLand Commercial Trust, Singapore’s biggest office landlord, agreed to buy BlackRock Inc’s Asia Square Tower 2 for S$2.1 billion (US$1.5 billion) in the city’s second-largest ever sale of an office building. The transaction will be partially funded by a rights issue of about S$700 million and bank borrowings of about S$1.12 billion, CapitaLand Commercial Trust said in a statement. The company said divestment proceeds of about S$340.1 million from previous property deals will also help fund the purchase.
UNITED STATES
Home resales fall on Harvey
Home resales last month decreased 1.7 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.35 million units, the lowest level since August last year, as Hurricane Harvey depressed activity in Houston and a persistent shortage of properties on the market sidelined buyers. The third straight monthly decline in sales reported by the National Association of Realtors on Wednesday came on the heels of data on Tuesday showing a drop in homebuilding activity. The reports suggest housing will probably weigh on economic growth again in the third quarter.
TECHNOLOGY
New Apple Watch has issues
Apple Inc on Wednesday confirmed that its new Series 3 Apple Watch can encounter problems connecting to a cellular network. The problems arise when the watch joins unauthenticated Wi-Fi networks without connectivity. This can happen when the watch tries to join a Wi-Fi network the user has previously logged in to using another Apple device, like an iPhone or a computer. The company said it is investigating a fix for the problem. To work around it, users can get their smartphone to “forget” the network.
TRANSPORTATION
China speeds up bullet train
China yesterday increased the maximum speed of bullet trains on the Beijing-Shanghai line to 350kph, six years after a fatal accident led to a speed cap. The speed limit had been reduced to 300kph after 40 people died in a high-speed train crash near Wenzhou in July 2011. The acceleration cuts the 1,318km Beijing-Shanghai journey to 4 hours and 28 minutes, saving passengers nearly an hour.
NEW ZEALAND
Economy gets rugby boost
The economy grew 0.8 percent in the April-to-June quarter partly due to a tourism boost from the British and Irish Lions rugby tour, official data showed yesterday. The quarterly figure took annual growth to 2.7 percent, Statistics New Zealand said. It said exports rose 5.2 percent, the best quarterly performance in almost 20 years, amid high demand for New Zealand dairy and forestry products.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last