INDUSTRIAL SERVICES
ABB to buy GE division
ABB Ltd agreed to buy the industrial solutions business of General Electric Co (GE) in a deal valued US$2.6 billion that will accelerate the Swiss factory equipment supplier’s move into services spanning engineering to delivering power supplies, to next year’s Olympic Games in South Korea. The transaction is expected to generate cost savings of about US$200 million annually, the Zurich-based company said in a statement yesterday. GE started a bidding process for industrial solutions in December. Bloomberg News on Friday reported that the two companies were close to a deal. Chief executive Ulrich Spiesshofer has made digital solutions and services a cornerstone of his growth strategy and his latest deal will bolster its offering of critical power, transformers and related services for customers such as hospitals, data centers and refineries.
JAPAN
Japan Post stake sold
The government raised about ¥1.3 trillion (US$11.6 billion) selling a stake in Japan Post Holdings Co, completing the nation’s biggest public offering this century. The shares were sold to domestic and foreign investors for ¥1,322 apiece, 2 percent lower than yesterday’s closing price, Tokyo-based Japan Post said in a regulatory filing. Almost two years after the company was listed along with its banking and insurance units, Japan is further divesting its ownership partly to fund the reconstruction of areas destroyed by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in the northeast. Demand for the offering withstood headwinds, including the stock’s underperformance, losses stemming from a botched acquisition, declining mail volumes and low interest rates that are eroding profitability.
UNITED KINGDOM
BOE warns consumer lenders
The Bank of England (BOE) said rapid gains in consumer credit could cause UK banks to suffer bigger losses than they are expecting if the economy weakens. “Lenders overall are placing too much weight on the recent performance of consumer lending in benign conditions as an indicator of underlying credit quality,” the bank’s Financial Policy Committee said yesterday. “As a result, they have been underestimating the losses they could incur in a downturn.” In the event of a recession, losses from defaults in consumer loans would reach £30 billion (US$40.6 billion) within three years, the bank’s stress tests showed.
TECHNOLOGY
Uber urges talks with London
Uber yesterday called for talks with London’s transport regulator to be held as soon as possible and pledged to make improvements in the way it reports serious incidents in a bid to retain its license. On Friday, Transport for London, which regulates transport, deemed Uber unfit to run a taxi service and decided not to renew its license to operate, which was to end this week, citing the firm’s approach to reporting serious criminal offences and background checks on drivers. London police earlier this year complained that Uber, which is backed by Goldman Sachs and BlackRock, was either not disclosing, or taking too long to report, serious crimes including sexual assaults and that this put the public at risk. Asked about the criticism, Uber UK head of cities Fred Jones apologized about a specific incident and said the firm was working with the Metropolitan Police to make improvements to its reporting process. “We’re working with the police to figure out how we can do this in a better way that’s helpful to them,” Jones told BBC radio.
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
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”