GAMBLING
Tabcorp-Tatts merger okayed
A merger between Australian gambling giants Tabcorp Holdings Ltd and Tatts Group Ltd is back on track after the Australian Competition Tribunal (ACT) yesterday approved the A$8.6 billion (US$6.5 billion) deal. Tabcorp and Tatts first announced the deal in October last year to forge closer ties to try to cut costs and pursue opportunities globally. ACT said Tabcorp would be granted authorization to acquire shares in Tatts, but added that the “detriments identified” by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission were “unlikely to either arise or are not otherwise material.”
ONLINE MEDIA
Oath cuts hundreds of jobs
Verizon’s online unit Oath — which includes the AOL and recently acquired Yahoo brands — is cutting several hundred jobs as part of a reorganization, a source familiar with the move said on Thursday. The reductions represent “less than four percent” of the Oath global workforce of an estimated 12,000, the source said. The move represents a second round of cuts at Oath since the US$4.5 billion acquisition of Yahoo in June. Oath offered no details on the numbers or segments facing cuts.
BROADCASTING
Amazon to stream tennis
Amazon.com Inc is to exclusively stream 37 top men’s tennis tournaments from 2019 to its Amazon Prime Video subscribers in Britain and Ireland after it won the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) broadcast rights from pay-TV group Sky. Amazon is also to be the pay-TV partner for the season-ending Nitto ATP Finals at The O2 in London, and from 2018 the Queen’s Club Championships and the Eastbourne International, ATP said. ATP declined to say how much Amazon was paying for the rights.
MALAYSIA
Manufacturing boosts growth
Malaysia’s economy grew at the fastest pace in more than three years in the third quarter, supported by resilient domestic demand and a manufacturing sector that is benefiting from booming global trade. GDP rose 6.2 percent from a year earlier, after climbing 5.8 percent in the second quarter, Bank Negara Malaysia said yesterday. The median estimate of 19 economists surveyed by Bloomberg was 5.7 percent. GDP rose a seasonally adjusted 1.8 percent from the previous three months.
UNITED KINGDOM
Christmas sales start slowly
Britain’s retailers have begun the fourth quarter on a weak footing before the busy Christmas period, official data showed on Thursday. Sales rose just 0.3 percent last month from the previous month, buoyed partly by second-hand goods stores, the Office for National Statistics said in a statement. However, on an annual basis, retail sales fell 0.3 percent compared with one year ago — when retailers had experienced unusually strong performance. That marked the first annual decline since March 2013.
RETAILERS
Wal-Mart earns US$1.75bn
Wal-Mart Stores Inc on Thursday reported fiscal third-quarter net income of US$1.75 billion. On a per-share basis, the Arkansas-based company said it had net income of US$0.58. Earnings, adjusted to extinguish debt and for non-recurring costs, came to US$1 per share. The world’s largest retailer said it posted revenue of US$123.18 billion in the period and forecast full-year earnings in the range of US$4.38 to US$4.46 per share.
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