INTERNET
Google to invest in Chushou
Google has joined a funding round for a Chinese game streaming service, making its second direct investment in China since largely withdrawing from the country in 2010. The company is joining a Series D investment round for Chushou (觸手), whose name translates into “Tentacle,” a Chinese mobile-centric game live-streaming platform with 90 million registered users. Google’s investment in Chushou comes after it lost out to Amazon.com Inc, which bought Twitch for US$970 million in 2014. Since then, it has attempted to launch live-streaming services for gamers via YouTube. The latest cash injection brings Chushou’s total funding to US$120 million and is to help it expand services around the world.
INTERNET
Kalanick to sell Uber shares
Uber Technologies Inc cofounder Travis Kalanick, who was ousted as CEO in June last year, is to sell nearly one-third of his shares in the ride-services company for about US$1.4 billion, a person familiar with the matter said on Thursday. Kalanick’s sale is part of a deal with a group of investors led by Softbank Group Corp, which is taking a 17.5 percent stake in Uber, mostly by buying shares from early investors and employees. Kalanick had offered to sell half of his total shares, but because there was a limit on how much Softbank will buy, he is to sell just 29 percent, the source said.
SPORTSWEAR
Boardriders to buy Billabong
US company Boardriders Inc, which owns the Quicksilver brand, has signed an agreement to acquire Australian rival Billabong International Ltd, merging two major names in sportswear. Boardriders said the combination of the two companies would create the world’s leading action sports company, adding that they would together have 630 retail stores in 28 countries and more than 7,000 retail clients in 110 countries. Under the deal, Boardriders is to buy shares of Billabong at A$1 per share, a premium of 28 percent over the stock price on Nov. 30 when the buyout bid was unveiled.
ENERGY
Westinghouse to be sold off
Financially troubled Westinghouse Electric Co on Thursday announced that it agreed to be sold to Brookfield Business Partners for US$4.6 billion, pending approval by a US bankruptcy court. Westinghouse, owned by Japan’s Toshiba Corp since 2006, has faced deep losses due to its stalled nuclear business, including canceled plants in South Carolina. As a result, the company filed for bankruptcy protection in March last year. Brookfield, which manages US$265 billion in assets and specializes in infrastructure, energy and real estate, said it would take on about US$3 billion in long-term debt to finance the transaction.
AIRLINES
LATAM ups margin forecast
LATAM Airlines Group, the largest airline in Latin America, on Thursday said that it expects an operating margin of between 7.5 percent and 9.5 percent this year, up from its estimates for last year. The Chile-based airline attributed the increase to a higher flow of passengers on international flights and domestic flights in Brazil. Last year it had projected an operating margin of between 6 percent and 8 percent. The measure is a gauge of the proportion of a company’s revenue remaining after paying wages and other variable production costs.
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