REAL ESTATE
London house prices slump
London house prices are falling at the fastest pace since the depths of the recession almost a decade ago, with the UK capital’s most expensive areas seeing the biggest declines. Average prices fell 2.6 percent to £593,396 (US$820,000) in January, the biggest annual decline since August 2009, according to a report published by Acadata yesterday. London’s highest-priced boroughs were the biggest losers, led by Wandsworth’s 24.9 percent slump and Southwark’s 12.2 percent drop.London prices fell 0.8 percent in January alone, equivalent to almost £5,000, showing that the weakness that was present for much of last year continued into this year. The market has been hurt by slower growth and faster inflation since the Brexit vote, while the Bank of England has signaled it would continue raising interest rates.
FINANCE
Golden Gate plans third fund
Singapore’s Golden Gate Ventures is raising a US$100 million third fund to continue investing in Southeast Asia’s burgeoning market for e-commerce, payments and mobile apps, a person familiar with the matter said.The new fund is expected to have a first close before the end of this month and the final close by the end of this year, said the person who asked not to be identified because the information is private. Founded by former Silicon Valley entrepreneurs Vinnie Lauria, Jeffrey Paine and Paul Bragiel in 2011, Golden Gate Ventures was one of the earliest venture capital firms to target the region’s nascent technology sector. It has since launched two funds and invested in more than 30 firms, including online classified app Carousell, Jakarta-based healthcare platform Alodokter and Vietnamese mobile platform Appota Corp.
AIRLINES
piceJet, CFM ink deal
SpiceJet Ltd, one of India’s fastest-growing airlines has signed a US$12.5 billion deal with CFM International Inc for engines and a 10-year services contract for an incoming fleet of more than 150 Boeing Co 737 MAX aircraft. SpiceJet has agreed to buy the LEAP-1B engines and spare engines from CFM, which is a joint venture between France’s Safran Aircraft Engines SAS and General Electric Co’s GE Aviation, the two companies said in a statement on Saturday. The deal also includes a 10-year services contract for maintenance of the CFM engines, which are to be billed on an hourly basis, the statement said. The deal provides engines and maintenance that will underpin SpiceJet’s existing US$22 billion order for 155 Boeing aircraft, marking the Indian budget carrier’s biggest expansion plan yet. SpiceJet has been trying to claw back market share from the nation’s leading discount airline, IndiGo, which is operated by InterGlobe Aviation Ltd.
CAMERAS
Leica fetches US$2.9m
A 1923 Leica camera on Saturday fetched a world record 2.4 million euros (US$2.9 million) at an auction in Vienna, the Westlicht museum said. The minimum price had been set at 400,000 euros, but the Leica 0-series No. 122, one of a 25-strong series of prototypes made two years before the reputed German marque began retailing, was the subject of ferocious bidding given its pristine condition. It went to an Asian bidder, the museum said, adding that only three of the series remained in their original condition. The previous record for a 1923 Leica saw a buyer spend 2.16 million euros in 2012, Westlicht said.
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
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts