UNITED STATES
Duties on Canadian paper
The administration on Tuesday announced anti-dumping duties on imports of one kind of paper from Canada, further straining tense trade relations. At issue is what is called uncoated groundwood paper, used in newsprint. US imports of it from Canada totaled US$1.27 billion in 2016, the Department of Commerce said. The government argues that the Canadian paper has been sold in the country at less than its fair value. The duties are preliminary pending more investigation and a final decision in August. The decision follows a complaint filed by a US firm, North Pacific Paper Co.
APPAREL
Adidas revenue jumps 19%
Adidas AG yesterday said that its revenue jumped 19 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, adjusted for currency swings, led by China and North America. The return to a double-digit percentage pace comes after third-quarter growth of 9 percent sparked concerns in November last year. Revenue would also grow at a double-digit rate this year, at a forecast 10 percent when adjusted for currency swings, the German company said. Adidas said net income from continuing operations would rise at a faster pace each year through 2020, and also lifted its target for the operating margin to reach 11.5 percent then, from an earlier prediction of 11 percent.
INSURANCE
Prudential to spin off M&G
Prudential PLC divested £12 billion (US$16.7 billion) of annuities from its UK portfolio to Rothesay Life and plans to spin off its M&G Prudential unit as it focuses on growth in Asia. Britain’s largest insurer last year combined its UK asset-management unit with its insurance business in the UK and Europe to focus on retirement products that require the company to set aside less capital. The spun-off firm is likely to be included in the FTSE 100. The sale to Rothesay is also part of a strategy to make the insurer more capital light.
INVESTMENT
CIC sells Blackstone stake
China Investment Corp (CIC, 中國投資) has sold its stake in Blackstone Group LP, ending a more than 10-year investment stretching back to the US firm’s initial public offering. In its annual report released earlier this month, Blackstone said the Chinese sovereign wealth fund no longer held any shares as of Feb. 22. The sale was reported yesterday by the Financial Times, which said the stake was sold down “very gradually.” “We greatly value our partnership with CIC and are grateful for their successful, long-term investment in our firm,” a Blackstone spokesman said in New York. CIC did not immediately respond to an e-mail sent to its press office.
TECHNOLOGY
Microsoft eyes Middle East
Microsoft Corp is to open data centers in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, its first in the Middle East, part of the software maker’s rapid geographic expansion to win cloud-computing business worldwide and pry customers from Amazon.com Inc. Microsoft also plans to open two cloud sites in Switzerland, in the Geneva and Zurich regions, and is to add two new locations in Germany. Microsoft, which has 42 Azure cloud regions, is racing Amazon Web Services to add new areas as both companies aim to store information and applications closer to customers.
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