GERMANY
Consumer outlook improves
Consumers’ outlook is brighter for next month after wavering this month, a regular survey published yesterday found. “The trend in consumer confidence has turned upwards again. The outlook for domestic demand this year remains very favorable,” pollsters GfK said, after their forward-looking monthly barometer gained 0.1 percentage points to reach 10.9. Inching progress in talks to form a government in Berlin six months after tricky elections in September last year clouded optimism among the public in the previous reading, which shed 0.2 points. That appears to have been “only a small dip,” GfK said.
REAL ESTATE
Quebec under mild pressure
Foreign buyers of real estate in Quebec Province are putting “marginal” pressure on prices while still accounting for a tiny sliver of the market relative to Vancouver and Toronto, according to new data released by the French-speaking province. Foreign residents last year generated 1,307 property transactions in Quebec, representing 1 percent of all deals, provincial Ministry of Finance documents showed. Foreigners mostly purchased high-end properties, averaging C$559,000 (US$434,343) apiece, the ministry said on Tuesday. US-based buyers made up the biggest share with 32 percent of all transactions. French buyers were next with 20 percent, followed by Chinese at 16 percent.
INTERNET
Bilibili might raise US$483m
Bilibili Inc (嗶哩嗶哩), China’s top online platform for streaming animation, is poised to raise US$483 million in its US initial public offering (IPO), according to people with knowledge of the matter. The Web site operator plans to price its sale of 42 million US depository shares at US$11.50 apiece, the midpoint of a marketed range, the people said. The shares were offered at US$10.50 to US$12.50 each, according to an earlier regulatory filing. Shanghai-based Bilibili reported a 571.5 million yuan (US$91 million) net loss last year, compared with a 1.19 billion yuan loss in 2016.
REAL ESTATE
Sector giant mulling IPO
TPG Capital-backed Cushman & Wakefield Inc is interviewing advisers to help take the company public, according to people familiar with the matter. The century-old real-estate brokerage giant could have an IPO as soon as this year, one of the people said. The company last year began holding informal meetings with banks about a listing, people familiar with the matter said at the time, with any decision on moving ahead to be based both on the company’s performance and market conditions. Cushman & Wakefield was in May 2015 acquired by a group of investors led by TPG from Italy’s Exor SpA for about US$2 billion, including debt.
FOOD AND BEVERAGE
Danone cuts Yakult stake
Danone SA, the world’s largest yogurt maker, sold about two-thirds of its stake in Japan’s Yakult Honsha Co for ¥175 billion (US$1.66 billion) at a discount of 11 percent to Tuesday’s close. The French company sold 24.6 million shares of Yakult in a secondary sale, reducing its holding from 21.3 percent to 6.6 percent, Danone said in a statement. The sale price was about ¥7,114 per share, according to Bloomberg calculations. The move comes after activist fund Corvex Management built a stake in the French maker of Activia yogurt and Evian water as it struggles to boost revenue.
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],”