TELECOMS
S African firm’s profit falls
Telkom SA SOC Ltd cut its dividend and reported a slump in full-year earnings as South Africa’s biggest provider of fixed phone lines struggles with a decline in its traditional voice services. The Pretoria-based company reduced the annual payout to shareholders by 16 percent to 3.55 rand (US$0.29) per share, it said in a statement yesterday. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization for the year ending in March fell 3.6 percent to 10.5 billion rand. The carrier reported a 47 percent increase in service revenue from mobile customers to 5.15 billion rand, supporting CEO Sipho Maseko’s push into new revenue streams to sustain the company. Telkom started its mobile unit, the country’s fourth-biggest with just over 5 million subscribers, to bolster its service offering to consumers.
PROPERTY
Investa gets takeover offer
Blackstone Group LP offered A$3.14 billion (US$2.38 billion) for Investa Office Fund in an attempt to land one of Australia’s most pursued property companies and dozens of office buildings across the country. The New York-based buyout company offered A$5.25 in cash for each share of the real-estate investment trust, 13 percent more than Friday’s closing price, Investa said in a statement yesterday. Investa’s directors plan to unanimously recommend that investors vote for the deal unless there’s a better offer. Investa has attracted suitors since at least 2015, when Dexus Property Group proposed a deal valued at about A$2.5 billion, a tie-up that was subsequently rejected by unit-holders.
EDUCATION
ISP mulls Vietnam deal
International Schools Partnership Ltd (ISP) is in talks to invest in the Canadian International School Vietnam, people with knowledge of the matter said, as foreign firms flock to Southeast Asian education deals. UK-based ISP, which is backed by Swiss buyout firm Partners Group Holding AG, is conducting due diligence on the school and could purchase a majority stake for about US$150 million including debt, one of the people said. The parties could sign an agreement as soon as next month, the person said, asking not to be identified because the information is private. Southeast Asian school operators have been attracting interest from foreign investors including TPG and Swedish buyout firm EQT Partners AB, which are betting that rising incomes will translate into increased education spending.
TURKEY
Announcement boosts lira
The lira and Turkish bonds rallied as the Turkish Central Bank decided to simplify monetary policy. The currency surged the most in more than a year as the bank said it would start using the one-week repo, which has not been used as its main funding tool since January last year, as its policy rate starting on Friday. The one-week rate has been set at 16.5 percent, the bank said in a statement. The change would help convince the market about the bank’s “policy independence and its commitment to do more,” Global Securities analysts including Sertan Kargin wrote in a note in the morning, referring to a news report that said policymakers were planning to set up a more symmetric structure by making the overnight lending and borrowing rates equidistant from the one-week repurchase rate. The lira strengthened 2.8 percent, set for the biggest gain since January last year, to 4.5870 per dollar. Bonds rose, with the yield on 10-year securities falling 46 basis points to 14.22 percent.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
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
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last