TELECOMS
ZTE shares dive 39%
Shares in Chinese telecom equipment maker ZTE (中興) collapsed 39 percent yesterday as trading in the company resumed in Hong Kong after it reached a settlement with the US over its handling of a sanctions violation. ZTE shares dived 39.22 percent to HK$15.56 in the first few minutes of trade. It also plunged by its 10 percent daily limit to 28.18 yuan in Shenzhen. Trading in the firm had been suspended since Washington said in April that it had banned US companies from selling crucial hardware and software components to it for seven years. That wiped about US$2.7 billion off ZTE’s market value yesterday. “While the nightmare is now over, ZTE will likely have to deal with many changes,” Jefferies Group LLC analysts Edison Lee and Timothy Chau wrote in a note. “We expect significant near-term selling pressure and a volatile stock price.”
AUTOMAKERS
Toyota to buy Grab stake
Toyota Motor Corp is to buy a US$1 billion stake in Singapore-based GrabTaxi Holdings Pte in one of the largest investments by an automaker in a ride-hailing provider, underscoring the push by the auto industry to move from manufacturing to services. The deal extends Toyota’s cooperation with Grab, the largest ride-hailing service in Southeast Asia, the automaker said in a statement yesterday, without disclosing what percentage of Grab it would own. A Toyota executive is to be appointed to Grab’s board, and another Toyota employee is to be seconded to Grab to as an executive officer.
TELECOMS
US mega-merger approved
A US federal judge on Tuesday approved the US$85 billion mega-merger of AT&T Inc and Time Warner Inc, potentially ushering in a wave of media consolidation, while shaping how much consumers pay for streaming TV and movies. US District Judge Richard Leon green-lit the merger without imposing major conditions as some experts had expected. The US Department of Justice had sued to block the US$85 billion merger, arguing that it would hurt competition in cable and satellite TV, and jack up costs to consumers for streaming TV and movies. The department could still appeal the ruling.
FOODMAKERS
CVC buys Munchy Food
London-based CVC Capital Partners acquired Malaysian snack producer Munchy Food Industries Sdn as the private-equity firm deepens its exposure to the fast-growing consumer industry in Southeast Asia. The investment firm’s Asia Fund IV on Friday last week completed the purchase of a 100 percent stake in Munchy Food, it said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. CVC paid about US$250 million for the business, a person with knowledge of the matter said earlier this week. It decided to buy Munchy in part because it saw potential in the Malaysian firm’s strong export business, the person said. The company makes crackers, as well as biscuits and wafers sold in more than 50 countries, its Web site shows.
APPAREL
Inditex benefits from tech
Inditex SA is benefiting from investments in technology that are boosting efficiency online and in stores, helping the Zara owner contend with Amazon.com Inc’s foray into the fashion aisle. Earnings before interest and taxes rose 2 percent to 851 million euros (US$1 billion) in the three months through April, the Arteixo, Spain-based company said in a statement yesterday, beating analysts’ estimates.
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],”
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
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