BANKING
Nordea, DNB agree to sale
Nordea Bank AB and DNB ASA have agreed to sell a 60 percent stake in Baltic bank Luminor to a Blackstone Group LP private equity consortium for 1 billion euros (US$1.16 billion), the two Nordic banks said yesterday. Luminor, the third-biggest bank in the Baltic region, was formed by the 2016 merger of Nordea’s and DNB’s operations in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. While DNB plans to retain a stake of 20 percent in the venture, Nordea has entered into a forward sale agreement with Blackstone for its remaining 20 percent stake over the near to medium term. The transaction would not have any significant impact on its finances, DNB said.
TOURISM
Spending in US increases
Spending by tourists visiting the US inched higher last year, setting a new record and accounting for about one-10th of all US exports, the US Department of Commerce reported on Wednesday. Nearly 77 million international visitors — including pleasure-seekers, students and medical travelers — spent US$251.4 billion last year, up 2 percent from 2016. Tourist dollars supported 1.2 million US jobs, the department said. Overall, the volume of visitors rose 0.7 percent, with big increases in the numbers of South Koreans (up 17.8 percent), Brazilians (up 11 percent) and Argentines (up 10 percent).
PHARMACEUTICALS
Takeda eyes Shire PLC
Takeda Pharmaceutical Co is weighing the sale of a Shire PLC eye care business once its US$62 billion purchase of the UK-listed biotech firm is completed, as it seeks ways to cut the debt raised to fund the deal, people familiar with the matter said. The Xiidra drug, used to treat dry-eye disease, is among potential divestments being assessed by Takeda, the people said. Takeda has also been discussing with banks about a possible sale of Shire’s Natpara medicine, used to control low blood calcium levels related to decreased parathyroid hormone, the people said. The potential disposals could help Takeda raise about US$4 billion to US$5 billion, the people said.
DAIRY
Fonterra posts first loss
New Zealand’s largest company, which sells dairy products, yesterday said it would completely review its business investments after a disastrous financial year saw it post its first-ever loss. Fonterra Co-operative Group Ltd is promising to turn things around after the chief executive and board chairman quit recently. The company announced an after-tax loss of NZ$196 million (US$129 million) for the year ending July, compared with a profit in the previous year of NZ$745 million. “There’s no two ways about it, these results don’t meet the standards we need to live up to,” Fonterra interim chief executive officer Miles Hurrell said in a statement.
EMPLOYMENT
Australian rate rises
Australian employment last month trounced expectations as a signal of potentially faster wage growth reached the strongest in five years. Underutilization — a sum of the jobless rate and underemployment, which provides insight into the labor market’s overall health — fell to 13.4 percent, the lowest level since June 2013, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said in Sydney. The Reserve Bank of Australia has kept interest rates at a record low to drive investment and hiring to such a point that employers are forced to offer higher wages.
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