SINGAPORE
Home sales fall 64%
Private home sales tumbled 64 percent last month to the lowest in six months as government cooling measures took effect and developers marketed fewer projects in a period considered inauspicious by Chinese home buyers. Developers in the city-state sold 616 units, the Urban Redevelopment Authority said in a statement yesterday. That compares with 1,724 units in July and 654 apartments in June, the data showed. An index tracking private residential prices jumped 3.4 percent in the second quarter of the year, authority data showed.
UNITED KINGDOM
Economic forecast lowered
The Chambers of Commerce lowered its forecast for the economy for the next two years, citing a weaker outlook for trade and investment on uncertainty over exiting the EU. The business lobby expects growth of 1.1 percent this year, down from a previous forecast of 1.3 percent, and cut its outlook from 1.4 percent to 1.3 percent for next year, a statement said yesterday. The Bank of England last week reiterated that Brexit is the biggest challenge to the country’s economic outlook.
SAUDI ARABIA
Wealth fund takes first loan
The sovereign wealth fund raised an US$11 billion loan, marking its first-ever borrowing. The loan was larger than initially planned due to strong interest from banks, and establishes a core banking group for the Public Investment Fund (PIF) to work with on future deals, the fund said in a statement. “This is the first step in incorporating loans and debt instruments into PIF’s long-term funding strategy,” PIF managing director Yasir al-Rumayyan said in the statement.
OIL
Biggest IPO in decade eyed
Abu Dhabi is pushing ahead with an initial public offering (IPO) for Spanish oil company Cia Espanola de Petroleos SAU, in what could be the largest such deal in a decade. The emirates’ Mubadala Investment Co is to offer a stake of at least 25 percent in Cepsa in the fourth quarter, the state-owned investor said in a statement yesterday. The Madrid-based refiner would list on Spanish exchanges. Cepsa could raise about 3 billion euros (US$3.5 billion), sources said.
BANKING
FINMA scolds Credit Suisse
Credit Suisse Group AG was given until the end of next year to strengthen its internal processes to combat money laundering as Switzerland’s financial regulator concluded a pair of enforcement proceedings against the nation’s second-biggest bank. The regulator, known as FINMA, ordered the Zurich-based lender to ensure that information about particular clients can be accessed more easily by bankers, a statement said yesterday. Credit Suisse already made “some substantial” improvements in its anti-money-laundering controls and avoided a fine in the probes.
RETAIL
Discounts boost H&M sales
Hennes & Mauritz AB’s sales rose in the third quarter as the Swedish fashion retailer offered discounts to clear out inventory and received a boost from the weak krona. Revenue excluding value-added taxes rose 9 percent to 55.8 billion kronor (US$6.2 billion), beating the average analyst estimate of 54 billion kronor. More than one-half of the increase was due to most currencies strengthening against H&M’s reporting currency, the krona. H&M also said that logistical problems raised costs in the US, France, Italy and Belgium in the period.
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],”