SELF-DRIVING CARS
California grants Zoox permit
Self-driving vehicle start-up Zoox Inc has won permission to start offering rides to passengers in California. The Californian Public Utilities Commission on Friday granted Zoox a permit to ferry riders in autonomous vehicles under a pilot program. However, Zoox cannot charge for the service and a backup driver must be in the car. Zoox is the first company to win authorization for passenger service in the state, but dozens of others already have permits to test driverless cars on public roads.
IRAN
Bitumen smuggler executed
The government yesterday executed a trader known as the “Sultan of Bitumen” who was charged with fraud and the large-scale smuggling of bitumen, according to Mizan Online, a Web site affiliated with the judiciary. Hamidreza Bagheri Dermani is the third businessman to be executed since an anti-corruption drive was launched over the summer. He was convicted for “corruption on earth” after swindling more than 10 trillion rials (US$237.5 million at the current exchange rate) through “fraud, forgery and bribery,” Mizan reported.
DERIVATIVES
Natixis stops risky practice
Natixis SA is no longer creating the structured products that led to the huge Asian trading loss that it reported on Tuesday. The French bank reported a 260 million euro (US$295.97 million) hit from Asian equity derivatives. It booked a provision of 160 million euros to cover the management of a trading book of so-called “autocallables” linked to stocks in South Korea and an additional 100 million euros in lost revenue. “We have stopped the production of these products,” the bank said on Friday.
BANKING
UniCredit to raise capital
UniCredit SpA is seeking to sell as much as 1 billion euros in German real-estate assets as part of a plan to boost capital, people with knowledge of the matter said. The Italian bank is working with real-estate company Cushman & Wakefield on the sale of office buildings and bank branches belonging to its HypoVereinsbank unit, the people said, asking not to be identified as the process is private. The sale involves about 30 assets and formally begins next month, they said.
INTERNET
Takeaway.com buys rival
Takeaway.com NV agreed to acquire the German businesses of Delivery Hero SE for about 930 million euros, ending an expensive rivalry in a country where both were competing for market share. Amsterdam-based Takeaway is paying about 508 million euros in cash and the rest in equity for Delivery Hero’s Pizza.de, Lieferheld and Foodora businesses in Germany. Delivery Hero is also acquiring an 18 percent stake in its Dutch rival, it said on Friday.
MANUFACTURING
Nike sales avoid trade spat
Nike Inc on Thursday scored higher second-quarter profits, thanks in part to strong sales in China, where the company reported no fallout from ongoing trade tensions between Beijing and Washington. Net income for the quarter ending Nov. 30 was US$847 million, up 10.4 percent year-on-year from the year earlier. Revenue was US$9.4 billion, up 9.6 percent. A key driver was China, where Nike notched a 26 percent increase in revenue to US$1.5 billion.
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
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
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last