Russian aluminum producer United Co Rusal yesterday said that it has appointed independent non-executive director Jean-Pierre Thomas as its new chairman as part of an agreed restructuring in exchange for the lifting of US sanctions.
The previous chairman, Matthias Warnig, stepped down earlier this week after six years at the world’s largest aluminium producer outside China. His resignation was a condition of the deal.
Jean-Pierre Thomas was elected by the board as chairman with effect from Tuesday, Rusal said in a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
Thomas, 61, has been an independent non-executive director on Rusal’s board since June. He was a managing partner at Lazard investment bank for 15 years, leaving in 2013.
He has also been an independent non-executive director on the board of French metals producer Recylex since 2009.
The US Department of the Treasury said last week it would remove sanctions against Rusal, its parent En+ Group and power firm EuroSibEnergo PLC if they restructured to reduce the controlling stakes of businessman Oleg Deripaska, who is on Washington’s sanctions list.
The deal is subject to a 30-day review period in the US Congress. After the restructuring is completed, En+ would retain the right to nominate the producer’s chief executive, the US Treasury has said.
“Mr Thomas has in-depth experience with Russian relations, having been tasked with several projects aimed at boosting economic cooperation between France and Russia,” Rusal said in a disclosure in June.
Hong Kong-listed shares of Rusal yesterday rose 2 percent and were on track for their biggest monthly percentage gain in a year.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained