■ AVIATION
Embraer delivers jets
Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer said on Friday it delivered the first of eight regional jets to Mandarin Airlines (華信航空) of Taiwan. The 104-seat E-Jet will be the base of Mandarin's fleet and is equipped for domestic and short international flights, Embraer said in a statement. The Brazilian company is targeting the Asian Pacific region as a market for its E-jets, including the Embraer 190 and 195 models, said Mauro Kern, executive vice president for the commercial aviation market. The Embraer 190 is a 96 to 106-seat regional jet that has proved popular for short-haul flights. The 108 to 118-seat Embraer 195 is part of the same regional jet line.
■ INVESTMENT
Carlyle to sell shares
Private-equity firm the Carlyle Group LP will for the first time sell shares to the public in one of its investment funds, a person familiar with the matter said on Friday. After a planned initial public offering of stock next month or July, the Carlyle Capital Corp fund, could have up to US$1 billion to invest, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The fund, which will focus on mortgage-backed securities, has already raised private capital. Carlyle plans to list the fund on the Euronext Amsterdam exchange.
■ INTERNET
MySpace blocks clips
The social-networking Internet site MySpace on Friday announced a system that prevents users from reposting video clips that have been removed from the Web site at copyright-holders' request. The new copyright technology, called "Take Down Stay Down," is alerted upon a copyright owner's request to remove a video clip, takes a digital fingerprint of the video and adds it to a copyright filter that prevents uploading again on Myspace users' personal pages. The technology is offered to copyright owners free of charge, MySpace said in a statement.
■ AUTOMOBILES
VW rejects takeover bid
Management at Volkswagen (VW), Europe's biggest car maker, said on Friday it had unanimously rejected a takeover offer from German luxury sports car maker Porsche. VW said in a statement following a special session of its supervisory board that management was convinced that "the value of Volkswagen shares is superior to the price offered." Stuttgart-based Porsche announced in late March that it would exercise an option to buy an additional 3.6-percent stake in VW. The additional shares raised Porsche's interest in VW to 30.9 percent, effectively obliging it under German law to launch a public takeover for all outstanding VW shares.
■ PATENTS
PRC joins patent efforts
China will join Japan, the US, Europe and South Korea in efforts to create an integrated patent system, a report said yesterday. In a weekend meeting in Hawaii, patent commissioners from the countries concerned were due to agree on China's participation in the efforts, the leading business Nikkei Shimbun said. The existing participants have already agreed on standardization of patent application formats, joint use of patent examination results, mutual training opportunities for examiners, and information sharing, the report said. Japan, the US, Europe, South Korea and China account for three quarters of the world's patent applications.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
RSS