INVESTMENT
STC to buy Careem stake
Government controlled Saudi Telecom Co (STC) is to acquire a 10 percent stake in Middle East-based ride-hailing app Careem Networks FZ LLC for US$100 million, months after the country’s sovereign wealth fund invested in Uber Technologies Inc. The board of STC approved the investment in Dubai-based Careem on Thursday last week, according to a statement on the Saudi Stock Exchange yesterday. The company is already an investor in Careem through its venture capital arm, STC Ventures, according to Careem’s Web site. The investment is “in line with the company strategy to invest in the innovative digital world,” STC said in the statement. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which also holds a 70 percent stake in STC, invested US$3.5 billion in San Francisco-based Uber in June.
AUTOMAKERS
VW agreement likely in US
A US federal judge overseeing the Volkswagen (VW) AG emissions scandal on Friday said he is optimistic about reaching an agreement for the last 80,000 vehicles affected in the US. A new hearing has been set for today to review the German automaker’s proposals. “I’m pleased to report that there has been substantial progress and I’m optimistic that there will be a resolution of this matter,” US District Judge Charles Breyer said during a brief hearing in San Francisco, without giving further details. Any agreements reached in the US only regulate the civil aspects of the emissions cheating case. Whatever the outcome of today’s hearing, VW will continue to be prosecuted while also facing a cascade of inquiries in the rest of the world, especially in Europe.
INVESTMENT
Trivago debuts on Wall Street
Shares of Trivago NV, the hotel search company that created a buzz with a rumpled TV spokesman, rose in their Wall Street debut on Friday. Travelers use the German company’s Web sites and apps to search for hotels around the world. Trivago makes money when a user clicks on a hotel, goes to another site and books a room. The company raised more than US$287 million after it and its shareholders sold 26.1 million American depositary shares for US$11 apiece. The price was below its previously expected range of US$13 to US$15 American depositary shares (ADS). The stock is trading on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the symbol “TRVG.” The ADS rose US$0.85, or 7.7 percent, to close at US$11.85.
ECONOMY
Asian economies at risk
Asian economies including China, Hong Kong and Japan have become more vulnerable to financial shocks since the 2008 global crisis and are now among the most at risk, according to a Bank of England research paper. “The sluggish global recovery took its toll particularly on the Asian economies, with vulnerabilities rising to elevated levels over the past few years,” Jack Fisher and Lukasz Rachel wrote in the paper, published on Friday. At the end of last year, vulnerabilities for some countries were “close to record-highs,” with measures for China, Hong Kong and Japan up “strongly” since the financial crisis, they said. “The external vulnerability — reflecting the level of foreign-exchange reserves, current account and external debt, appears to be very elevated across all of the Asian economies at the moment,” they said. That is “perhaps in line with some concerns about global financial imbalances in that part of the world.”
‘DECENT RESULTS’: The company said it is confident thanks to an improving world economy and uptakes in new wireless and AI technologies, despite US uncertainty Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it plans to build a new server manufacturing factory in the US this year to address US President Donald Trump’s new tariff policy. That would be the second server production base for Pegatron in addition to the existing facilities in Taoyuan, the iPhone assembler said. Servers are one of the new businesses Pegatron has explored in recent years to develop a more balanced product lineup. “We aim to provide our services from a location in the vicinity of our customers,” Pegatron president and chief executive officer Gary Cheng (鄭光治) told an online earnings conference yesterday. “We
It was late morning and steam was rising from water tanks atop the colorful, but opaque-windowed, “soapland” sex parlors in a historic Tokyo red-light district. Walking through the narrow streets, camera in hand, was Beniko — a former sex worker who is trying to capture the spirit of the area once known as Yoshiwara through photography. “People often talk about this neighborhood having a ‘bad history,’” said Beniko, who goes by her nickname. “But the truth is that through the years people have lived here, made a life here, sometimes struggled to survive. I want to share that reality.” In its mid-17th to
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The battle for artificial intelligence supremacy hinges on microchips, but the semiconductor sector that produces them has a dirty secret: It is a major source of chemicals linked to cancer and other health problems. Global chip sales surged more than 19 percent to about US$628 billion last year, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association, which forecasts double-digit growth again this year. That is adding urgency to reducing the effects of “forever chemicals” — which are also used to make firefighting foam, nonstick pans, raincoats and other everyday items — as are regulators in the US and Europe who are beginning to
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