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.”
NEW MARKET: The partnership opens up India to the Dutch company, which already has a strong hold in the semiconductor market of South Korea, Taiwan and China ASML Holding NV entered into a partnership agreement with Tata Electronics Pvt Ltd aimed at ramping up India’s goal to develop domestic chip-manufacturing capabilities. The Dutch company’s technology would help power Tata Electronics’ planned 300 millimeter (mm) semiconductor foundry in Gujarat, according to a joint statement from the two companies on Saturday. The signing of a memorandum of understanding coincides with a visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the Netherlands, which is looking to deepen bilateral relations with New Delhi. ASML, whose top customers include Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) and Samsung Electronics Co, makes lithography machines that can print
Tokyo Electron's Taiwan unit today said in a written response that it respects the judicial process, takes the court ruling seriously and would not appeal in the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) trade secrets case. Last month, a court fined the Taiwan unit of Japan's Tokyo Electron NT$150 million (US$4.74 million) in a case involving trade secrets related to TSMC's sensitive chip technology.
ROUGH RECORDS: Bonds in Japan, as well is in New Zealand, Australia and the US, are seeing the effects of a nervy market as stock exchanges across Asia edge down A deepening slump in Japanese government bonds added fuel to the selloff in global debt markets as rising oil prices stoked inflation fears and pushed yields to multi-decade highs. Japan’s 30-year yield yesterday surged as much as 20 basis points to the highest level since the tenor’s debut in 1999, before paring some of the move. Shorter-maturity Japanese debt was also under pressure, underscored by weak demand at a sale of five-year notes that offered a record-high coupon of 2 percent. Concerns over inflation and government spending rippling through markets including the US, Australia and New Zealand are being amplified in Japan,
Wall Street is licking its chops over an unprecedented slate of massive initial public offerings (IPOs) set to arrive in the coming months, beginning with Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) next month. That is expected to be followed by artificial intelligence (AI) rivals OpenAI and Anthropic PBC. The trio of mega listings, each eyeing valuations around US$1 trillion or more, constitutes a heady period of elevated risk and reward. SpaceX is targeting an IPO that would raise up to US$80 billion — about double the funds generated from all IPOs last year. OpenAI and Anthropic are eyeing IPOs raising US$60 billion. “We’re
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