HONG KONG
US dollar peg to remain
The territory had no plans to change its currency’s peg to the US dollar and has not seen any “obvious” capital outflows after Washington moved to strip it of its special status in US law, Financial Secretary Paul Chan (陳茂波) said yesterday. Authorities were confident in defending the Hong Kong dollar exchange rate, with foreign-exchange reserves twice the size of the entire monetary base, and liquidity in the banking system “very healthy and strong,” Chan said. He added that capital would continue to flow freely in and out of the territory.
BANKING
Del Vecchio to raise stake
Italian eyewear billionaire Leonardo Del Vecchio stepped up his efforts to become a bigger player in Italy’s finance industry, asking for approval to raise his stake in Mediobanca SpA to as much as 20 percent. Del Vecchio, who owns 10 percent of Italy’s largest publicly traded investment bank, submitted the request to the Bank of Italy on Friday, he said in a statement yesterday. The 85-year-old founder of Luxottica SpA is seeking to diversify his fortune into banking.
TELECOMS
Funds eye Spanish firm
Three buyout funds offered to acquire Spanish telecom Masmovil Ibercom SA for 3 billion euros (US$3.3 billion), in one of the largest private equity deals since the COVID-19 pandemic began in March. KKR & Co, Cinven Ltd and Providence Equity Partners LLC offered 22.5 euros a share for the company, according to a statement yesterday. The offer, which was accepted by Masmovil’s board, is 20 percent above Friday’s closing share price. Providence is the second-largest shareholder in Masmovil, with a 9.2 percent stake.
RARE EARTHS
Chinese stocks surge
Chinese rare earth stocks last month surged amid bets that increased tensions with the US would spur Beijing to limit exports of the crucial metals. The sector saw double-digit jumps, led by China Minmetals Rare Earth Co (中國五礦) at 27 percent and JL Mag Rare-Earth Co (江西金力永磁科技) at 24 percent. Rare earth elements also rallied, with dysprosium oxide jumping almost 10 percent in barely a week to its highest since August last year, while terbium oxide climbed 7.7 percent, according to commodities market information provider Shanghai SteelHome E-Commerce Co (上海鋼之家電子商務).
INDIA
Power generation slows fall
The country’s electricity generation last month fell at a slower pace than in April, as higher temperatures lead to greater demand for residential power and the government eased some lockdown restrictions to control the spread of the coronavirus. Overall electricity generation fell 14.3 percent, a Reuters analysis of provisional government data showed, compared with a decline of 24 percent in April.
AVIATION
Airbus mulls extra measures
Top Airbus SE executives are planning to assess additional measures that might be necessary to address the effects of the pandemic, people familiar with the matter have said. Among the topics to be discussed at a meeting this week are production rates for the plane maker’s top-selling A320-series narrow-body jet, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing confidential deliberations. An Airbus spokesman declined to comment on speculation related to internal meetings.
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