CHINA
US imports see upsurge
The country last month ramped up purchases of US goods as its economy improved, although it still remains far from the full-year target set out under its “phase one” trade deal with the US. The monthly value of US goods that it bought under the trade agreement reached a monthly record high of US$9.9 billion last month as oil, soybean and vehicle imports surged. That still leaves the country’s purchases at only 38.5 percent of a total target of more than US$170 billion for the year, Bloomberg calculations based on Customs Administration data showed. Purchases of US energy goods jumped about 75 percent last month from August as China imported a record amount of crude oil. The value of agricultural goods bought from the US climbed about 60 percent, with imports of soybeans surging more than 600 percent.
AIRLINES
ANA to retire 35 planes
Japan’s ANA Holdings Inc yesterday said that it would retire more than one-10th of its mostly Boeing Co fleet and delay two aircraft orders to help rein in costs and survive a collapse in air travel caused by COVID-19 travel restrictions. Forecasting a record operating loss of ¥505 billion (US$4.83 billion) for the year to March 31, Japan’s biggest airline said that it would also temporarily transfer more than 400 workers to other companies and ask those remaining to accept pay cuts or unpaid leave. ANA said that it would retire 35 planes, 28 of them early, including 22 Boeing 777 wide-body jets, and delay delivery of one Boeing 777 and one Airbus SE A380 superjumbo jet. That would reduce its fleet by a net 33 aircraft to 276 planes.
FINANCE
Ant Group set for record IPO
Jack Ma’s (馬雲) Ant Group Co (螞蟻集團) is set to raise about US$34.5 billion through initial public offerings (IPOs) in Shanghai and Hong Kong, a blockbuster listing that would rank as the biggest IPO ever and make it one of the most valuable finance firms on the planet. The fintech giant is to have a market value of about US$315 billion based on filings on Monday, about the same valuation as JPMorgan Chase & Co and four times larger than Goldman Sachs Group Inc. In the preliminary price consultation of its Shanghai IPO, institutional investors subscribed for more than 76 billion shares, more than 284 times the initial offline offering tranche, Ant’s Shanghai offering announcement said. The strong demand puts the much-anticipated IPO on track to surpass Saudi Aramco’s US$29 billion sale last year.
FINANCE
AIG reveals new CEO
American International Group Inc (AIG) named Peter Zaffino as its next chief executive officer and said that he would run a smaller and simpler company as the firm splits off its life-insurance business. Zaffino, currently AIG’s president, would take over the top job on March 1, when current chief executive Brian Duperreault becomes executive chairman, the company said in a statement on Monday. AIG would also look to separate its life and retirement business, which accounted for about one-third of revenue last year. The company said in a separate release that it expects to take a third-quarter catastrophe loss of US$790 million before taxes and net of reinsurance, with about US$185 million of those costs related to the COVID-19 pandemic. An annual review of assumptions at its life and retirement and legacy businesses would produce a charge of US$7 million after taxes in the third quarter, the insurer said.
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts