CHINA
Tencent merger in trouble
The antitrust regulator is set to formally block Tencent Holdings Ltd’s (騰訊) plan to merge the country’s top two videogame streaming sites, Huya (虎牙) and DouYu (鬥魚), three people familiar with the matter told reporters. Tencent has failed to come up with sufficient remedies to meet the State Administration of Market Regulation’s requirements on giving up exclusive rights, two of the people said. The Internet giant recently withdrew the merger application for antitrust review and refiled it after the agency told the company that it could not complete the review of the merger within 180 days of its first filing, one of them and a separate person said.
TURKEY
Inflation beats estimates
Inflation accelerated faster than all estimates last month, reducing the likelihood of a summer interest-rate cut. Consumer prices rose an annual 17.5 percent through last month, up from 16.6 percent the previous month on the back of broad-based gains led by food, data released yesterday showed. Food inflation, which accounts for about one-quarter of the consumer basket, rose 20 percent, compared with 17 percent the previous month. It is well above the central bank’s interim target of 13 percent set for the end of the year. A core inflation index showed that prices excluding volatile items such as food and energy also climbed to an annual 17.5 percent through last month, up from 17 percent in May.
AVIATION
Sydney Airport receives bid
Sydney Airport yesterday received a multibillion-dollar takeover bid from a consortium of Australian investors, sending its share price soaring. The consortium of infrastructure investors and Australian pension funds offered A$8.25 per share — or A$22.3 billion (US$16.8 billion). The proposal “has been made during a global pandemic which has deeply affected the aviation industry and the Sydney Airport security price,” the airport’s board said in a statement to the Australian Securities Exchange. “The indicative price is below where Sydney Airport’s security price traded before the pandemic.” Sydney Airport’s share price spiked more than 30 percent on the offer, which is now being considered by the company’s board.
DELIVERY
Foodpanda Asia’s No. 1 app
Delivery Hero SE’s Foodpanda has grown into the biggest food-delivery app in Asia, excluding China, and envisions further expansion in areas such as groceries, said Jakob Angele, its chief executive officer for the Asia-Pacific region. “Not only during the COVID period, but also years before COVID, we saw year-after-year multiplying growth rates,” Angele said in an interview yesterday. Singapore-based Foodpanda said in February that it would start an online grocery delivery service called Pandamart in Cambodia, Japan, Laos and Myanmar this year after launching it in eight Asian countries last year.
INVESTMENT
Warburg eyes China assets
Warburg Pincus is creating a Chinese asset management firm to invest in distressed real-estate opportunities, with plans to garner US$5 billion in assets in five years. The US private equity firm is to work with Wensheng (文盛), one of the largest special situation asset managers in China, to create a joint venture focusing on real-estate special situation investments, including distressed assets. The two are to commit as much as US$600 million, a joint statement said yesterday.
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
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