Tech

Sony seizes best of hardware and software worlds

28 Oct 2021

Sales of PlayStation consoles and other consumer electronics helped power quarterly sales to $21 bln. Games, music and movies shone too, as boss Kenichiro Yoshida doubles down on content. Even better for investors, a more cohesive strategy linking the different units is emerging.

Frankenstein’s watchdog can tame Big Tech monster

25 Oct 2021

Combining FCC-style oversight of U.S. broadcast stations with the OCC’s supervision of banks and FDA’s drug vetting could bring needed policing to firms like Facebook. Being regulated by an uber monitor is a nuisance. But it isn’t unprecedented and may even diffuse some vitriol.

Viewsroom: Electric-car global roundup; Facebook

7 Oct 2021

Rivian drops its IPO prospectus, Volvo readies its public market return, Hertz brings on a car guy and GM gets a thumbs up from Engine No. 1. Antony Currie puts it all together. And what does Facebook’s outage mean for shareholders? Gina Chon and Richard Beales weigh in.

Capital Calls: American healthcare exceptionalism

27 Sep 2021

Concise views on global finance: American male life expectancy at birth dropped over 2 years in 2020, the worst among 29 nations. That raises the stakes in a healthcare crisis among working-age people that even the mightiest U.S. employers have so far failed to solve.

China adds shades of grey to golden shares

6 Sep 2021

Beijing’s mooted investment into ride-hailing group Didi has templates in ByteDance and electric-vehicle maker Nio. But as a listed company not in financial distress, any official intervention to claim more rights over the data-rich giant is likely to feature on the darker side.

Xi’s common prosperity becomes financial black box

3 Sep 2021

Alibaba and Tencent have each pledged $16 bln to the Chinese president's cause. Investors, though, are in the dark on how these huge sums will be deployed. Along with higher taxes, regulatory fines, new laws on data and more, the cost of doing business is fundamentally changing.

Review: WeWork’s debacle had many enablers

6 Aug 2021

Founder Adam Neumann led the hyping-up of the office-sharing upstart, once purported to be worth nearly $50 bln. But he was far from alone. “The Cult of We” by Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell exposes how banks, return-chasing investors and the media danced around the red flags.

The Exchange: How UK’s vaccine taskforce did it

3 Aug 2021

Clive Dix was part of a crack team of business execs and scientists that secured Covid-19 jabs for Great Britain. They applied a venture capital approach that can be used to tackle other public sector challenges. The former chairman discusses lessons learned and looming threats.

Afterpay’s $29 bln Square deal taps new reality

2 Aug 2021

The instalment-payments darling has defied naysayers for years but faces fresh competition from PayPal and Apple. An all-stock takeover by Jack Dorsey’s fintech outfit comes at a discount to a recent valuation peak. Selling now, though, provides a better chance of success later.

Capital Calls: Covid fibs, M&A flop, Hard seltzer

23 Jul 2021

Concise views on global finance: Forcing social media to take down vaccine misinformation is a good step on U.S. content rules. Meanwhile, a German real estate deal fails to get enough shareholder votes, and Boston Beer’s hard seltzer sales fizzle.

Nationalist flame wars will singe China Inc

14 Jul 2021

Angry users are ditching Didi’s ride-hailing app for alleged data leaks to foreigners. Patriotic extremism has stung overseas brands like H&M; now it’s turning on domestic companies, sometimes with official encouragement. It sets a dangerous precedent that could get out of hand.

Swedish tech investor benefits by slimming down

12 Jul 2021

Most listed investment firms trade at a discount to the net value of their assets. Kinnevik’s recent decision to hand its stake in e-tailer Zalando to shareholders has made it an exception. Shedding future winners from its $9 bln portfolio will be vital to preserving its status.

Self-driving truck race suffers from major traffic

23 Jun 2021

Embark, which automates big rigs, is worth $5.2 bln in a SPAC deal with smart-money PIPE investors and Trump’s former transport boss on the board. Its strategy might please shippers and truck-makers. The valuation isn’t bad. But competitive and regulatory roadblocks lie ahead.

Didi embarks on ultimate IPO road-test

11 Jun 2021

The Beijing-based ride-hailing giant, last valued at $62 bln, unveiled plans to go public in New York. It’s growing quickly, but cruising into record-high markets, U.S. political pressure on Chinese issuers and tech crackdowns at home. The fare could be steep for new investors.

India is well placed to fight G7 tax deal’s flaws

10 Jun 2021

The country wants to charge big tech companies on the basis of local revenue or users, rather than profit. A rich-nation plan offers little on this front. India’s 1.3 bln population and relative openness to foreign companies give it good ground to push for fairer digital levies.

Indian tech braces for its second coming of age

10 Jun 2021

Super-cheap mobile data, banking for all and a biometric ID system enabled food delivery app Zomato and fintech star Paytm to grow fast. Foreign capital helped too. As India gets picky about funding and business models evolve, an upcoming stack of IPOs spotlight new challenges.

South Korean self-driving deal spins its wheels

10 Jun 2021

Car-parts maker Mando has the right general idea carving out its autonomous-tech unit into a new business. But the company is keeping full control and not raising any new money. That may yet change. For now, though, the partial overhaul offers shareholders a shabby ride.

Software deal contains two-sided logic errors

7 Jun 2021

Sydney-listed Altium spurned a $3.9 bln takeover bid from larger U.S. peer Autodesk. It’s an odd response given recent struggles and the chunky 42% premium on offer. The maths doesn’t compute for the suitor either. In wild M&A markets, such behaviour is a feature rather than a bug.