The Live Conversation: family wealth enters new era

SoftBank Group has raised $11.1 billion in dollar- and euro-denominated bonds in the largest high-yield corporate bond sale globally on record as it seeks to fund its mammoth bet on OpenAI.

The Philippine information technology and business process management (IT-BPM) industry expects revenues to grow faster than its workforce as companies increasingly turn to artificial intelligence (AI) to augment human workers, industry officials said Thursday.

As Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in Washington for his much-anticipated summit with US President Donald Trump, it is clear which country emerged stronger from the tariff shock. Last month, China’s exports rose 25 per cent in annualised terms, causing the country’s trade surplus to swell to US$119 billion and putting it on track to exceed last year’s record of US$1.2 trillion. Moreover, China’s surplus with the US rose 44 per cent to US$29 billion, the widest gap since Trump returned to...

The sentiment among investors that China is a “single bet” is giving way to picking individual winners, with technology displacing property as the engine of growth, according to DBS Bank (Hong Kong). “Instead of looking at China as one big thing, there are selective sectors that we think will benefit from this trend,” Dennis Lam, managing director and head of research at the bank, said during a media briefing on Thursday. Artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing and innovative drugs would...

DragonFi Securities Inc. has received regulatory approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to grant qualified Philippine-based investors access to pre-approved US equities and exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

A three-day public holiday used to be a big deal in China. Then came “golden weeks”, which would sometimes stretch to nine days, sending millions of people in search of new sights across the country and further afield. Now an alignment of the Mid-Autumn Festival and the National Day holiday will give many Chinese students and office workers up to a record 13-day break, potentially pushing tourist traffic to new heights. “The more interesting change this year is not simply higher volume, but the...

China Asset Management (Hong Kong), the offshore arm of one of mainland China’s largest asset managers, launched three exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the city on Thursday, expanding its product line-up as investors seek more diversified strategies amid market volatility and a broader boom in the ETF market. The three products – a Hong Kong high-dividend ETF, a Hong Kong growth ETF and a Hong Kong-US “Halo” ETF – are scheduled to list on the Hong Kong stock exchange on September 30, with trading...

The planned initial public offering (IPO) of Mynt Inc., the parent company of GCash, has secured commitments from more than 20 global and domestic institutional investors.

With office vacancy rates in Kowloon East remaining high, the Planning Department has indicated it has “no objection” to a request by some developers for a commercial project in the area to be rezoned for residential development. A consortium comprising CSI Properties, Asia Standard International and Chongqing-born property tycoon Cheung Chung-kiu has submitted an application to the Town Planning Board to rezone Harbourside HQ – a grade A office building at 8 Lam Chak Street, Kowloon Bay, which...

Tencent Holdings on Thursday launched TenPayGo, a mobile payment app targeting foreign visitors, as the tech giant seeks to capture China’s growing inbound tourism market ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in Shenzhen. Developed by Tencent’s WeChat Pay team, TenPayGo allowed international travellers to make payments at tens of millions of shops, restaurants and attractions across the WeChat Pay network by linking their credit cards or their home-country digital wallets...

Toyota Motor Philippines Corporation (TMP) has reinforced its strategic position in the regional automotive landscape after being designated by Toyota Motor Asia (TMA) as the official regional training hub for Body, Paint, and Estimation (BPE) instructors across Asian affiliates.

The commemorative coin for the Peñafrancia Festival is now available online, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) announced on Thursday.