NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) – Queen’s Gambit Growth Capital, a blank-check company led entirely by female executives, increased the size of its US initial public offering to raise US$300 million (S$398 million). The special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, said in a statement on Tuesday (Jan 19) that it sold 30 million units for US$10 apiece, […]

NEW YORK (REUTERS) – American Airlines’ wholly owned regional subsidiary PSA Airlines and budget carrier Frontier Airlines plan to resume pilot hiring this year, a positive sign for an industry ravaged last year by the coronavirus pandemic but now preparing to ramp up flying. As Covid-19 vaccines roll out, airlines are hoping for a significant […]

PLYMOUTH, MICHIGAN (NYTIMES) – It is hard to imagine any company matching Tesla’s rocket-like rise. But if any electric car start-up could aspire to be the “next Tesla,” it would be Rivian. Founded in 2009, Rivian is preparing to produce an electric pickup truck and a sport utility vehicle. Both models are supposed to be […]

NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) – Evidence is mounting that Wall Street’s top investment banks spent the pandemic building up their leads. As the banner year for markets came to a close, JPMorgan Chase & Co posted record profit in the fourth quarter, helped by a 20 per cent increase in revenue from trading, a business where […]

Q: What does it mean to be a fair and progressive employer? A: Being a fair and progressive employer is important in Singapore given our diverse workforce. It helps to set your organisation apart from others. Employees will also be more inclined to join and stay on with an employer who has progressive, merit-based and […]

A construction company boss recalled how shocked he was when he learnt almost all his employees had been infected with COVID-19. A businessman who contracted the coronavirus recounted his pain and joy of celebrating his birthday in an isolation facility while video-calling his family. A staff nurse shared his experience assisting the first two local […]

SEOUL (BLOOMBERG) – Mr Kim Chang-han, a former child computer prodigy who won national coding competitions in South Korea in the 1980s, had reached his lowest point. It was 2014, and he’d just laid off a third of the employees at his gaming start-up. Since 2000, he’d created three multiplayer online games at three start-ups […]

SINGAPORE (THE BUSINESS TIMES) – The manager of OUE Commercial Real Estate Investment Trust (OUE C-Reit) has agreed to divest a 50 per cent stake in the Reit’s OUE Bayfront property based on an agreed value of $1.27 billion, or $3,170 per square foot, to a special purpose vehicle (SPV) managed by Allianz Real Estate. This […]

DOHA (BLOOMBERG) – Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund is looking east for deals in an effort to diversify an investment portfolio heavily weighted toward North America and Europe. Asia “has been very much on our radar screen,” Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. Sheikh Mohammed is also […]

SINGAPORE (BLOOMBERG) – Pressure is mounting on an heir to Singapore’s biggest family fortune as he seeks to salvage the property investment at the centre of an ambitious expansion into China. In the past month, Mr Sherman Kwek, the 45-year-old chief executive officer of City Developments Ltd (CDL), has had to contend with two more […]

LONDON (BLOOMBERG) – HSBC Holdings plans to accelerate its expansion across Asia in its imminent strategy refresh, according to chairman Mark Tucker. Mr Tucker said “the world had changed” in the 11 months since Europe’s biggest bank announced a long-awaited overhaul, forcing the lender to make its plans more radical. “Economic realities mean that what […]

SINGAPORE – When Raffles Medical Group received the call to set up a vaccination centre at Changi Airport Terminal 4, it took just five days to get the whole operation up and running. Last week, more than 1,000 aviation workers were vaccinated there in a trial run of operations. Full-scale vaccination of air crew and […]

SINGAPORE – The health and safety of participants will be at the forefront of the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Singapore in May, said WEF president Borge Brende on Monday (Jan 18), adding that Singapore is one of the governments that have handled the Covid-19 pandemic best. “We have very, very good cooperation here […]

BEIJING (REUTERS) – China’s economy grew at a faster-than-expected pace in the fourth quarter of last year, ending a rough coronavirus-striken 2020 in remarkably good shape and remained solidly poised to expand further this year. The gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 6.5 per cent, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Monday (Jan […]

SINGAPORE (THE BUSINESS TIMES) – Mainboard-listed real estate player Boustead Projects on Monday said it has obtained its first green loan of about $130 million from UOB to refinance Alice@Mediapolis, a smart eco-sustainable business park development. The loan was extended to BP-Dojo LLP, Boustead Projects’ joint venture special purpose vehicle under the Boustead Development Partnership […]

SINGAPORE – Singapore’s non-oil domestic exports (Nodx) posted its first gain in three months in December, mainly helped by shipment of non-electronic goods such as specialised machinery, non-monetary gold and measuring instruments. Nodx surged last month by 6.8 per cent year on year after a revised 5 per cent drop in November and a 3.1 […]

NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) – Goldman Sachs Group economists raised their growth forecasts for the US this year and beyond after President-elect Joe Biden unveiled a sweeping revival plan calling for US$1.9 trillion (S$2.5 trillion) in spending. In a weekend report to clients, economists led by Jan Hatzius predicted the economy would expand 6.6 per cent […]

NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) – Americans have become, by some measures, richer during the pandemic than ever before. It’s a difficult thing to fathom, what with the economic collapse and the surge in the ranks of the jobless, the homeless and the hungry. But there’s a whole class of people – at least the top 20 […]

Undergraduates Ms Emma Benitha Sugira and Ms Rahma Mbabazi have a few things in common.  They both hail from Rwanda, a country in East Africa, but have chosen to pursue their studies overseas in Hong Kong, about 9,500km from home. They also share a love for engineering — a field traditionally dominated by males worldwide. […]

Being fresh out of school means you’re starting with a clean slate. You have hardly any work experience — unless you’ve done internships, industrial attachments or part-time stints in a job that may not be related to your study. You may be young, more energetic and command a lower salary than experienced counterparts. Yet frustratingly, […]