Stocks to watch: IHH Healthcare, Keppel, Jardine Matheson, Cordlife
[SINGAPORE] The following companies saw new developments that may affect trading of their securities on Friday (May 30).
IHH Healthcare : The integrated healthcare operator on Thursday posted a 33 per cent fall in net profit to RM514 million (S$156.3 million) for its first quarter ended Mar 31, from RM768 million the year before. The drop came mainly from a lower net monetary gain from the application of MFRS 129, and the recognition of a deferred tax credit in 2024 arising from the revaluation of certain assets in Turkey, the mainboard-listed group said. Shares of IHH Healthcare closed flat at S$2.09 on Thursday, before the results were announced.
Keppel : The company has appointed former DBS chief executive Piyush Gupta as deputy chairman and non-executive independent director of its board, effective Jul 1. Gupta will also be appointed a member of the nominating committee, remuneration committee and the board sustainability and safety committee in July. Shares of Keppel closed at S$6.85, up S$0.06 or 0.9 per cent on Thursday, before the announcement.
Jardine Matheson Holdings : The Hong Kong-based conglomerate on Thursday announced the appointment of Lincoln Pan as chief executive officer designate as group managing director John Witt retires from the company as at end-November. Pan, a partner and co-head of private equity at investment business PAG, will join to helm the group as CEO with effect from Dec 1. The counter ended on Thursday 2.2 per cent or S$1 higher at S$45.60.
Cordlife : The company has appointed Novus Corporate Finance as the independent financial adviser for a voluntary conditional cash partial offer it has received from a Thai company, said the private cord-blood bank on Thursday. Medeze Treasury, a wholly owned subsidiary of Thai-listed stem cell company Medeze Group, had offered to buy a 10 per cent stake in Cordlife, or about 25.6 million shares, at S$0.25 apiece. Shares of Cordlife closed flat at S$0.27 on Thursday.
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Business Times
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'I realised I entered a hell mode,' Chen said. 'I now deeply understand why everyone loved starting their overseas businesses in the US market.' To sell in Europe, he had to register for value-added tax in each individual market, offer a range of plugs, and translate his instruction manuals into at least five different languages. Rules and product standards kept changing, meaning he had to keep tweaking the product. 'In this highly-fragmented market, there's nowhere to generate such fat profits as people do in the huge single market such as the US.' Although he'd originally discounted the US market as too competitive, Chen started selling in the US via his own website – after the tariff announcements. He's still selling in Europe and expects to grow there, but sees the US market as a better prospect in the short term. He expects other Chinese merchants will come to the same conclusion. 'Imagine a Chinese factory boss or merchant who started their US business in the early years and used to earn US$100 million per year from just one market,' Chen said. 'Now he has to start from zero, to learn all the complicated rules from Italy, Germany to Spain, and only make a fraction of the money from each market.' Many merchants are in precisely that situation, having spent years establishing themselves in the US, building their relationships with factories and platforms, and understanding what local consumers want, Wang Xin, head of the Shenzhen Cross-border E-commerce Association, said. That's a sunk cost. 'Everyone is now putting all their efforts into prioritising the US market, busy producing and booking containers to ship as much inventory as possible,' Wang said. 'Taking good care of the US business, getting cash flows and surviving, that's the most important and urgent thing now. 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The EU is in the process of reviewing stricter rules and the elimination of the 150 euros de minimis customs duty exemption. But as the US has already closed its equivalent in May, there's a risk that the e-commerce players now exploit Europe as a dumping ground while it's still possible. 'We are often not as quick as Donald Trump,' Kluttig said. 'We can't issue executive orders that apply immediately and across all of Europe. We have different elaborate and complex legal processes. Which is important – but decisions take longer.' Similar conversations are going on in the UK, where the de minimis threshold is £135, and where industry groups have long argued that online retailers selling Chinese goods are undercutting local companies by skirting duties and safety checks. Exports of 'low-value' parcels from China to the UK rose 53 per cent in April, according to an analysis of China's customs trade database. Parcels under the £135 threshold generally pass through customs with limited inspection. In research published in October 2024, the British Toy and Hobby Association found 85 per cent of the 75 toys it tested from third-party sellers on 11 marketplaces, were non-compliant with EU and UK safety standards. 'It's difficult enough to pay all the taxes that we do without facing competition from people who pay none, particularly when they're supplying goods that are demonstrably not up to UK safety standards,' said Andrew Goodacre, chief executive officer of Teal Group, which owns toy retailer The Entertainer. A Temu spokesperson said that the company takes product safety seriously, with 'a robust seller onboarding process, regular monitoring, and enforcement actions to ensure compliance', and that it works with testing and certification agencies. 'We are committed to fair competition and supporting local businesses,' the spokesperson said. 'Our platform allows European and UK-based sellers to reach new customers through a low-cost channel, with half of our UK sales expected to come from local sellers and warehouses by the end of 2025. We are expanding this model across Europe, aiming for 80 per cent of our European sales to come from local sellers over time.' A Shein spokesperson said that the company is 'fully committed to ensuring the products we offer are safe and compliant', and that it is investing US$15 million this year in product safety and compliance initiatives, performing 2.5 million product safety and quality tests, and expanding its partnerships with testing agencies. AliExpress did not respond to a request for comment. Britain has taken action in recent years. Responsibility for collecting VAT has been shifted onto platforms, as sellers are now required to collect the tax upfront when dispatching parcels. Ollie Marshall, managing director of online electronics retailer Maplin, said that this has lessened competition and led 'Chinese direct sellers on platforms such as Amazon actually becoming less prevalent'. However, just as in the EU, the US' dropping of its de minimis rule has increased fears of goods being rerouted and dumped in the UK. The Labour government announced a review of its policy in late April. So far, retailers and trade groups say there is not much evidence that dumping is happening. Martino Pessina, CEO of Takko Fashion, a German discount clothing chain, said he's actually found short-term benefits from the US policy changes, as the temporary slowing of US demand has meant he's getting more favourable pricing from his own suppliers in China. This speaks to a point that is not always reflected in the arguments over de minimis rules and the threat of dumped goods via Chinese platforms. 'We already buy in our local stores in the UK and the EU cheap Chinese goods, it's the same goods, often made in the same place,' Anna Jerzewska, customs and trade adviser to the EU and the UK, and director of consultancy Trade & Borders, said. Safety concerns are valid, as is the need to have a level playing field on regulations, she said. 'But the cheap Chinese goods isn't the problem. It's the profits of the UK retailers or the EU retailers.' Constant disruption Chinese online platforms are unlikely to see the increasing regulatory complexity in developed economies as an insurmountable barrier, according to Mark Greeven, dean of Asia at IMD Business School. The companies are expanding their warehouse capacity in Europe, he said, and Temu has begun to explore different business models, including working with small businesses in European markets. In April, the company signed a memorandum of understanding with DHL to develop its logistics on the continent. 'Part of their advantage which they had in the US, they are trying to transplant to Europe, but they are also reinventing themselves a bit,' Greeven said. It will be challenging to build in Europe the 'proximity with the consumer' that the platforms have achieved in the US, he said, and their model of ultra-low price, algorithmically-marketed products may need to change. It could take a year or more to figure out how to navigate tariffs and tailor their offering to European markets. But the expertise that the Chinese platforms have built-in logistics and supply chains means that they are powerful, highly adaptable businesses that will be hard to regulate out of existence, because they have dealt with constant disruption throughout their existence. 'It's been round after round after round, and I think they got pretty good at focusing on their core capabilities,' Greeven said. 'It's a mess, but a mess is an opportunity from the point of view of Chinese entrepreneurs. I think that typically in this situation, Chinese companies prosper because they are not afraid of it, they are used to it.' The future of the US tariff regime is uncertain. In late May, a court ruled that the Trump administration's import taxes were illegal. The government has appealed. For the merchants, the timing of any short-term shift to Europe will be dictated by the simple metric of the US tariff numbers, Wang, from the Shenzhen Cross-border E-commerce Association said. When tariffs were set at 54 per cent, that was the point most exporters couldn't make a profit, he said. 'Before reaching that level, people were struggling with thinner profits, but would rather stay in the US for cash flows and meanwhile start doing research on new markets,' Wang said. 'But let's say the tariffs return to figures higher than that again, you will just be forced to completely exit and jump to other markets as you'll die faster if you stay.' BLOOMBERG
Straits Times
2 hours ago
- Straits Times
‘The Beautiful Game' falls for AI's charms
Vision's programme – which was used at last year's Copa America – was recently awarded Fifa certification. PHOTO: REUTERS PARIS – Sport has been unable to resist the surge of artificial intelligence and the biggest one of them all, football, is benefitting from data that AI can supply and the human eye cannot. Warsaw-based Vision, which says it is unique in gathering data by using AI, has two immediate goals – women's football and re-igniting Generation Z's interest in watching sports, their co-founder Pawel Osterreicher told AFP. The company – which numbers the South American football body Conmebol and their Central American counterparts Concacaf among its clients – is able to capture data from matches from just a single camera angle. This makes gathering data much cheaper, as players do not need to wear any technology, and there is no need for multiple cameras to capture the data, thanks to AI. Vision's programme – which was used at last year's Copa America – was recently awarded Fifa certification. Osterreicher says AI can provide data on aspects of football that humans cannot, such as acceleration, passing lanes, heat maps and zones of control. He said the data can help the 'Goliaths' as well as the 'Davids', just as it did by assisting in second-tier side Wisla Krakow's giantkilling exploits on their way to lifting the Polish Cup in 2024. However, despite this run of success the 36-year-old says he and his colleagues are not aiming for the men's World Cup or this year's men's World Club Cup. Instead they are targeting covering the inaugural women's World Club Cup in 2028, which fits in nicely with another of their aims, to halt the haemorrhage of Gen Z – people born from 1997 to 2012 – watching sports. 'What we see right now in the sports market in general is that women's sport grows at a much faster pace,' he said. 'Of course, from a lower base, but a much faster pace than men's sport. 'You can argue that men's is saturated. But one of the best investment opportunities and development opportunities in sports are currently women's franchises, women's sport and all the media around it.' Osterreicher says this could be a way to reboot the interest of younger viewers 'who are flocking away'. The young 'expect to get excited immediately... I have five seconds and if not, I'm swiping away'. 'So women's sport is also potentially an opportunity for sport to attract younger audiences because maybe it's just too boring just to watch all the same setups, all the same guys,' he said. 'So lots of investment is being directed in women's sports and from our perspective as well. 'We're agnostic. Human is a human. We capture data on humans, not on particular genders. But definitely, more and more customers are asking us to just cover women's leagues.' Osterreicher – who along with his colleagues set up the company five years ago – says he is a 'realist', adding not everyone should use the technology as it is a 'complex thing, it requires certain resources'. Nevertheless Wisla's Cup victory showed that you 'can do more with less'. 'You can have a smaller team wisely using technology and then beating the big guys,' he said. While this technology is already tried and tested, Osterreicher and his team are months away from dealing another card to try and claw back the young audience, whose loyalty has switched to TikTok, Netflix and other platforms. 'The way for sports to address it is to create content which is much more to their liking,' he said. 'So you can recreate a game in 3D, which is what we are planning to do. So imagine a legendary goal being scored, or any goal being scored, and you switch to a replay from player perspective. 'So we are potentially entering the world where sport needs to reinvent itself a little bit, change the way it's being served, in order to not lose those people to TikToks and the video games and mobile games of the world.' AFP Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
