February, 2017

• 19 February

  HKT telecom unit to sell $1.1bn stake

    Bloomberg Billionaire Richard Li’s PCCW Ltd. plans to sell a HK$8.53 billion ($1.1 billion) stake in telecommunications unit HKT Trust & HKT Ltd., amassing cash as the Hong Kong tycoon shifts into greater media investments. The shares of both companies fell. PCCW will sell 840.7 million shares of Hong Kong’s largest phone company for HK$10.15 apiece, it said in ...

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• 19 February

  Singapore’s growth shock masks a duller outlook for economy

    Bloomberg Singapore’s government has a message for anyone expecting great things following Friday’s surprise growth bounce: don’t hold your breath. The city-state’s economy will still only expand between 1 percent and 3 percent this year, policy makers said after fourth-quarter growth burst in at an annualized 12.3 percent — the fastest pace in more than five years. They had ...

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• 19 February

  Trump team sounds out tech firms ahead of cyber order

  

    Bloomberg The Trump administration has quietly consulted technology industry leaders ahead of issuing a delayed executive order on cybersecurity, even as executives have clashed with the White House over policies including the president’s efforts to limit entry to the US. President Donald Trump delayed the signing of a cybersecurity directive that had been planned for January 31 just as ...

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• 19 February

  UK unemployment falls as job market nears ‘full capacity’

    Bloomberg UK unemployment declined and a measure of the number of people in work rose to a record, pushing the labor market closer to “full capacity,” according to the statistics office. The number of jobless fell 7,000 in the fourth quarter to 1.6 million people, leaving the unemployment rate at 4.8 percent, the lowest in more than a decade. ...

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• 19 February

  Accor expands luxury vacation-rental offering

    Bloomberg Accor SA, Europe’s biggest hotel operator, is expanding its luxury vacation-rental offering with listings in the Hamptons, Wall Street’s summer playground. The Long Island rentals cost as much as $2 million for the season and are the first launches in the Collections portfolio of Accor’s onefinestay unit, according to a company statement. More sites will be added over ...

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• 19 February

  Toll Brothers to pay taxes on Manhattan condos to lure in buyers

  

    Bloomberg Luxury developer Toll Brothers Inc. has a deal for those shopping for a condo in Manhattan: buy something soon, and we’ll pay the taxes on your purchase. The publicly traded homebuilder is offering to pay the city transfer tax and the New York state “mansion tax” — an effective discount totaling almost 2.5 percent — on deals made ...

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• 19 February

  Race for home power storage pits UK startup against Tesla

  

    Bloomberg A UK energy-storage startup is aiming to take on Tesla Inc. in the competition to outfit homes with affordable back-up battery power. Powervault Ltd. is preparing to boost production of its lead- and lithium-ion batteries, said Managing Director Joe Warren. The London-based company is targeting sales of 50,000 units a year by 2020, up from about 1,000 this ...

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• 19 February

  Mosquito traps go smart

  

    Bloomberg A smart trap for mosquitoes? A new high-tech version is promising to catch the bloodsuckers while letting friendlier insects escape — and even record the exact weather conditions when different species emerge to bite. Whether it really could improve public health is still to be determined. But when the robotic traps were pilot-tested around Houston last summer, they ...

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• 19 February

  Microsoft taps health sector with Cloud, AI

  

    Bloomberg Microsoft Corp. is trying again in health care, betting its prowess in cloud services and artificial-intelligence can help it expand in a market that’s been notoriously hard for technology companies. A new initiative called Healthcare NExT will combine work from existing industry players and Microsoft’s Research and AI units to help doctors reduce data entry tasks, triage sick ...

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• 19 February

  ‘Pokemon’ needs permit to enter Milwaukee parks

    MILWAUKEE / AP “Pokemon Go” monsters can roam virtually wherever they please, but they’ll need a permit to get into Milwaukee County parks. At the height of the game’s popularity last summer, the large crowds it attracted to one Milwaukee park left county officials at a loss for how to deal with the sudden influx of players and the ...

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