☕️ A royal ‘Uno reverse’ - Sultan Selangor instructed JAIS not to obstruct the Bon Odori festival

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1. MARKET SUMMARY

Maybank Investment Bank expects RM3 bil in initial public offering (IPO) in the second half of 2022 (H2 2022).

2. NUMBERS AT A GLANCE

USD18,375 — monthly ad revenue made by Spotify podcaster from playing nothing but white noise with 50,000 listens per day.

125,878 — number of HIV/AIDS patients nationwide as of Dec 2020, with 90% of them being men, according to the Health Ministry.

USD6 mil - the amount estimated by Steven Tyler, 74, the Aerosmith singer behind the classic Armageddon’s “I don’t want to miss a thing” soundtrack on his lifetime amount spent on cocaine. He voluntarily checked in for rehab last the two weeks, for at least the ninth time. Give it a read — a rock n roll lifestyle indeed he had.

3. IN MALAYSIA 🇲🇾

1. A royal ‘Uno reverse’ - Selangor Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah has instructed JAIS not to obstruct the Bon Odori festival. He sees that the festival is merely a social program amongst the employees of Japanese-owned companies in Selangor and it will not deteriorate the beliefs of Muslims.

2. Law minister Wan Junaidi announced that the much-anticipated anti-party hopping Bill will be presented in Dewan Rakyat in July. The Bill, if passed, will prevent MPs from hopping from one party to another for personal gain. Since the 2018 general elections, a total of 39 MPs had jumped parties.Hopefully, this bill can bring political stability to our country, which has changed PM, three times in the span of 5 years. Singapore, in its 63 years of independence, had only 3 PMs.

3. Sarawak’s State Premier Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg said Sarawak will continue using English as the official language alongside Bahasa Melayu, as per the Sarawak Constitution. This comes after the chief secretary to the Government said on May 24 that the Public Service Department need to look into actions against public officers that do not empower the use of Bahasa Melayu in public services.We need similar gusto and energy towards tackling corruption, not just towards language and Bon Odori.

4. Phase 1 of the Putrajaya Line is finally ready! After much delay due to technical issues, the first phase will commence on July 16. 12 stations will be opened, from Kwasa Damansara station to Kampung Batu station, spanning 17.5 km of rail tracks. However, the Putrajaya Line’s project director, Amiruddin Ma’aris is wary of the ridership numbers due to an increase in private vehicle purchases. The second phase of the Putrajaya Line will begin operations next January.

5. Malaysia recorded the fastest growth in total trade value (export plus import values) since 1994, recording a double-digit growth of 24.8% o RM2.2 trillion in 2021 from RM1.8 trillion in 2020. According to the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM), the expansion of exports and imports is significant in several industries, such as electronics and refined petroleum products.

6. Malaysian (or is it Singaporean) unicorn and car e-commerce platform, Carsome goes O2O (online-to-offline) by launching its largest brick and mortar, 100,000 sq feet showroom in Petaling Jaya. The showroom can house more than 200 cars and is expected to strengthen the company’s O2O hybrid offering and improve customers’ experience. Carsome has over 1,600 cars listed in its online inventory. You can get your loan approved in a day itself at the showroom.

4. AROUND THE WORLD 🌎

1. Apple iPhone soon will be legally required to use a USB-C port instead of its current Lightning port for charging if it wants to sell its phones in the European Union bloc. The new legislation will be put in place, enforcing a common charging standard on portable devices to reduce electronic waste and improve consumer convenience, which will go into effect from the fall of 2024. Apple opposed this EU proposal saying it would harm innovation. 

2. Rising energy prices has put a strain on Pakistan’s energy infrastructure, with its information minister calling it an “extraordinary situation”. So much so that the public sector has to step up to reduce its power consumption. Amongst energy-savings measures taken, which employees would like - the government has ended Saturdays as a work day for its staff and Fridays being considered a mandatory work-from-home day.

3. Another shock to the global supply chain as thousands of truck drivers in South Korea have gone on strike at major ports and container depots as the government is abolishing current rules that guarantee a minimum wage for drivers amid rising fuel prices. Busan is the world’s seventh-largest port.

4. Not only China fudged its numbers — Australia too. A UK think-tank Ember has found the current methods used to calculate methane emission in Australia are wrong and massively underestimated — in the worst case, off by a factor of 10x. One of Australia’s primary sources of methane is coal mines as Australia ranks second for coal exports and is amongst the world’s top methane emitters. Methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide as it has more than 80x the heating power of the latter. 

5. OnlyFans, the go-to fan monetisation site popular with adult content creators, said that it is not experiencing a slowdown in subscribers like Netflix (subscribers dropped by 200k in Q1, the first-ever decline for the video streaming site in more than a decade). The company, with over 1,000 employees globally, is also in a hiring mode, with its team increasing by 2-3% monthly. Interestingly, this information was shared by its chief strategy and operations officer at the Money 20/20 fintech conference. It’s hard for one to see how OnlyFans is associated with fintech — it has built up a sizeable payments business, not just in processing subscriptions but also in making payments to creators to the tune of USD18 mil payouts daily.

6. The Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia’s USD500 bil sovereign wealth fund, continues its stake-building expansion in video game makers and e-sports firms globally with a USD1 bil investment for a 8.1% stake in Sweden’s Embracer Group AB, making it the second-largest shareholder. The SWF bought ESL, one of the largest esports companies in the world, in January for USD1.05 bil in enterprise value and last month, it also picked up a 5.01% stake in Nintendo Co. 

7. As regulatory scrutiny eases for China’s ride-hailing giant Didi Global, the company now seeks to own a third in a state-backed electric vehicle (EV) maker Sinomach Automobile, which would cost it more than RMB1 bil (USD150 mil). The talks are said to be at an advanced stage and will have until the end of the month to close. Didi has quietly been pushing with its car-making project, codenamed “Da Vinci”, and has about 2,000 people working in this unit, according to sources. 

5. FOR YOUR EYES 👁👁

1. How poise, how eloquent the way Muhammad Lutfi, Indonesia’s Trade Minister, speaks and carries himself. Those who have the opportunity to be posted to Indonesia should learn a thing or two from Lutfi. Read his background here.

2. The history of OK.

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