☕️ World No.7 badminton player Lee Zii Jia starts own club - Lee Zii Jia Badminton Club

1. MARKET SUMMARY

2. NUMBERS AT A GLANCE

RM600,000 (AUD200,000) — the amount spent by an Australian woman to treat her French Bulldog’s condition that resulted from dodgy breeding practices. The dog's health is so precarious that she is allergic to 700 types of trees and can only survive with a diet of crocodile meat and a hypoallergenic biscuit.

5,044,000 of Tesla Inc. shares worth about USD5.74 bil were donated by Elon Musk to an unknown charity, based on Telsa Inc’s filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Analysts said Musk gets tax benefits for giving Tesla shares as shares that are donated to charity are not subject to capital gains tax.

USD555.9 bil — global semiconductor industry sales in 2021, up 26.2% YoY, according to the US-based Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). The industry shipped 1.15 trillion semiconductor units last year.

3. COVID-19 SUMMARY

• Malaysia’s daily new Covid-19 cases reached an all-time high of 27,831 cases yesterday. Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham pointed out that only 97 cases were in Categories Three to Five, which requires hospitalisation.

• Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) between Malaysia and Singapore resumes with 100% seating capacity for both land and air travel with immediate effect after assessing the current Covid-19 situation, says Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong. VTL by air to Penang and Kota Kinabalu is in advanced discussion.

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4. IN MALAYSIA 🇲🇾

1. World No.7 badminton player Lee Zii Jia has taken the first step forward as a professional shuttler by forming his own badminton club - Lee Zii Jia Badminton Club. Indonesian coach, Indra Wijaya will be joining him as Wijaya’s tenure as the national women’s singles coach under BAM ends on Mar 31, 2022, revealed by Deputy Youth and Sports Minister Ti Lian Ker.

2. The Securities Commission (SC) is scheduled to meet the Parliament Special Select Committee (PSSC) on Finance and Economy today to explain its finding on MACC chief Azam Baki share ownership controversy. Azam Baki earlier claimed that his brother used his trading account to acquire shares of listed companies, however, the SC’s investigation found no evidence of proxy trading.

3. Warisan, the Sabah-based party will be competing in the upcoming Johor state election this Mar 12, 2022, its president Shafie Apdal confirmed. The party is unsure whether it will contest on its own or with another party and will soon announce the number of seats it will be contesting. Shafie Apdal added that they were in talks with MUDA as well and is awaiting their feedback. Warisan is using this state election as a preparation for GE15 that may be held this year. As much as Warisan is testing the waters in Peninsular Malaysia, the chance of Warisan winning any seats seems slim - it has little to offer being a newly found, Sabah-based party and lacking any home advantage. 

4. Highlights from Sime Darby’s quarterly performance press conference: 

   1. Sime Darby Bhd (SDB) believes electric vehicle (EV) adoption will accelerate in the country with government support and it is seeing strong demand for its BMW iX model. It will be selling 3 completely built-up (CBU) models of the BMW EV and 1 Volvo EV and has no plan yet to assemble it in Malaysia. CBU are cars that are assembled in a foreign country. Locally assembled will be referred as completely knocked down (CKD). The company is exploring to be a charging station provider throughout the country, akin to petrol stations. 

   2. With regards to its healthcare business, Ramsay Sime Darby Health Care Sdn Bhd, SDB has decided to shelve its IPO as it looks at other avenues to grow. It was reported earlier the group plans to list its healthcare arm at a USD300 mil (RM1.25 bil) valuation. RSDHC was founded in 2013 when Sime Darby and Australia’s Ramsay Health combined several hospitals in Southeast Asia in a 50:50 joint venture 

   3. Its plantation arm, Sime Darby Plantation (SDP) will reimburse its current and former foreign workers recruitment fees totalling RM82.02 mil on Feb 17, 2022, following comprehensive audits both internally and by independent organisations. A total of 15,078 current foreign workers will receive a sum of RM38.55 mil (RM2.55k average per person) and 19,565 former foreign workers will receive RM43.47 mil (RM2.22k average per person). SDP said it will implement new governance and structural changes to ensure its workers’ welfare and wellbeing are improved. 

   4. For its financial highlights, revenue fell 6.29% yoy to RM10.54 bil from RM11.24 bil and earnings fell by 45.5% to RM345 mil compared to RM633 mil yoy, which benefited from a one-off gain of RM272 mil from the divestment of its stake in Tesco Malaysia. 

5. Capital A Bhd to potentially one-up Grab in urban mobility — that’s if it ever successfully launch its vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) mobility service. Its unit, AirAsia Aviation Group Ltd, has entered into a non-binding MoU with international aircraft leasing company Avolon Aerospace Leasing to study the feasibility of urban air mobility in the ASEAN region and the possibility of leasing up to 100 VX4 electric VTOL aircraft (watch the video below).

6. Aeon Co (M) Bhd and Aeon Big (M) Sdn Bhd have raised the minimum wage of its employees to RM1,500 per month from RM1,200 effective Jan 1, 2022, earlier than the date recommended by the government, which is by the end of 2022.  

7. Despite the failure of Genting HK Ltd, several investors are interested to purchase the Global Dream mega luxury liner that was still under construction at Genting HK’s now-insolvent shipbuilder MV Werften in Germany. One of the interested parties includes the owner of Genting HK, Lim Kok Thay. The 342-metre liner is set to be the world’s biggest vessel by passenger capacity that cost USD1.8 bil and was about 72% complete when the German government and Genting couldn’t agree in Dec on plans to finance USD620 mil to help finish it.

5. AROUND THE WORLD 🌎

1. The 1MDB trial involving former Goldman Sachs banker, Roger Ng, started on Monday. US prosecutors allege Ng siphoned off millions of dollars from 1MDB and received USD35 mil from his former boss, Timothy Leissner, for his role in the scheme. Ng faces up to 20 years in jail for the money laundering charge and five years for each of the two bribery charges if he is found guilty. Defence lawyer Marc Agnifilo said his client was not involved in the scheme and said the money was meant for Ng’s wife. Kudos for his story’s originality — at least it wasn’t for his brother’s account.

2. Akulaku Inc., an Indonesian online lender backed by Ant Group Co., has pulled in USD100 million from Siam Commercial Bank Plc. to expand its business in the region. The online lender is mulling a US listing via a merger with SPAC that values the combined entity at about USD2 bil.

3. Funding Societies, a P2P lending platform, raised USD144 mil in a funding round led by SoftBank Group’s SoftBank Vision Fund 2 to expand further in the region. The seven-year-old company said other new investors included the Vietnamese tech group, VNG Corp.

4. China has a committee for metaverse — China Mobile Communications Association’s Metaverse Industry Committee. The committee has admitted 17 new firms, including three listed companies. Many experts have said China’s metaverse efforts lag other countries, but interest has increased. According to business tracking firm Tianyancha, the government has seen 10,000 metaverse related trademarks application in the past year.

5. DBS’s members-only DBS Digital Exchange (DDEx) recorded over SGD1.1 bil in trading value in 2021 for its first full year of operations. Trading volume in 4QFY21 stood close to SGD800 mil, which could be explained by the fact the DDEx went operational 24/7 in August 2021. The bank plans to launch cryptocurrency trading services for retail clients this year.

6. Red Bull Racing scored a three-year partnership with Singapore-based crypto trading platform Bybit for USD50 million per year. Bybit will act as an issuer of fan tokens and as a tech incubator for Red Bull Racing as part of the deal. The partnership aims to enhance the experience of F1 fans through innovations in the digital space.

7. Prince Andrew settled a US lawsuit by Virginia Giuffre accusing him of sexually abusing her when she was a teenager for an undisclosed payment. The prince did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement. Andrew’s lawyers had contended that Giuffre’s lawsuit was “baseless”, but why did they settle then?

8. Private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners announced it would buy MoneyGram International Inc in a USD1.8 bil deal, for USD11 per share, a 23% premium to the stock’s close on Monday. MoneyGram has nearly USD800 mil in debt, making it an attractive acquisition target as it struggled to capture the growing market for payments and remittances.

6. FOR YOUR VIEWING PLEASURE 👁👁

1. New Zealand scientists discovered a rare baby ghost shark — also known as chimaera at a dept of about 1.2km underwater near the South Island.

2. We were so close to not being able to watch Toy Story 2. Full story here.

3. A sheepdog parkouring and clearing traffic jam caused by sheeps