[Wal Mart] Wal Mart China will continue to increase its investment in the logistics supply chain. In addition to the first customized fresh food distribution center in South China that has just been put into use, it plans to invest about 8 billion yuan in China in the next decade to upgrade the logistics supply chain, which will be used to build or upgrade more than 10 logistics distribution centers. Wal Mart South China Fresh Food Distribution Center has invested more than 700 million yuan, which is the largest single investment of Wal Mart since its entry into China 23 years ago. It has been running smoothly since March this year. At present, it serves more than 100 Wal Mart stores in Guangdong and Guangxi, with a daily processing capacity of up to 165000 boxes.
Huawei has established a 5G deterministic network industry alliance and industrial innovation base with over 30 industry partners. Huawei has proposed the concept of 5G deterministic network for the first time, based on the native cloud super distributed architecture. Through key technologies such as high-performance heterogeneous MEC and dynamic intelligent network slicing, a cloud is used to meet the industry's 'differentiated network needs and deterministic SLAs'. Alliance members will rely on industrial innovation bases to jointly incubate innovative solutions for the 5G industry, fully leverage the differentiation and deterministic network capabilities of 5G, promote more industry applications, and make 5G the core productivity of industry digitization.
BMW Group and Daimler AG have announced that they have reached a long-term cooperation agreement to jointly develop autonomous driving technology with approximately 1200 developers from both companies. The strategic cooperation between the two sides will focus on assisted driving systems, highway autonomous driving, and automatic parking technology. It is expected that these technologies will begin commercial deployment starting from 2024. The two companies also stated that the results of this cooperation will be provided to other licensed original equipment manufacturers. In addition, both sides are preparing to expand cooperation, involving higher levels of automation technology in urban areas and urban centers.
Samsung has reached a cooperation agreement with NVIDIA to contract the production of the next generation graphics processor (GPU). Nvidia's next generation GPU will be produced by Samsung using a 7-nanometer extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) process. Nvidia also stated that its efforts to acquire Israeli chip design company Mellanox are in the final stages. In March of this year, Nvidia announced that it would acquire Mellanox for $6.9 billion in cash.
As Ford embarks on a comprehensive restructuring, Ford Motor will lay off 12000 European jobs, accounting for 20% of the total number of employees in the region. The countries hardest hit by this layoff include Germany, the UK, and Russia. Ford Motor Corporation stated that its financial performance in Europe is expected to significantly improve throughout 2019. On July 1st, it will launch a new business model and a new car lineup in Europe, and by the end of 2020, its production base in Europe will be reduced from 24 to 18.
Siemens Transportation and its partner Beijing Zongheng Electromechanical Technology Co., Ltd. (Zongheng Electromechanical) recently won the fully automatic train traction system project for the first phase of Beijing Metro Line 19, which will provide traction systems for 25 fully automatic trains on the line. Beijing Rail Transit Line 19 is the first traction system project won by Siemens Transportation and Zongheng Electromechanical in Beijing.
Amazon announced on Tuesday that it plans to create 1800 permanent contract positions in France this year, which will increase its total number of formal employees in France to 9300. Since 2010, the company has invested over 2 billion euros here. Amazon is currently the largest e-commerce company in France, with a market share of 17.3%, but its share in the local grocery market is only 2%.
HP Dell and other large American personal computer companies have started discussing transferring up to 30% of laptop production in China to Southeast Asia and other regions. Amazon and Microsoft are also discussing with their partners to decentralize their production sites for gaming consoles and other products. In Chongqing, where both HP and Dell have production sites, the production of laptops in 2019 will decrease by half compared to two years ago. Electronic equipment OEM service providers plan to switch to producing smartphones or other electronic products for the domestic market in China.
Facebook and Google: Recently, UK competition regulators have begun investigating the dominance of Facebook and Google in the field of digital advertising. The UK Competition and Market Authority (CMA) stated on Wednesday that they are evaluating whether online platforms are harming consumers and competitors in the UK digital advertising market. It specifically mentions Google and Facebook, which account for 61% of the country's digital advertising revenue.
Johnson&Johnson's first startup incubation base in Asia Pacific has been opened in Zhangjiang, Shanghai. This is Johnson&Johnson Innovation's largest startup incubation base in the world, and also the first JLABS in the Asia Pacific region. It can accommodate nearly 50 innovative entities, covering fields including pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, consumer goods, and medical technology. So far, 31 companies have settled in, including three winning companies in the Shanghai Lung Cancer QuickFire Challenge, namely DNX Biopharmaceuticals Inc, Hawkeye Bio and NE Scientific LLC.
[Sony] Sony and Daiwa Securities Group headquarters will cooperate to cultivate potential unlisted enterprises. Both parties will establish an investment fund with a total amount of over 20 billion yen in 2019 through a joint venture. The investment period is expected to be around 10 years, with billions to billions of yen each invested in emerging enterprises such as robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), and financial technology. The investment target is not only limited to domestic Japan, but also covers overseas enterprises selected by Sony's European and American bases. Sony has been using its own funds to invest in over 40 newly established companies since 2016. In the future, we will utilize the financial strength of the fund to invest in large-scale enterprises that have not yet been listed.
The European Commission has stated that GlaxoSmithKline has made concessions to address EU antitrust concerns about its plan to establish a consumer health business joint venture with Pfizer. A document submitted by the EU competition enforcement agency on its website shows that the agency will decide whether to accept the proposal by July 10th, demand more investigations, and conduct a comprehensive investigation. GlaxoSmithKline announced this deal in December last year, which will put it ahead of competitors Johnson&Johnson, Bayer, and Sanofi.
Airbus Group recently announced that its helicopter business unit and the French Ministry of Transport will jointly host and launch a research plan to modify the existing single engine helicopter test platform to enable it to use hybrid propulsion systems. The plan will conduct validation flights in 2020, with a focus on testing the integration of the electric backup system installed on this hybrid helicopter, providing pure electric power support for the rotor system for approximately 30 seconds without the need for main gas turbine engine power support
Anheuser Busch InBev, a subsidiary of brewer Anheuser Busch InBev, is seeking to raise up to $9.8 billion through an initial public offering (IPO), which is expected to become the largest public offering this year and the largest ever IPO for a food or beverage company. Budweiser Brewing Company APAC Ltd.'s Hong Kong IPO began accepting cumulative bids on Tuesday and plans to list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on July 19th. The transaction values Budweiser Asia Pacific at no more than $63.7 billion. Budweiser Asia Pacific IPO will help Budweiser InBev reduce its massive debt and facilitate its own acquisitions in the Asia Pacific region.
Recently, Bayer announced the joint development of a cancer immune drug using iPS cells with Japan's FUJIFILM Holdings. Drugs using iPS cells have not yet been practical in the world, and in this context, the two companies will use third-party iPS cells outside of patients to promote development. The previous iPS cell cancer immunotherapy in Japan required tens of millions of yen per medication, which was expensive, but using the methods of these two companies may result in a decrease in costs. The development cost is expected to be $250 million, with nearly 90% borne by Bayer.
Deutsche Bank has reached an agreement with the labor agreement on layoffs. Deutsche Bank will merge three entities, BHW Kreditservice GmbH, Postbank Service GmbH, and PCC Services GmbH, before August 31st. The merger will affect the entire operating unit. The operations department will reduce approximately 1300 internal and external positions by 2022 through coordination, process optimization, and automation.
[Shipbuilding Industry] China Shipbuilding Industry Co., the two largest shipbuilding enterprise groups in China, and China State Shipbuilding Corp. plan a strategic restructuring. If approved, this merger transaction will create the world's second largest shipbuilding enterprise. In terms of deadweight tons, the sum of the two companies' handheld orders last year accounted for approximately 13% of the total global orders. Twenty years ago, China Shipbuilding Heavy Industry was spun off and established from China Shipbuilding Group.
AbbVie Inc., an American pharmaceutical giant, announced that it will acquire Allergan plc, an Irish based manufacturer of the anti wrinkle drug Botox, in cash and stock, with a transaction equity value of approximately $63 billion. The acquisition transaction is expected to be completed in early 2020. Abervi stated that this acquisition is aimed at developing rapidly growing treatment businesses such as medical beauty and eye care, and driving the transformation of the two companies. The combined revenue of the two companies in 2019 was approximately $48 billion. After the merger transaction is completed, the headquarters of the new company Aberville will continue to be located in Delaware, USA.
[Suning] Suning International, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Suning Easy Buy, plans to invest 4.8 billion yuan to acquire 80% shares of Carrefour China. After the completion of this transaction, Suning Ego will become the controlling shareholder of Carrefour China, and the shareholding ratio of Carrefour Group will be reduced to 20%. After the acquisition of Suning, it will achieve leapfrog development in the category of large and fast moving consumer goods. It will organically combine Carrefour's professional experience in the operation of fast moving consumer goods and supply chain capabilities with Suning's full scene retail model, three-dimensional logistics distribution network and powerful technical means to improve the O2O layout in the category of large and fast moving consumer goods, which is conducive to reducing procurement and logistics costs and improving market competitiveness and profitability.
Multinational Corporation Dynamics [2019. 07. 12]
[Wal Mart] When Wal Mart invested 16 billion dollars to acquire the controlling right of Flipkart online service company, an Indian e-commerce pioneer, as part of the transaction, the American retail giant obtained a little-known mobile payment subsidiary, PhonePe. Today, PhonePe is becoming one of the best start-ups in India. The valuation of its payment business is 10 billion dollars, and the volume and amount of payment transactions have quadrupled, which is a windfall of Wal Mart's acquisition.
Toyota Motor will accelerate the construction of a dominant system. The new travel service company jointly established by the company and SoftBank has received funding from five companies, including Mazda and Suzuki, and has also surfaced its participation in the Baidu led autonomous driving development alliance. Toyota strives to become a platform provider in the automotive industry and will work with a wide range of companies to gain a leading advantage.
CNOOC and Sinopec agreed on Wednesday to collaborate in different sea areas of China to reduce exploration risks and increase returns. Earlier this week, PetroChina and Sinopec also signed a joint research framework agreement on the three continental basins of China - Tarim, Junggar, and Sichuan - involving 81 exploration rights and a total area of approximately 305800 square kilometers.
Apple Inc. has compensated Samsung Electronics with 800 billion Korean won (approximately $683 million) to cover Samsung's cost of manufacturing OLED panels due to failing to meet the sales targets previously achieved by the two companies. Apple previously promised to purchase a specific number of phone screens from Samsung. But disappointing iPhone sales mean that Apple is simply unable to fulfill the agreement. For this reason, Apple paid Samsung this compensation in the second quarter of this year.
Volkswagen Mexico announced on Wednesday that its factory in Puebla, Mexico will begin producing Tarek sport utility vehicles (SUVs) from 2020 and will begin selling them to the North American market by the end of 2021. The Volkswagen Puebla factory originally produced Beetle cars, and the company's last Beetle car had previously driven off the production line here, ending the nearly 80 year history of this classic model.
Alphabet's subsidiary Google will acquire California enterprise cloud storage service provider Elastifile. The acquisition of Elastify comes as Google adjusts its cloud business to improve profitability. Google did not disclose the specific transaction amount. Elastifile was founded in 2014 and had already raised $74 million before that. The company mainly develops file storage solutions for Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft Azure.
Citigroup plans to increase its recruitment of senior banking talents in major industries and markets. The bank is seeking to expand its healthcare and technology industry team, and also hopes to increase the influence of local matchmaking transactions in some emerging markets. The company began reform last year by merging investment banking and capital market businesses to integrate financing and consulting products and provide customers with more comprehensive services.
Amazon: The French Senate has officially approved a 3% digital tax on US technology giants such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook, which means that both houses of the French parliament have approved the bill, greatly accelerating the pace of France's official collection of digital service taxes. It is reported that the tax is levied on companies with global digital service revenue of no less than 750 million euros, and at least 25 million euros of this revenue comes from France, with a tax rate of 3%. France was preparing for this digital tax bill at the beginning of this year, which will impose a 3% digital tax on approximately 30 internet giants, most of whom are from the United States, including some European countries such as the UK and Germany.
Due to the continued backlog of 737 MAX aircraft, Boeing Co.'s delivery of commercial jet aircraft in the first half of 2019 was year-on-year