TOKYO, JAPAN: Rakuten Card Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of Rakuten Inc. has resolved to establish a company titled Rakuten Bank America to commence a banking operation in the United States, with an investment of USD 400 million. Rakuten Bank America would undertake credit card issuing and acquiring, personal loans, business loans and deposits. Since…
Vedanta fully unwinds the Cairn India Holdings structured investment with $100 million gains
MUMBAI, INDIA: Cairn India Holdings Limited (CIHL), an overseas subsidiary of Vedanta Limited, and Volcan Investments Limited have agreed to unwind entirely the structured investment entered between them in December 2018 ahead of the originally envisaged schedule. With this, Volcan Investments will exercise the early exchange option available to it on 26 July 2019 and…
SoftBank Group plans SoftBank Vision Fund 2
SINGAPORE: SoftBank Group Corp. (SBG) has planned establishment of “SoftBank Vision Fund 2”, a new private investment fund. The objective of the Fund is to facilitate the continued acceleration of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution through investment in market-leading, tech-enabled growth companies. The total expected contribution of capital to the Fund has reached approximately USD…
BSE signs MoU with Shanghai Stock Exchange
MUMBAI, INDIA: BSE, India’s premier exchange, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Shanghai Stock Exchange to facilitate the development of channels of communication and to foster a continuing relationship between the parties for the benefit of financial services industry in the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of India. The MoU is…
3i Infrastructure plc agrees to acquire Ionisos
LONDON: 3i Infrastructure plc has agreed to invest €220 million to acquire up to 100% of Ionisos, a leading owner and operator of cold sterilisation facilities servicing the medical, pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries, from Ardian Expansion. Completion is expected to take place in September. Established in 1993 in Civrieux, France, Ionisos is the third largest…
Rightmove announces acquisition of Van Mildert
LONDON, UK: Rightmove plc, the UK’s number one property website, announced the acquisition of 100% of the issued share capital of Van Mildert, a company that provides tenant referencing services and rent guarantee insurance products. Van Mildert has a strong brand and is well positioned within the rental marketplace. The products and operational experience of…
Versarien signs LoI with global apparel manufacturer
LONDON: Versarien plc, the advanced materials engineering group, has signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) with the company’s textile sector collaboration partner covering the initial launch of high performance sportswear incorporating Versarien’s graphene ink technology. The partner, who has a collaboration agreement with the company, as announced on 8 January 2018, is headquartered in Asia…
Xcina Consulting secures three year contract with Parkmobile
LONDON: Shearwater Group plc, the organisational resilience group, announced that its group company Xcina Consulting has won a multi-year contract to deliver a qualified security assessment of Parkmobile’s UK and NL card data environment to ensure that its business is compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS). Parkmobile, part of the BMW…
Atlantis successfully decommissions 1.2 MW SeaGen tidal system in industry first
LONDON, UK: SIMEC Atlantis Energy Limited, the global developer, owner and operator of sustainable energy projects, has successfully decommissioned the SeaGen tidal turbine support structure in Strangford Narrows, Northern Ireland. This marks the completion of the 1.2MW SeaGen tidal stream energy project lifecycle and is the first commercial scale tidal turbine development to be fully…
redT flow machine first to qualify for UK Frequency Response service
LONDON, UK: redT energy plc, the energy storage solutions company, announced that one of its 300kWh flow machines, situated at a customer site in Southern England, has successfully gained pre-qualification status to provide Dynamic Firm Frequency Response (FFR) services to the UK grid following testing conducted by leading UK aggregator, Open Energi. Dynamic FFR is…
Vodafone to create Europe’s largest tower company
LONDON: Having secured network sharing agreements in several key markets, Vodafone Group Plc announced Friday that it is proceeding with plans to monetise a substantial proportion of its European tower infrastructure during the next 18 months, including the previously announced intention to combine Vodafone Italy’s passive tower infrastructure with Inwit S.p.A. Vodafone has recently announced…
Pakistan’s overall urea sales grow 5pc to 2.87 million tons
KARACHI: Urea sales grew five percent year-on-year to 2.87 million tons in the last six months as buyers rushed to pile up stocks ahead of price hike and rainfalls boosted its demand for summer crops, a brokerage reported on Thursday. Urea sales stood at 2.72 million tons in the corresponding period a year earlier. Analyst…