Hong Kong's New World Development actively engaged' with creditors on loan refinance
[BENGALURU] Hong Kong's New World Development said on Monday (Jun 23) it remains 'actively engaged' with creditors to refinance existing loans and that talks are ongoing.
The update follows media reports that the Hong Kong property developer, which has one of the highest debt ratios among its peers, is nearing a loan refinancing deal.
Last week, Bloomberg News reported that the company was close to securing a HK$87.5 billion (S$14 billion) deal, citing sources with knowledge of the matter.
Markets are closely watching New World's debt issues, wondering if they might signal a sector crisis similar to the one that hit mainland China in 2021.
The company paid US dollar bond interest, due on Jun 16, Reuters reported earlier this month, citing sources, after the developer flagged it would defer coupon payments worth US$77.2 million on four perpetual bonds scheduled for June. REUTERS
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Straits Times
15 minutes ago
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DeepSeek aids China's military and evaded export controls, US official says
The US official said DeepSeek is sharing user information and statistics with Beijing's surveillance apparatus. PHOTO: REUTERS DeepSeek aids China's military and evaded export controls, US official says WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO - AI firm DeepSeek is aiding China's military and intelligence operations, a senior US official told Reuters, adding that the Chinese tech startup sought to use South-east Asian shell companies to access high-end semiconductors that cannot be shipped to China under US rules. Hangzhou-based DeepSeek sent shockwaves through the technology world in January, claiming its artificial intelligence reasoning models were on par with or better than US industry-leading models at a fraction of the cost. 'We understand that DeepSeek has willingly provided and will likely continue to provide support to China's military and intelligence operations,' a senior State Department official told Reuters in an interview. 'This effort goes above and beyond open-source access to DeepSeek's AI models,' the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to speak about US government information. The US government's assessment of DeepSeek's activities and links to the Chinese government have not been previously reported and come amid a wide-scale US-China trade war. Among the allegations, the official said DeepSeek is sharing user information and statistics with Beijing's surveillance apparatus. Chinese law requires companies operating in China to provide data to the government when requested. But the suggestion that DeepSeek is already doing so is likely to raise privacy and other concerns for the firm's tens of millions of daily global users. The US also maintains restrictions on companies it believes are linked to China's military-industrial complex. US lawmakers have previously said that DeepSeek, based on its privacy disclosure statements, transmits American users' data to China through 'backend infrastructure' connected to China Mobile, a Chinese state-owned telecommunications giant. DeepSeek did not respond to questions about its privacy practices. The company is also referenced more than 150 times in procurement records for China's People's Liberation Army and other entities affiliated with the Chinese defense industrial base, said the official, adding that DeepSeek had provided technology services to PLA research institutions. Reuters could not independently verify the procurement data. The official also said the company was employing workarounds to US export controls to gain access to advanced US-made chips. The US conclusions reflect a growing scepticism in Washington that the capabilities behind the rapid rise of one of China's flagship AI enterprises may have been exaggerated and relied heavily on US technology. DeepSeek has access to 'large volumes' of US firm Nvidia's high-end H100 chips, said the official. Since 2022 those chips have been under US export restrictions due to Washington's concerns that China could use them to advance its military capabilities or jump ahead in the AI race. 'DeepSeek sought to use shell companies in South-east Asia to evade export controls, and DeepSeek is seeking to access data centres in South-east Asia to remotely access US chips,' the official said. The official declined to say if DeepSeek had successfully evaded export controls or offer further details about the shell companies. DeepSeek also did not respond to questions about its acquisition of Nvidia chips or the alleged use of shell companies. When asked if the US would implement further export controls or sanctions against DeepSeek, the official said the department had 'nothing to announce at this time.' China's foreign ministry and commerce ministry did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. 'We do not support parties that have violated US export controls or are on the US entity lists,' an Nvidia spokesman said in a prepared statement, adding that 'with the current export controls, we are effectively out of the China data centre market, which is now served only by competitors such as Huawei.' Access to restricted chips DeepSeek has said two of its AI models that Silicon Valley executives and US tech company engineers have showered with praise – DeepSeek-V3 and DeepSeek-R1 – are on par with OpenAI and Meta's most advanced models. AI experts, however, have expressed scepticism, arguing the true costs of training the models were likely much higher than the US$5.58 million (S$7.22 million) the startup said was spent on computing power. Reuters has previously reported that US officials were investigating whether DeepSeek had access to restricted AI chips. DeepSeek has H100 chips that it procured after the US banned Nvidia from selling those chips to China, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, adding that the number was far smaller than the 50,000 H100s that the CEO of another AI startup had claimed DeepSeek possesses in a January interview with CNBC. Reuters was unable to verify the number of H100 chips DeepSeek has. 'Our review indicates that DeepSeek used lawfully acquired H800 products, not H100,' an Nvidia spokesman said, responding to a Reuters query about DeepSeek's alleged usage of H100 chips. In February, Singapore charged three men with fraud in a case domestic media have linked to the movement of Nvidia's advanced chips from the city state to DeepSeek. China has also been suspected of finding ways to use advanced US chips remotely. 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Business Times
23 minutes ago
- Business Times
Investors ignore world-changing news. Rightly
MISSILE warfare has erupted in the Middle East. On Jun 13, as the bombs began to fly, S&P 500 futures fell by 1.6 per cent. But as the hours passed, the stock market steadily climbed. The index has now recovered to around 6,000, a hair's breadth from an all-time high. Such movements reflect a new market mantra: 'Nothing ever happens.' The phrase emerged from the depths of 4chan, an online forum, more than a decade ago, and has become a popular meme among youngish investors. On the face of it, the saying seems wildly out of place in an era of both trade war and conventional conflict. But consider the long list of recent events that at first seemed to have epoch-making potential, only to fizzle out, and it appears more reasonable. Examples include China's anti-lockdown protests, the Wagner Group's rebellion in Russia, and skirmishes between India and Pakistan. Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are still in charge. Nuclear war has been avoided. And so cynicism prevails, dips are bought and markets continue to climb. Retail investors are getting in on the act, too. They have piled into stocks, buying US$20 billion worth, net, over the past three months. Crisis, what crisis? The head-in-the-sand approach is a more sophisticated strategy than it first appears, and not just because headlines tend to go over the top. BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up As far back as 1988, a paper by David Cutler and James Poterba, then both of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Larry Summers, then of Harvard University, sought to establish what really moves stock prices. The trio looked at almost five decades of world-changing events, from Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 to the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown in 1986. They were surprised to discover that the volatility of returns (as measured by the standard deviation) on the day of an important news event was less than three times as large as on an ordinary day. Several of the biggest one-day falls identified by the authors occurred on days without an obvious news-related spark. Geopolitical threats are often pregnant with all-or-nothing outcomes that are difficult to price. This is especially true of the most potentially devastating events, which involve the risk of nuclear war. Take the example of South Korea, which has a stock market worth US$2 trillion that could be reduced to rubble by its belligerent northern neighbour. How should an investor price the threat? For South Koreans, hedging against such an outcome is all but impossible. Many prefer to ignore the prospect. Even the so-called Korea discount – the persistent cheapness of South Korean stocks relative to their international peers – is explained by poor corporate governance rather than geopolitical risk, according to Kang So-hyun of the Korea Capital Market Institute. Moreover, changes in the global economy are blunting events that once would have prompted turmoil. The oil shock of 1973 and the start of the Gulf War in 1990 both had a sustained impact on stock markets. Today, however, America is an exporter of energy owing to the shale revolution. This keeps its economy insulated from global affairs. Indeed, climbing global oil prices incentivise more exploration and production in America, boosting spending. And what happens in America matters, above all else, for global stock markets. The momentum of markets can be relentless. Shares tend to grind higher over time as consumers spend, entrepreneurs innovate and companies grow. Earnings per share for American firms have risen by 250 per cent or so over the past 15 years. For any event to have a meaningful impact, at least for longer than a few days, it must harm such dynamism. Even President Donald Trump's tariffs – which, unlike lots of geopolitical risks, have a direct and material impact on the bottom line of many firms – have not been enough to break the growth engine that has powered the American stock market beyond all competition. Expected earnings of firms in the S&P 500 index over the next 12 months are, at US$263 per share, very narrowly above where they were before Trump's 'Liberation Day' announcement. Of course, an event of sufficient scale to rattle markets may be on the way. That would upset the dip buyers. But what appears to be a witless stampede into stocks, even in moments of international tension and conflict, is really an appreciation of the power of capitalism. The news that matters tends to come from the real economy or financial system – not the world's battlefields. ©2025 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved
Straits Times
an hour ago
- Straits Times
Wilmar expands in Nigeria as nation's currency crisis ebbs
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