Latest news with #RM2.5bil
The Star
13-06-2025
- The Star
Facebook generated up to US$20bil in Asean ad revenue in 2024, RM2.5bil from Malaysia alone, says Fahmi
PUTRAJAYA: Social media platform Facebook is estimated to have generated between US$15bil to US$20bil (RM63.7bil-RM84.9bil) in online advertising revenue in the Asean region in 2024, says Datuk Fahmi Fadzil. The Communications Minister said in Malaysia alone, Facebook generated an estimated RM2.5bil. He said the overall figure included advertisements suspected of promoting scams and online gambling to about 670 million users of the platform in the Asean region. "This is the problem we face – many of the ads they display are scams promoting fake investments or so-called magical products on sale at very low prices – there's no control. "Just a few weeks ago, my team identified drug and vape (e-cigarette) sales activities within Facebook groups," he said during the ministry's monthly assembly on Thursday (June 12). Fahmi said that to date, Facebook had yet to cooperate with the government's social media platform licensing initiative enforced earlier in 2025. "They (Facebook) still refuse to be licensed under the licensing system we announced. They are unwilling to cooperate in several areas," he said. On Jan 1, the government officially enforced licensing under the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, aimed at enhancing online safety, protecting users and strengthening regulatory oversight of Internet messaging service providers and social media platforms. The government's efforts did not stop there, as Parliament passed the Online Safety Act 2024 in December, which will be enforced soon. "With the enforcement of the Act, social media platforms like Facebook will be required to comply. "Issues such as paedophile groups and child sexual abuse material must be eliminated from these platforms and those involved must be brought to justice," he said. – Bernama
The Star
11-06-2025
- Business
- The Star
Maybank underwrites RM2.5bil in landmark Islamic green financing for data centres
Maybank president and group CEO Datuk Khairussaleh Ramli KUALA LUMPUR: Maybank is underwriting RM2.5bil, which is one-third and the largest share of the biggest syndicated Islamic financing for data centres in Asia Pacific, to support DayOne Data Centers Singapore Pte Ltd's green data centres in the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone (JS-SEZ). In a statement, Maybank said this onshore Ringgit Islamic tranche amounts to RM7.5bil, and an equivalent US dollar-denominated offshore conventional tranche, forming a five-year, dual-currency green financing package totalling RM15bil. The borrower, WG Data Hub Sdn Bhd, a wholly owned subsidiary of DayOne, shall use the proceeds to develop Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold-certified data centres. LEED is an internationally recognised and globally utilised green building certification system. Headquartered in Singapore, DayOne is a global leader in digital infrastructure, with a growing footprint across tier-one and emerging markets, including Singapore, Johor (Malaysia), Batam (Indonesia), Greater Bangkok, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and beyond. 'This landmark transaction represents Maybank's largest Islamic financing commitment to the data centre sector. It highlights our unique position and global leadership in structuring and promoting Islamic and green finance,' president and group CEO Datuk Khairussaleh Ramli said. 'As the only homegrown ASEAN bank with a presence in all 10 key markets, Maybank's regional footprint and insights give us a distinct edge in supporting clients entering the JS-SEZ. This is backed by establishing a dedicated JS-SEZ Desk, and commitment to position the zone as a vibrant regional hub.'
The Star
08-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Star
Working behind the scenes, creative collectives power fashion's boldest moments
For two days in April during the Salone del Mobile design fair in Milan, fashion brand Miu Miu hosted a book club. It was quite an undertaking, one that involved only a small amount of actual reading. Produced to the exacting taste of Miuccia Prada, the event, a cultural experience of sorts to promote the arts, involved the creation of a 96-page branding guide, which included a colour palette of six shades of orange, blue and ochre, as well as a custom logotype and its application across posters, banners, digital ads, menus, coasters, pencils, notebooks and more. Guests sat on tasselled couches lit by table lamps. The dress code was Miu Miu, of course. Executed with the help of two external agencies – 2x4, a New York design firm founded by Michael Rock, Susan Sellers and Georgie Stout in 1994, and Kennedy, a London experiential design agency founded by Jan Kennedy in 2000, the second annual Miu Miu Literary Club attracted more than 2,000 attendees, among them International Booker Prize winner Geetanjali Shree. Both 2x4 and Kennedy have collaborated on all manner of 'activations', as events like this are known in marketing-speak, but after decades of operating independently, the firms are now under the same ownership, having recently sold majority stakes to a rapidly growing entity called the Independents. In fact, they are two of 13 such small companies to be gobbled up in the past two years, joining a total of 19 agencies worldwide. Read more: Jonathan Anderson will now lead Dior men's, women's and couture – can he do it? A unique collective The Independents was founded in 2017 when Isabelle and Olivier Chouvet and a third partner, Alexandre Monteux, merged K2, their Shanghai event and production company, with Karla Otto, a veteran fashion and luxury public relations firm. Together, their clients included Chanel, Cartier, Celine, Moncler, Valentino and Nike. The Independents' original funding came from private equity firm Cathay Capital, which was bought out in 2023 with a new round of US$580mil (approximately RM2.5bil) funding led by a bank pool, TowerBrook Capital Partners, and Banijay, a strategic long-term investor that has the opportunity to increase its investment in 2026. The Chouvets remain majority investors. The couple, both French, made their mark in Asia with a string of entrepreneurial ventures, including Chinese flash sale site which Olivier Chouvet and his partners sold to Alibaba in 2015. They set up K2 in 2002. Their first project was the introduction of Chanel's J12 watch in Japan. By 2017, Isabelle Chouvet had developed a network that made her firm the go-to for luxury brands looking to do world-class activations – the public relations, branding, events, production and social media – in Japan, China and Korea. Diana Ross at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala in New York on May 5. Ross' arrival at the Met Gala was implemented by Prodject, a firm that helps carry out Anna Wintour's vision. Photo: Reuters 'I wanted to do what I did in Asia worldwide,' she said of founding the Independents. 'I only had the experience and capabilities in Asia, so I immediately looked for a partner in a different geographic location.' Karla Otto, a German-born publicist who opened her agency in 1982 in Milan, had the connections Chouvet sought. With Chouvet as CEO, the Independents group has gone on an ambitious acquisition spree. Names like Bureau Betak, Prodject, Lucien Pages, Kitten and Sunshine may not mean much to the average civilian, but within the increasingly all-encompassing world of luxury, fashion and cultural branding, the agencies in the Independents portfolio are as blue chip as they come. When Alessandro Michele wanted to turn his Autumn/Winter 2025 Paris fashion show for Valentino into a giant, blood-red David Lynchian public toilet, he hired Bureau Betak to stage the scene. For the past 14 years, Anna Wintour has not planned a Met Gala without Prodject, the firm responsible for implementing her vision – whether 'Camp', 'Heavenly Bodies', 'Sleeping Beauties' or 'Superfine' – inside the museum. When Dior set about staging a Villa Dior presentation in Dali, China, it worked with K2 to realise it. The Independents now has 1,200 employees across offices in Barcelona, Spain; Beijing and Shanghai; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Hong Kong; Jeddah and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; London; Los Angeles; Milan; Munich; New York; Paris; Seoul, South Korea; Singapore; and Tokyo. The 2x4 agency and Terminal 9 Studios, a documentary film production company in Paris, are the most recent acquisitions. It's obvious why Chouvet would want to bundle these firms under one roof. The Independents group reported US$800mil (RM3.4bil) in revenue for 2024. She is far from the first to try to consolidate and capitalise on creative agencies. Venture capital roll-ups, in which a group of investors buy a bunch of agencies, eliminate redundancies, install a central administrative staff to cut costs, and eventually take it public or sell to a megagroup like Publicis are common practice. These deals come with pressure to deliver return on investment. Many of the agencies that have signed on with the Independents have spent their careers avoiding this acquisition model. 'It might work for tech companies or other things, but it doesn't work for creative industries,' Rock said. 'Whatever made that company great in the beginning is completely lost.' Yet Rock and his associates, whose clients include Prada, Chanel Arts and Culture, Nike, Instagram and Lincoln Center, signed over a majority stake to the Independents, which, from the outside, looks like a roll-up despite protests to the contrary. Chouvet said there is no exit strategy at the moment, and she has no financial or growth obligations to her investors. 'It's working so well because all of the interests are aligned, and everyone feels they are stronger by being together,' Chouvet said. 'There remains independence. That's why our name is the Independents.' The point of the group is to create a united network of partners who can work together, if they want to. 'By no means is it a forced march,' said Keith Baptista, a founder of Prodject. 'Nobody's telling me, 'You must work with this person'.' Many of the agencies have already shared clients for years. Bureau Betak does the design and production for Saint Laurent and Jacquemus fashion shows, and Lucien Pages does their PR. Read more: Demna must restore Gucci's 'fashion authority' – but who is he and can he do it? Why consolidate? So what is the point, and where's the catch? If everyone was happily working together for decades on end with no shortage of business, why consolidate? Otto and Alexandre de Betak used the sale to step back from the day-to-day of their agencies. She essentially retired, and he is now focusing on an art and architecture business. The practice of a principal exiting the business after a three-year earn-out period is common practice after a company is acquired. The idea that Chouvet is hoovering up a bunch of companies whose success hinges on the singular vision of the founder, just when the founder is looking to retire, is not a negligible one. 'You get to a certain age and you think about those kinds of things,' Rock said. 'We weren't looking to cash out like an exit strategy. We still want to work.' Why wouldn't he? A few weeks later, Rock was reached by phone to confirm the Pantone colours chosen for the Miu Miu Literary Club. He was at the airport, flying back from a weeklong photo shoot for Chanel in southern France. 'I'm feeling very ragged,' Rock said. 'But we were at Coco Chanel's house on the Riviera, so it's kind of like... can't really complain.' – ©2025 The New York Times Company
The Star
06-06-2025
- Business
- The Star
Washington, Hanoi to fast-track trade negotiations
THE country and the United States have agreed to speed up trade talks, Hanoi said. Vietnam has the third-biggest trade surplus with the United States, after China and Mexico, and is anxious to address the imbalance to head off President Donald Trump's threatened 46% levy as part of his global tariff blitz. Vietnamese and US officials agreed at a meeting in Paris on Wednesday to 'focus maximum efforts to achieve the best results in the third technical negotiation round' scheduled for the first half of June, Vietnam's trade ministry said in a statement yesterday. Trade minister Nguyen Hong Dien affirmed Vietnam's 'determination and goodwill' to reach an agreement with the United States, while his American counterpart Jamieson Greer said a deal would be important for Washington as well as Hanoi, according to the statement. Meanwhile, a delegation from Vietnam's agriculture ministry visiting the United States signed memorandums of understanding (MOU) to buy raw materials for animal feed from Ohio worth US$600mil (RM2.5bil), the ministry said in a separate statement on its website yesterday. That comes after Vietnam announced five MOUs to buy products worth around US$800mil (RM3.4bil) from Iowa over three years, including soybean meal, corn, wheat, dried soybeans and dried distillers grains. The South-East Asian country was expected to sign deals with the United States to buy more than US$2bil (RM8.5bil) worth of agricultural products in total, the statement added. Vietnam has been seeking help to solve the tariff stand-off from several US tech and industry giants, including Lockheed Martin, SpaceX and Google. — AFP
The Star
27-05-2025
- Business
- The Star
Deal with U Mobile on 5G network to lift TM's showing
TA Research maintained its FY25 to FY27 earnings forecasts for TM. PETALING JAYA: Telekom Malaysia Bhd 's (TM) tie up with U Mobile Sdn Bhd for the deployment of the second 5G network in Malaysia is deemed as a positive development, though the earnings impact will be minimal, analysts say. The annual revenue contribution for TM is projected to be only 1.8% of TA Research's total revenue forecast for TM next year (FY26). The research house maintained its FY25 to FY27 earnings forecasts for TM and kept its 'buy' call on the stock with a target price of RM8.30 a share. TM signed a RM2.4bil 10-year contract with U Mobile yesterday to provide fibre backhaul services for the second 5G network. TM has the most extensive fibre coverage in Malaysia. UOB Kay Hian Research (UOBKH Research) said TM's initial contract with Digital Nasional Bhd for the first 5G network to supply fibre backhaul services was also valued at approximately RM2.5bil. Based on the previous contract, UOBKH research estimates that the annual revenue and net profit impact for TM is approximately 2% and 1%, respectively. It made no changes to its earnings forecast for TM and maintained its 'hold' call with a target price of RM7 a share. CIMB Research also maintained its 'buy' call with a 4% higher discounted cash flow based target price of RM7.55 a share. Kenanga Research lifted its target price by 1% to RM8.15 from RM8.07 a share based on an unchanged seven-times FY25 enterprise value to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation. It maintained its 'outperform' rating for the stock.
