Posts by Mark Darwin
Amazon European hub in Luxembourg braces for record job cuts
[PARIS] Amazon.com’s decision earlier this year to axe 14,000 employees around the globe is reverberating at the company’s European headquarters in Luxembourg. In the coming weeks, Amazon is expected to fire 370 people, or about 8.5 per cent of the 4,370 employees there. The terminations are the tiny nation’s largest in at least two decades…
Read MoreTotalEnergies wins 21-year deal to power Google data centres in Malaysia
The power supply contract is expected to take effect in the first quarter of next year [KUALA LUMPUR] France’s TotalEnergies said on Tuesday (Dec 16) it had signed a 21-year power supply deal with Alphabet’s Google, pledging to supply one terawatt hour of renewable energy to support its data centres in Malaysia. The French energy…
Read MoreStock investing in 2026 demands diversification, active approach amid AI boom, geopolitical risks
Markets across Asia are likely to benefit from recent Fed rate cuts as well as a weaker US dollar [SINGAPORE] Diversification and active management are likely to become more important for investors as artificial intelligence (AI) and geopolitics continue to shape the trajectory of global markets in 2026, analysts said. Whether the AI boom is…
Read MoreBjak founder weighs IPO as Malaysia insurtech expands abroad
[KUALA LUMPUR] Bjak, Malaysia’s largest online insurance aggregator, is mulling an initial public offering (IPO) within the next two years as it seeks to enter Europe. Bjak is eyeing new markets in Spain and Germany in 2026, following its recent expansion in Japan, Taiwan and Thailand, Low Wei, the firm’s founder, said. The firm’s gross…
Read MoreUS: Wall Street opens higher as investors gear up for data-packed week
WALL Street’s main indexes opened higher on Monday (Dec 15), rebounding from a tech-driven rout last week, while investors braced for a barrage of economic data that could set the course for interest rates. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 136.3 points, or 0.28 per cent, at the open to 48,594.36. The S&P 500 rose…
Read MorePrivate equity and venture capital face tougher fundraising in 2025, with uneven exit recovery: Preqin report
[SINGAPORE] Private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) fundraising has remained tough in 2025, a report by data platform Preqin shows. About US$64.4 billion was raised for VC investments globally during the first three quarters of 2025. This sum is just under half – 48 per cent – of the total raised for 2024. Europe…
Read MorePrivate equity and venture capital face tougher fundraising in 2025, with uneven exit recovery: Preqin report
[SINGAPORE] Private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) fundraising has remained tough in 2025, a report by data platform Preqin shows. About US$64.4 billion was raised for VC investments globally during the first three quarters of 2025. This sum is just under half – 48 per cent – of the total raised for 2024. Europe…
Read MoreSIA Group’s passenger traffic up 2.6% in November
Singapore Airlines and Scoot carried 3.5 million passengers in total during the month, 6% higher than a year ago [SINGAPORE] Singapore Airlines (SIA) Group on Monday (Dec 15) reported year-on-year growth of 2.6 per cent in November passenger traffic for the two carriers it operates. This was slightly higher than the 2.2 per cent increase…
Read MoreAsean Power Grid projects could attract more Chinese investor interest in 2026
Clean-power manufacturers from China have been expanding in Indonesia, could seize more opportunities with cross-border projects [SINGAPORE] China’s clean-power players and investors are poised to expand their footprint in South-east Asia in the coming year, riding on the momentum of a region-wide effort to build cross-border energy linkages. The effort, dubbed the Asean Power Grid…
Read MoreChina shadow bank’s missed payments show growing property stress
The recent trouble in Zhejiang is a reminder that the problem never fully went away [BEIJING] A US$3 billion redemption crisis in eastern China is reviving concerns about the loosely-regulated shadow-banking industry as the nation’s prolonged property slump risks spilling over into the financial sector. Investors holding some 20 billion yuan (S$3.7 billion) in wealth…
Read More