27/08/2025

BIZ & FINANCE WEDNESDAY | AUG 27, 2025

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Porsche packs in battery production in blow to industry FRANKFURT: Porsche will abandon plans to mass produce its own batteries, the German sportscar maker said on Monday, in the latest blow to Europe’s efforts to muscle in on electric cars. “Porsche will stop pursuing the production of its own battery cells due to reasons of volume and a lack of scale,” Porsche CEO Oliver Blume said in a statement. “Electromobility will remain a key propulsion method in the future for our sports cars.” The IG Metall union said last Thursday that about 200 of 286 workers at Cellforce Group, Porsche’s battery-making subsidiary, would be laid off this week. Without mentioning a figure, Porsche confirmed on Monday that jobs would go and said Cellforce Group would now focus on research and development. Some Cellforce employees would be able to find work at PowerCo, a battery start-up owned by Porsche’s parent, the wider Volkswagen Group, Porsche added. Batteries, usually the single most expensive part of an electric car, have become a key battleground for carmakers and the wider automotive sector. But European firms have struggled to gain a foothold in the face of Chinese battery behemoths like CATL, fuelling fears for the long-term future of the continent’s car industry. Sweden’s Northvolt, Europe’s highest-profile battery maker, filed for bankruptcy in March and most of its assets are now being acquired by US rival Lyten. In April, Porsche said it would abandon plans to ramp up battery-production at Cellforce, citing patchy demand for its electric vehicles. – AFP German industry sheds 250,000 jobs in worsening downturn: Study BERLIN: The downturn in German industry is picking up speed, with almost a quarter of a million jobs lost in the sector since 2019, according to an EY study released yesterday. German industrial firms generated revenue of over €533 billion (RM2.6 trillion) in the second quarter of 2025, down 2.1% year on year, EY found, citing official statistics office data. This followed a 0.2% decline in the first quarter. The number of people employed in German industry also declined by 2.1% in the second quarter, to 5.43 million. Compared to six years ago, the workforce contracted by 4.3%, with some 245,500 jobs lost since 2019, EY said. The sharpest fall in jobs was seen in car manufacturing, down 6.7% in the second quarter. In absolute terms, that amounted to around 51,500 jobs lost in a year. Germany’s carmakers are battling with stiff competition from Asia, a costly transition to electric vehicles and high US import tariffs, with Volkswagen, Mercedes and supplier Continental among the companies cutting jobs. While the US remains the most important foreign market for German industrial goods, exports to the country slumped by 10% in the second quarter, the data showed. – Reuters

Indian central bank urged to restore calm to bond market

o Traders seek intervention as ‘buyer strike’ pushes yields higher, threatens to stall deals

MUMBAI: Indian bond traders are calling for central bank intervention as a sharp drop in institutional buying has pushed yields higher, threatening to stall monetary transmission, market participants said yesterday. The benchmark 10-year bond yield has jumped 24 basis points to 6.62% in August, including a 22-bp surge over the last seven sessions through yesterday, after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced tax cuts plans on goods and services. Alongside fiscal concerns, pension funds and insurers have shunned bonds in favour of equities, while large banks have slowed purchases amid

Gilead said it intends to pursue submissions to regulatory authorities in low- and middle-income countries including priority registrations covering 18 countries that represent 70% of the HIV burden of the 120 countries named in its previously announced voluntary licensing agreements. The firm plans, with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, to supply lenacapavir for up to two million people in low-income countries over three years as generic drugmakers gear up production under the royalty-free agreements. – Reuters “The recent selloff in bond market has seen yields move back to levels seen at start of fiscal year,” said A. Prasanna, economist at ICICI Securities Primary Dealership. He added that this could weigh on corporate bond borrowing, which had jumped earlier this year. “The RBI should be concerned that benefits of rate cuts and liquidity infusion may take longer than usual to percolate into the economy, given that bank credit growth is also tepid,” Prasanna said. Market participants say structural changes are compounding the pressure on bond yields. Restrictions on banks’ use of the held-to-maturity (HTM) portfolio have curbed their ability to book profits, forcing them to step up trading activity. Demand for longer duration bonds from insurers and pension funds has also slowed, with inflows into private insurers tapering and the National Pension System allocating more funds to equities. Meanwhile, both central and state governments have ramped up borrowing via long-term bonds, worsening the mismatch. Traders say even token open market bond purchases by the RBI could help shift sentiment and stabilise yields. Bonds worth over 2.6 trillion rupees (RM125 billion) are due to mature in the current fiscal year, of which the central bank holds around 750 billion rupees. The RBI could swap them for 5-10-year maturity bonds to help banks tide over the current deadlock, several traders said. “Investors had built long positions to play the easing cycle. “The bulk of the easing happened in a short period of time and the cycle ended too quickly for investors to adjust their positions,” a senior trader at an insurance firm said. “The market didn’t get an opportunity to time-correct and we are, therefore, seeing a price correction.” – Reuters

said VRC Reddy, treasury head at Karur Vysya Bank. “The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) should communicate with the market, while the government needs to step in with fiscal assurance to stop the current rise in bond yields,” he added. The rise in yields since the central bank’s policy decision on Aug 6, has offset the declines seen earlier in the financial year, reversing the impact of 100 bps of RBI rate cuts since February.

mark-to-market losses on existing bond holdings as yields spiked. This has led to a “buyers strike” in the market, pushing benchmark yields above key technical levels, traders said. The yield spike has also forced firms, including Hudco and Bajaj Finance, to withdraw planned fundraising. “Investors are on the sidelines and with every piece of news, short sellers are getting active, which has led to all key levels being broken,”

A man walking past an installation of the rupee logo and Indian currency coins outside the RBI headquarters in Mumbai. – REUTERSPIC

EU approves Gilead’s new injection for preventing HIV BRUSSELS: The European Commission has granted marketing authorisation for Gilead Sciences’ twice-yearly injection for preventing HIV infection, the company said yesterday. systems in each country. In the United States, Gilead’s list price for Yeztugo is over US$28,000 (RM118,000) a year. trials last year, raising new hope of interrupting transmission of the virus that infects 1.3 million people a year. as an additional PrEP option for HIV prevention.

Gilead said its European Union application was reviewed under an accelerated timeline and was granted an additional year of market protection. The company said it has also filed for regulatory review of twice-yearly lenacapavir for PrEP with authorities in Australia, Brazil, Canada, South Africa and Switzerland and is preparing filings in Argentina, Mexico and Peru. The World Health Organisation in July recommended lenacapavir

Some US insurers are holding off on covering the new injection, citing its high price compared to generic pills. Analysts project the drug will have sales of over US$4 billion a year by 2029, according to LSEG. The European Commission approved the drug for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to reduce the risk of sexually-acquired HIV in adults and adolescents at increased risk of contracting the deadly virus. Lenacapavir proved nearly 100% effective at preventing HIV in large

The drug, known scientifically as lenacapavir, will be sold in Europe under the brand name Yeytuo. It was approved in June by regulators in the US, where it is marketed as Yeztugo. The EC approval applies to use in the European Union’s 27 member states, as well as Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. Before the drug can be made available to patients, Gilead will need to establish pricing and reimbursement terms with health