10/09/2025

BIZ & FINANCE WEDNESDAY | SEPT 10, 2025

READ OUR

HERE

16

Malaysian Paper

/thesun

US tariffs seen worsening petrochem sector challenges SINGAPORE: US tariffs are increasingly pressuring the already challenged petro chemicals sector, with China, the top producer, shifting its exports to Asia, industry executives said at a conference in Singapore yesterday. own assets are struggling to survive, said Gopalakrishnan, adding that overcapacity had led to the 34% decline in trading over the past five years. commercial officer of Malaysia’s Petronas Chemicals Group.

ANGLO AMERICAN, TECK ANNOUNCE MEGA MERGER PLAN LONDON: British mining group Anglo American and Canadian peer Teck Resources yesterday announced plans for a multi billion-dollar merger, creating a champion of copper production and other critical minerals. A combined group is worth more than US$50 billion (RM210.5 billion) according to the com panies’ current market values, while the agreed deal is expected to complete in 12-18 months, subject to regulatory hurdles. It will create Anglo Teck, headquartered in Vancouver and with a primary listing in London, according to a joint statement. It is the sector’s biggest tie-up for some years. Anglo American shareholders will own 62.4% of the new group and Teck shareholders the remainder. Alongside cop per assets, the new group will operate premium iron ore, zinc and crop nutrients businesses. – AFP JAPAN’S MITSUI OSK EYES SHIPBUILDING PARTNERSHIPS IN INDIA SINGAPORE: Japan’s second largest shipping company Mitsui OSK Lines wants to tie up with Indian companies to build tankers in India, aiding the South Asian nation’s effort to boost local manufacturing, its chief executive, Takeshi Hashimoto said. “The Indian government has a strong preference to see the new vessels constructed in India. If possible, we want to be involved in the project,” he told reporters at the Appec con ference here yesterday. “We definitely need to work with the local partners and together with strong cooperation with Indian shipyards,“ Hashimoto said. India will set up a 250 billion rupees (RM12 billion) maritime development fund for the long term financing of the country’s shipbuilding and repair in dustry, the government said in its budget in February. – Reuters

Petronas Chemicals Group is diversifying into specialty chemicals as exports of products from resins to end-products have been displaced by China’s push into Asian markets in the aftermath of US tariffs, Bahrin told Reuters on the sidelines of the event. “Our main market is South Asia, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam,” he said. “And all these are being supplied, being attacked by China because they cannot supply into the US,” he said. Petronas Chemicals has acquired two firms in Europe in order to gain technology to bring to Asia, he said. – Reuters

BR I E F S

Tariffs are also making countries more protectionist, Sanjiv Vasudeva, executive vice president and chief market officer of Haldia Petrochemicals, told the conference. It has become more difficult to plan investments for the short term because of overcapacity and volatility, Vasudeva said, adding that Indian consumption remains good with a stable growth rate – a rare bright spot for petrochemicals. Tariffs are pushing Chinese products into “our traditional markets”, said Bahrin Asmawi, chief

The disruption could lead to a 15% drop in the global petrochemical trade, a TotalEnergies executive told the Appec conference. “If tariffs remain in place, petrochemicals trading will see another 15% drop on top of the 34% drop it has seen in the last five years,” TotalEnergies’ head of petrochemical trading, Ganesh Gopalakrishnan, told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference. Petrochemical trading houses that do not

Australia’s ANZ to cut 3,500 jobs as new CEO takes charge

its commitment to retaining Suncorp Bank jobs after the A$4.9 billion merger finalised last year. Atlas Funds analyst Michael Haynes, whose firm holds shares in ANZ, said the job cuts would increase profitability. But given they would take place over 12 months, investors might not see all of the cost-out benefits until 2027 given the company’s September-end financial year, he added. Matos said ANZ would also increase its focus on non-financial risk work that had arisen after a

o More ‘ugly changes’ to come to safeguard growth, 1,000 contractor roles will also be axed

SYDNEY: ANZ Group’s new CEO Nuno Matos ( pic ) warned of more “ugly” changes to come at the Australian lender after the announcement of 3,500 job cuts yesterday, but said the decisions would safeguard its future growth. The bank said it would take a A$560 million (RM1.55 billion) restructuring charge, following one of the largest rounds of job cuts in the sector in recent years. ANZ, which at 43,000 employees has a bigger workforce than its larger rivals Westpac and National Australia Bank, said it would also sack 1,000 contractors and review consultants and third-party contractor agreements. The job cuts to take place by next September are the first major changes ordered by Matos, who joined ANZ in May after previously heading HSBC’s personal banking and wealth operations. ANZ is the smallest of Australia’s “Big Four” banks based on its market valuation and its share price has lagged rivals over the past 12 months. “I hate to do this but it’s for the future of the company,” Matos said of the job cuts at the

Financial Review Asia Summit here. “Those decisions are very tough to take. We don’t want to take them because they’re going to impact people, our people, their families, and it should be the last resort.” He said reducing staff numbers would reduce duplication and complexity and included stopping projects not aligned to ANZ’s priorities.

bond trading scandal at the bank highlighted cultural problems within its markets trading business. Citigroup analyst Thomas Strong said the job cuts could improve productivity in ANZ’s retail bank and technology divisions. Finance Sector Union national president Wendy Streets criticised the job losses and said they were unnecessary. “When the FSU asked ANZ who will actually do the work of the 3,500 sacked staff, the bank had no answer, except to say the work will simply stop,” Streets said. “That’s not a plan, that’s chaos.” – Reuters

“At this point in time our change will be more elevated and ugly, so we are very careful in terms of how fast we can go,” he said. “This is about being fast and safe at the same time.” ANZ shares rose 1% in early trade yesterday but later pared gains to be down 0.5% to A$32.81. The bank is due to release a strategic review on Oct 13. Matos said ANZ would move towards imple menting a more “performance-driven culture” across its workforce after cutting about 8% of staff. ANZ said the job cuts would mostly not affect customer-facing roles and the bank would meet

Mistral cements AI lead in Europe with cash infusion, ASML tie-up PARIS: France’s Mistral yesterday cemented its position as Europe’s top artificial intelligence (AI) hope against far larger US and Chinese competitors after a record fundraising round and a tie-up with chipmaking equipment heavweight ASML. The €1.7 billion (RM8.4 billion) cash infusion values Mistral at €11.7 billion, double its heft last year but a fraction of the US$183 billion (RM770 billion) price tag placed on US firm Anthropic this month. ASML, a key producer of the machines that churn out the chips powering artificial intelligence models, was the lead investor, with a €1.3 billion infusion that gives the Dutch company an 11% stake in Mistral. Mistral has been touted as a European AI champion as technological sovereignty concerns fester between the European Union and the United States under the second administration of President Donald Trump. joint research” in future. Mistral chief executive Arthur Mensch said its AI could help ASML “solve current and future engineering challenges”, leading to benefits for both semiconductor hardware and the AI software that runs on it. ASML said it would gain a seat on Mistral’s strategic committee, giving the Dutch firm “an advisory role in Mistral AI’s future strategy and technology decisions”. Mistral’s fundraising comes after months of rumours that it could be the target of a takeover bid by Apple, which has lagged other tech giants in developing its own AI. But the latest funding round “reaffirms the company’s independence”, Mistral said in its statement. scale” for a company like Mistral. Other players in the latest investment rounded included chip giant Nvidia, venture capital funds Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and French public investment bank Bpifrance. Mensch co-founded Mistral in 2023 after working for Google’s DeepMind AI division, while fellow founders Guillaume Lample and Timothee Lacroix previously worked at Meta’s AI lab. Mistral’s key products include Le Chat, a large language model chatbot competing with the likes of ChatGPT from the sector’s American heavyweight OpenAI. As well as text, Mistral offers generative AI models capable of turning out images and computer code. The company has opened offices in Paris, London, Luxembourg, New York, California’s Palo Alto and Singapore and expanded to over 350 staff.

Tying Mistral more closely into the wider European high-tech sector through ASML was necessary to compete, the founder of AI and data firm Ekimetrics Jean-Baptiste Bouzige told AFP. “There’s no way to be in the fight in this sector while remaining strictly French,” he said, adding that “Europe is the appropriate

One factor setting it apart has been its practice from the beginning of releasing “open source” versions of its AI models, allowing other developers to run and modify them for their own purposes. – AFP

The deal “aims to generate clear benefits for ASML customers through innovative products and solutions enabled by AI”, the Dutch firm’s boss Christophe Fouquet said in a statement, pointing to “potential for

Combination of pictures showsthe Mistral Ai logo on a smartphone and an ASML logo. France’s AI developer Mistral has been valued at €11.7 billion following its latest fundraising round. – AFPPIC