With China funding, messaging app Kik joins unicorns

Canada-based smartphone messaging application Kik said on Tuesday it raised US$50 million from Chinese Internet giant Tencent. 

PHOTO: REUTERS

AUG 19, 20157:03 AM

[SAN FRANCISCO] Canada-based smartphone messaging application Kik said on Tuesday it raised US$50 million from Chinese Internet giant Tencent, saying the two firms have a "shared vision." The funding vaults the firm launched by University of Waterloo students into the so-called "unicorn" club of startups with valuations over US$1 billion, according to a Kik statement.

With the capital, Kik aims to build a chat-based ecosystem around its base of American youth.

The company says 70 per cent of its 240 million registered users are between 13 and 24 years old, and that 40 per cent of US teens use Kik.

"Young Americans are a large group with unmet needs. We can't think of a better group to be building for," said Ted Livingston, founder and chief executive of Kik.

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Mr Livingston said Tencent, which operates the WeChat messaging service in China, was the best partner for his firm because it allows users to connect with friends as well as shop, order taxis, and play games, among other things.

"It was clear they understood chat deeply, making them a great sounding board," he said in a blog post.

"When we met the Tencent team in China, it became clear that we had a shared vision. We agreed that someone would do in the West what WeChat was doing in China. The only question was who. We both believe it could be Kik." The Ontario-based group launched in 2009 has 51 employees, according to its website.

In its mission statement, Kik says "the smartphone era represents a transformation as big as the rise of the PC or the creation of the Internet" and that "chat is at the core of the smartphone era."

Tencent, in its most recent quarterly report, saw its net profit surge by 25 per cent buoyed by growth in online advertising revenue and from WeChat.

WeChat, also known as "weixin" or micro-message in Chinese, has reached 600 million in monthly active users since its launch in 2011.

The app is more versatile than US rival WhatsApp, allowing its users to find each other by shaking their smartphones, book and pay for taxis, as well as send text, photos, videos and voice messages.

AFP

    

Hackers dump data from cheating website Ashley Madison online

Hackers have followed through on a threat to release online a huge cache of data, including customer information, that was stolen a month ago from cheating spouses website AshleyMadison.com, several tech websites reported on Tuesday. 

PHOTO: REUTERS

AUG 19, 20158:16 AM

[TORONTO] Hackers have followed through on a threat to release online a huge cache of data, including customer information, that was stolen a month ago from cheating spouses website AshleyMadison.com, several tech websites reported on Tuesday.

Reuters was not immediately able to confirm the authenticity of the posting. The data was posted onto the dark web, meaning it is only accessible using a specialized browser, although lists of email addresses have since sprouted up on other sites.

A group calling itself Impact Team had leaked snippets of the compromised data in July and threatened to publish names and salacious details about clients unless Ashley Madison and EstablishedMen.com, another site owned by Toronto-based parent company Avid Life Media, were taken down.

Tech website Wired said 9.7GB of data was posted, and appeared to include member account and credit card details.

"Avid Life Media has failed to take down Ashley Madison and Established Men," Wired quoted Impact Team as saying in a statement accompanying the online dump. "We have explained the fraud, deceit, and stupidity of ALM (Avid Life Media) and their members. Now everyone gets to see their data," the hackers said, according to Wired.

Avid Life, which uses the slogan "Life is short. Have an affair", did not immediately respond to emails and phone calls seeking comment.

REUTERS

    

Japan's July exports rise 7.6% year on year: MOF

Japan's exports rose 7.6 per cent in July from a year earlier, Ministry of Finance data showed on Wednesday, in a sign overseas demand is holding steady. 

PHOTO: AFP

AUG 19, 20158:11 AM

[TOKYO] Japan's exports rose 7.6 per cent in July from a year earlier, Ministry of Finance data showed on Wednesday, in a sign overseas demand is holding steady.

The rise was more than the 5.5 per cent annual increase expected by economists in a Reuters poll. It followed a 9.5 per cent year-on-year rise in June.

Imports fell 3.2 per cent year-on-year in July versus the median estimate for a 7.9 per cent annual decrease.

AFP

    
 

Hot stock: Noble Group shorts advance to record as company defends finances

Short interest on Noble Group Ltd shares surged to a new high this week on the day that Chief Executive Officer Yusuf Alireza defended the finances of Asia's biggest commodity trader to investors. 

PHOTO: REUTERS

AUG 19, 20159:41 AM

[SINGAPORE] Short interest on Noble Group Ltd shares surged to a new high this week on the day that Chief Executive Officer Yusuf Alireza defended the finances of Asia's biggest commodity trader to investors.

Short interest as a percentage of Noble's outstanding shares climbed to 14.15 per cent on Monday, based on the latest available data from Markit Group Ltd tracked by Bloomberg. Mr Alireza led Noble executives in a five-hour investor meeting in Singapore the same day.

Noble's shares have slumped more than 60 per cent since February when its accounting methods first came under attack by a group called Iceberg Research. Since then, profit has been hurt by the slide in global commodity markets, the company's credit outlook has been cut to negative and its bonds are trading below prices typical of an investment grade issuer.

"The collapse in the Noble shares and spiking credit default swaps are getting investors really nervous," Nicholas Teo, a strategist at CMC Markets in Singapore, said by phone. "This could trigger more margin calls. That's spurring short sellers to intensify their attack." The stock rose 3.6 per cent to 43 Singapore cents as of 9:02 am in the city-state, the first gain in seven days.

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Noble pledged to investors Monday to boost operating profit to more than US$2 billion in the next three to five years from US$1.49 billion in 2014. Alireza also said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Tuesday that the pressure has made Noble a better company, and that it wants to continue as a publicly traded entity.

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China: Stocks open down over 2%, extend previous day's sharp fall

China stocks open down over 2 per cent on Wednesday, extending previous day's sharp losses amid growing uncertainty over the monetary policy outlook. 

PHOTO: REUTERS

AUG 19, 20159:43 AM

[SHANGHAI] China stocks open down over 2 per cent on Wednesday, extending previous day's sharp losses amid growing uncertainty over the monetary policy outlook.

Stocks plunged more than 6 per cent on Tuesday, their biggest fall in three weeks, on speculation the central bank may be in no rush to ease policy further and concerns a further weakening in the yuan would hit importers.

The CSI300 index fell 2 per cent to 3,748.18 points at 0130 GMT, while the Shanghai Composite Index lost 2.7 per cent to 3,646.75 points.

China CSI300 stock index futures for August fell 0.2 per cent, to 3,737.6, -10.58 points below the current value of the underlying index.

The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong was up 0.1 per cent, to 23,488.44 points.

REUTERS

E-cigarettes are 95% less harmful than tobacco: UK study

Electronic cigarettes are around 95 per cent less harmful than tobacco and should be promoted as a tool to help smokers quit, a study by an agency of Britain's Department of Health said on Wednesday. 

PHOTO: INTERNET

AUG 19, 20157:29 AM

[LONDON] Electronic cigarettes are around 95 per cent less harmful than tobacco and should be promoted as a tool to help smokers quit, a study by an agency of Britain's Department of Health said on Wednesday.

E-cigarettes, tobacco-free devices people use to inhale nicotine-laced vapour, have surged in popularity on both sides of the Atlantic but health organisations have so far been wary of advocating them as a safer alternative to tobacco and governments from California to India have tried to introduce bills to regulate their use more strictly.

"E-cigarettes are not completely risk free but when compared to smoking, evidence shows they carry just a fraction of the harm," said Professor Kevin Fenton from Public Health England, which carried out the study.

Most of the chemicals that cause smoking-related diseases are absent in e-cigarettes and the current best estimate is that e-cigarette use is around 95 per cent less harmful to health than smoking, the study said.

Passive inhalation from an e-cigarette was also much less harmful.

The publicly-funded study goes against a 2014 report by the World Health Organization that called for stiff regulation of e-cigarettes and bans on their indoor use and sale to minors.

It also contradicts the finding of another study by researchers from the University of Southern California which said this week that US teens who tried electronic cigarettes might be more than twice as likely to move on to smoking conventional cigarettes as those who have never tried the devices.

The Public Health England study said e-cigarettes, which are already the most popular quitting aids in Britain and the United States, could be a cheap way to reduce smoking in deprived areas where there remains a high proportion of smokers.

It criticised media campaigns that have called e-cigarettes equally or even more harmful than smoking that could serve as a"gateway" to tobacco cigarettes among teenagers. "There is no evidence that e-cigarettes are undermining England's falling smoking rates," said Professor Ann McNeil who helped author the study. "Instead the evidence consistently finds that e-cigarettes are another tool for stopping smoking and in my view smokers should try vaping, and vapers should stop smoking entirely," she added.

Almost all of the 2.6 million adults using e-cigarettes in Britain are current or ex-smokers who are using the devices to help them quit and only 2 per cent of young people are regular users, the study said.

Tobacco companies such as Philip Morris International and British American Tobacco (BAT) have viewed e-cigarettes as a solution to declining sales in Britain and the United States and have bought makers of the metal devices.

Calling the study an "incredibly important milestone", a BAT spokesman acknowledged the risk posed by chemicals found in cigarette smoke and said increasing sales of e-cigarettes would greatly benefit their customers' health.

AFP

    

Oil prices higher ahead of US inventory data

Oil prices rose modestly on Tuesday as traders looked ahead to weekly US commercial inventory data that could shed insights into demand in the world's largest consumer of crude oil. 

PHOTO: REUTERS

AUG 19, 20157:17 AM

[NEW YORK] Oil prices rose modestly on Tuesday as traders looked ahead to weekly US commercial inventory data that could shed insights into demand in the world's largest consumer of crude oil.

US benchmark West Texas Intermediate for September delivery closed at US$42.62 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up 75 cents from Monday's settlement.

Brent North Sea crude for October, the international benchmark, spent most of the day in the red but managed to eke out a gain of seven cents, finishing at US$48.81 a barrel in London trade.

"There's not too much today to influence prices," said Matt Smith, director of commodity research at ClipperData.

Smith pointed to the WTI rebound ahead of the American Petroleum Institute's weekly oil data report, saying the consensus estimate was for a decrease of two million barrels in US crude inventories.

The API is scheduled to publish the report after the market closes Tuesday. The official weekly inventories report from the Department of Energy is due Wednesday.

Experts surveyed by Bloomberg News on average forecast the DoE would report that US crude-oil stockpiles had fallen by 750,000 barrels for the week ending August 14.

"Should we see a bearish build, that will send prices heading lower again, I should think," Mr Smith said.

Some analysts predict that will be the case. Carl Larry of Frost & Sullivan said he expected a slowdown in refinery usage and problems at a big refinery in Whiting, Indiana, would add to US crude inventories that are near historically high levels.

But Mr Larry said that WTI is bottoming out after falling about 30 per cent in the past two months.

"This US$40 area is pretty low, it's the lowest we've seen in quite a long time, since 2009, and I think that there's a little bit of room to go lower," he said, citing US$38 a barrel as the "worst case".

"We're not in a bad economy right now - when we talk about weak demand, we're talking about China or Europe, we're not talking about America," Mr Larry said.

BMI Research predicted the global supply glut would persist until 2018.

"The return of Iranian oil to market, coupled with strong project pipelines in North America, the Middle East, west Africa and Kazakhstan, will see global supply expansion outstrip the growth in global consumption for the next two years," it said.

AFP

    

Greek government slightly eases capital controls

The Greek government on Tuesday revealed it was easing slightly the capital controls imposed on the debt-hit country by allowing individuals to transfer 500 euros (S$774) per month abroad. 

PHOTO: REUTERS

AUG 19, 20157:24 AM

[ATHENS] The Greek government on Tuesday revealed it was easing slightly the capital controls imposed on the debt-hit country by allowing individuals to transfer 500 euros (S$774) per month abroad.

Almost all transfers from Greek bank accounts to foreign bank accounts had been banned by the capital controls introduced on June 29 to stop a panicked outflow of cash from the country's banks.

According to the government decree published in the official journal Tuesday, individuals can also send out of Greece 5,000 euros every three months to their children who are studying in foreign countries and up to 8,000 euros with documents proving those expenses.

At the same time, the limit on weekly cash withdrawals within Greece remains unchanged at 420 euros.

Businesses can transfer money abroad more easily to pay for exports, but still within tight limits and with certain products given priority such as medicines, fuel and food.

The controls however have forced companies to get large bill payments to foreign suppliers approved by a government commission - a process that has slowed things down so much that some frustrated foreign companies have begun demanding payment in advance.

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