Business and technology quick bites

Updated version at 8.30 am

The highlighted words in red are links to the news article.

March 25, 2021,

Business News

1.  Berjaya Corporation Bhd announced that its newly-appointed group chief executive officer (CEO) Abdul Jalil Rasheed has acquired 70 million of its shares at 28 sen per share.
2. Fidelity applied to launch an exchange-traded fund to track the performance of bitcoin, the latest move on Wall Street to embrace the digital currency.
3.  British asset management firm Aviva Investors said it does not want to invest in Deliveroo’s upcoming IPO due to the job insecurity of the meal delivery platform’s riders.
4. Oil prices jumped about 6% after a ship ran aground in the Suez Canal, and worries that the incident could tie up crude shipments gave prices a boost after a slide over the last week.
5. First-day trading pops, or share price rises, for SPACs were commonplace earlier this year with gains rising to over 30% but have faded in March amid a broader sell-off in many companies that have agreed to go public through a SPAC merger.
6. Fanatics, the world’s biggest licensed sports merchandise retailer, raised US$320 million in fresh capital in a funding round that valued the company at US$12.8 billion, according to sources close to the deal.

Technology News 

1. The CEOs of Facebook, Google parent Alphabet, and Twitter testify before Congress for the first time since pro-Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, an attack in which critics say social media played a crucial role.
2. TikTok owner ByteDance has hired Xiaomi executive Shou Zi Chew for a newly created role as chief finance officer, in a sign that the tech company is moving towards a much-anticipated initial public offering of one or some of its businesses.
3.  China’s government has proposed establishing a joint venture with local technology giants that would oversee the lucrative data they collect from hundreds of millions of consumers.
4. Indian social networking startup Public App, which allows users to watch video clips of local news based on their location it has raised US$41 million led by Mumbai-based venture capital fund A91 Partners along with its existing investors.