INVNT GROUP® to launch bzar - Xperience Shopping™

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 8 -- INVNT GROUP® will launch bzar - Xperience Shopping™, an ‘always on’ 24/7/365 global, immersive metaverse connecting brands, consumers, experiences, content, and creators through gamification.

Launching this November, bzar is a patent pending, disruptive, immersive, metaverse leveraging Epic Games’ Unreal Engine, the most powerful real-time 3D creation tool, and partnering with SURREAL Events, a leading developer of multiplayer virtual experiences in Unreal.

With multiplayer capabilities and gamified elements blended with virtual retail experiences or ‘brand worlds’, bzar offers brand safe environments, fosters brand love, and creates instantaneous transaction results.

According to a statement, bzar, pioneered by Scott Cullather, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of [INVNT GROUP] and Founder and CEO of bzar, will launch with a select group of brands that will debut their ‘brand worlds’ in the bzar metaverse.

“Today, consumers and brands demand experience and innovation. bzar reimagines retail and experiential spaces in unimaginable virtual worlds, that help power modern, world-class brands,” said Cullather.

Heavily rooted in entertainment, gaming, and celebrity brand sectors – allowing members to play and shop, providing an engaging shorthand between the influencer to consumer check out – bzar is a new paradigm for shareable, fun, and exciting shopping experiences.

Members create custom avatars equipped to discover, play, try on, and shop exclusive digital and physical products. Along with the ability to attend interactive live performances with virtually anyone in the entire bzar metaverse.

More details at www.invntgroup.com.

-- BERNAMA

SoftBank inks strategic partnership, equity share swap agreement with Deutsche Telekom

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 7 -- SoftBank Group Corp (SoftBank) announced it has entered into a strategic partnership and equity share swap agreement with Deutsche Telekom AG (DT).

“The long-term strategic partnership will create incredible opportunities for our portfolio companies to turbocharge their growth with access to approximately 300 million customers across Japan, Europe and the US in total,” said Corporate Officer, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer of SoftBank Group Corp and Chief Executive Officer of SoftBank Group International, Marcelo Claure.

Under the strategic partnership between the two companies, SoftBank’s more than 300 portfolio companies gain access to an additional, approximately 240 million DT customers across Europe and the US, providing these portfolio companies the ability to scale quickly and at a low cost.

According to a statement, DT will benefit from ARPU increase, churn reduction and JV participation.

Under the equity share swap agreement, DT will exercise a portion of its call options that were granted by SoftBank in connection with their June 2020 agreement. DT will acquire approximately 45 million T-Mobile US (TMUS) shares from SoftBank in exchange for issuing 225 million new DT shares to SoftBank from its authorised capital.

In a subsequent step, DT envisages exercising call options to acquire another approximately 20 million TMUS shares from SoftBank by re-investing US$2.4 billion of expected disposal proceeds from the announced sale of T-Mobile Netherlands. (US$1 = RM4.144)

As a result of these transactions – the equity share swap and the re-investment of proceeds – SoftBank will become a 4.5 per cent shareholder in DT and retain a 3.3 per cent equity stake in TMUS, which could increase to 6.9 per cent through True-Up Shares, if TMUS stock price were to hit certain milestones.

SoftBank will be able to use DT and TMUS stock as collateral for financing and hedging purposes. Any such transaction would be consistent with the long-term strategic partnership, with SoftBank retaining significant exposure to DT and TMUS share price.

In connection with the agreement, DT’s management will support a proposal by SoftBank to have Claure elected to the Supervisory Board of DT at the next annual general meeting.

The transaction has been approved by the Board of Directors of SoftBank and the Supervisory Board of DT and is expected to close and become effective by incorporation in DT’s commercial register.

More details at https://global.softbank.

-- BERNAMA

WILLIAM DONNELLY, IVAN TORNOS APPOINTED PHC HOLDINGS CORPORATION INDEPENDENT EXTERNAL DIRECTORS

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 6 (Bernama) -- PHC Holdings Corporation (PHCHD), a leading global life science, diagnostics and medical device company, has announced the appointment of William (Bill) Donnelly and Ivan Tornos as independent external directors, effective Sept 3.

Donnelly joins the board with almost 25 years’ experience in the laboratory equipment industry, having been most recently the Executive Vice President responsible for Finance, Supply Chain, Manufacturing and IT for Mettler-Toledo.

He started his career working as an auditor for Price Waterhouse for 10 years, and is currently an Independent Director of Ingersoll Rand and PST, as well as the Board Chair for John Carroll University.

Tornos, who joins the board with almost 25 years’ experience in the medical device industry, is currently Chief Operating Officer at Zimmer Biomet, responsible for overseeing all global businesses and leading the global operations, clinical and medical education, and global R&D functions.

In a statement, PHCHD President, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors, John Marotta said: "I am thrilled to have Bill and Ivan join the PHC Holdings Board of Directors. These are two exceptional industry leaders who will add vast experience and capabilities to our board.”

“Bill and Ivan’s industry knowledge and strategic guidance will be immensely valuable to the future success of the PHC Group."

The addition of these new independent external directors follows the recent appointment of Alan Malus and Kyoko (Kay) Deguchi in July.

Headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan, PHCHD is a global healthcare company with subsidiaries including PHC Corporation, Ascensia Diabetes Care, Epredia, and LSI Medience Corporation.

For more information, visit www.phchd.com

-- BERNAMA

OKEx hastens NFT adoption with DeFi Hub, NFT Marketplace

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 3 -- OKEx, a leading global cryptocurrency spot and derivatives exchange, has announced the launch of a decentralised digital asset ecosystem, DeFi Hub.

The platform currently features two core products: NFT Marketplace and DeFi Dashboard.

“The NFT market is growing rapidly in popularity, creating a need for a comprehensive system for managing NFTs,” said OKEx Director Lennix Lai in a statement.

“With DeFi Hub, we’ve created an NFT Marketplace that will accelerate NFT adoption by making it easier than ever for anyone to create, exchange, and sell NFTs. We’re also thrilled to launch DeFi Dashboard to bring much-needed improvements to users’ visualisations of their cryptocurrency portfolios.”

The NFT Marketplace is an end-to-end NFT platform built to empower creators and inspire collectors. Via the platform, anyone can buy, sell and trade NFTs directly, with zero fees paid out to OKEx. 

Newly-minted NFTs will be available for sale on NFT Marketplace and creators are given flexibility to set their own royalty fees.

Signalling OKEx's commitment to protecting the interests of creators, royalty fees for creators are then paid out to them in every subsequent transaction on NFT Marketplace's secondary market.

In addition, DeFi Hub also offers a way to view and manage decentralised assets across major blockchain networks and DeFi protocols. The DeFi Dashboard displays both a full portfolio view, as well as separate view for digital collectibles.

OKEx has innovatively adopted blockchain technology to reshape the financial ecosystem and offers some of the most diverse and sophisticated products, solutions and trading tools on the market.

-- BERNAMA

YILI RECORDS DOUBLE-DIGIT GROWTH IN REVENUE, NET PROFIT FOR H1 FY2021

Caption: On August 30th, Yili released its FY2021 H1 financial report. The company exceeded market expectations with double-digit growth in revenue and net profit, with gross revenue rising 18.89% YoY to reach RMB 56.506 billion, and net profit attributable to the parent company jumping 42.48% YoY to reach RMB 5.322 billion.

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 2 (Bernama) -- Yili, Asia's leading dairy company recently released its FY2021 H1 financial report.

The company exceeded market expectations with double-digit growth in revenue and net profit, with gross revenue rising 18.89 per cent YoY to reach RMB 56.506 billion, and net profit attributable to the parent company jumping 42.48 per cent YoY to reach RMB 5.322 billion. (RMB 100 = RM64.36)

Yili's interim results set another new high for the Asian dairy industry, as the latest data makes Yili the first likely dairy company in Asia to exceed RMB 100 billion in revenue. Strong financial performance in H1 FY2021 also suggests that the company will likely continue to maintain its momentum.

In the first half of 2021, the dairy industry faced significant challenges from global economic and trade instability and rising costs for raw materials. However, Yili exceeded its operation targets for the period by leveraging its competitive advantages across the whole industry value chain.

According to a statement, during the reporting period, Yili's main products continued to exhibit strong growth. For instance, the total sales revenue for Satine, AMBPOMIAL, Changqing, Jinlingguan, and Chocliz increased by 20.7 per cent YoY.

Meanwhile, in the non-dairy category, Yili's Inikin Yike mineral water also made a breakthrough in sales growth and has mainly been distributed in big cities through e-commerce, O2O home delivery, and other channels.

While leveraging existing advantages in its distribution channels, Yili also embraced digital channels in response to the latest market trends. Yili's e-commerce business grew 21.8 per cent YoY in the first half of 2021, contributing to the high market penetration rate of 85.7 per cent for its UHT milk.

Yili also leveraged synergy within its ‘global supply chain network’ to ensure the efficient operation of its supply, production, and marketing systems. As of June 2021, the company's total production capacity neared 13.94 million tonnes per year.

In August this year, Rabobank released its annual Global Dairy Top 20 list, in which Yili Group was again listed among the top five global dairy companies. Yili was also ranked as the leading company in Asia for eight consecutive years.

-- BERNAMA

SPRIX RESEARCH INSTITUTE IMPLEMENTS 2 SURVEYS TO BETTER UNDERSTAND EDUCATION WORLDWIDE

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 1 (Bernama) -- SPRIX Research Institute, operated by SPRIX has implemented two surveys designed to better understand the state of education worldwide, with both surveys targeting children and their parents or guardians in 11 countries. 

The first survey was an awareness survey, focusing on learning, and the second was a knowledge survey, focusing on the measurement of basic academic skills.

The target countries are Japan, the United States, China, India, the United Kingdom, France, Poland, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Myanmar.

According to a statement, each of the surveys involved 1,000 respondents in each country, for a total of 22,000 children, parent, and guardian respondents.

Results indicate that countries with higher levels of learning consistency and retention for basic academic skills also have higher rates of parent or guardian involvement in the child’s learning.

Basic academic skills survey results also markedly indicate higher response rate trends when a child’s future profession is clearly known.

Survey Result Highlights include the average response rate for basic academic skills survey results exceeded 70 per cent in Asia. Results of Europe and the United States were generally lower.

Also highlighted, children from countries with higher rates of learning consistency and retention have a clearer vision for their future, and all surveyed countries are aware of the importance of basic academic skills.

Within the basic academic skills survey conducted by SPRIX, targeting children aged 15 or younger in 11 countries, the response rate for countries in Europe and the US were low.

In addition, surveying children on their future saw consistently high scores for medical professions, technology and engineering professions, and education professions across most countries.

SPRIX Research Institute focuses on basic academic skills, and was established to correctly evaluate children’s academic skills and ensure consistency and retention of those skills.

More details at https://sprix.jp/

-- BERNAMA

7-ELEVEN AND PAYNET LAUNCH MYDEBIT JE WITH YOUR ATM CARD 'WAVE & WIN' CONTEST WITH PRIZES WORTH OVER RM400,000

_{MyDebit Je with your ATM card at 7-Eleven outlets to win prizes.}

7-ELEVEN AND PAYNET LAUNCH MYDEBIT JE WITH YOUR ATM CARD 'WAVE & WIN' CONTEST WITH PRIZES WORTH OVER RM400,000