COMPANY NEWS IN BRIEF

Oracle joins bid for TikTok

Oracle Corp has joined some of the investors of TikTok's Chinese owner, ByteDance, in pursuing a bid for the popular short-video app's operations in North America, Australia and New Zealand, according to people familiar with the matter.

The move would represent a strategic departure for Oracle, which caters mostly to corporate customers and generates the bulk of its sales from cloud offerings and software licensing.

Its co-founder and Chairman Larry Ellison are one of the few top technology executives to openly support president Donald Trump, who has ordered ByteDance to divest TikTok amid concerns over the safety of the personal data of US consumers.

Oracle is working with some of ByteDance's investors, including General Atlantic and Sequoia Capital, on making an offer for the TikTok assets that would challenge a rival bid from Microsoft Corp, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

ByteDance, TikTok, Oracle, General Atlantic and Sequoia declined to comment. The Financial Times first reported Oracle's interest in TikTok. - Nampa/Reuters

Volkswagen agrees 5.5% hike

Volkswagen's Mexico unit has agreed an increase in worker pay and benefits of 5.46%, the local union for the German automaker said on Tuesday, after the company froze worker salaries in Germany this year due to the coronavirus crisis.

Manuel Aburto, spokesman for the Independent Union of Automotive Industry Workers (SITIAVW), said the deal for a new 2020-21 collective contract comprised a salary hike of 3.62% and a rise in "benefits" of 1.84%.

The 3.62% increase is in line with the annual rate of inflation recorded in Mexico in July. Workers have struggled to achieve pay rises since the pandemic took hold in late February, battering the economy.

Volkswagen's union members in the central state of Puebla, where Volkswagen runs one of the country's largest auto plants, had sought a 12% wage increase and threatened to strike over the demands by Aug. 18.

The plant, which as of May had 11 364 workers, including administrative and technical staff, makes the Tiguan, Jetta and Golf models for sale in the United States, Mexico and other markets. – Nampa/Reuters

Reliance buys majority stake

Reliance Industries Ltd has acquired a majority stake in online pharmacy Netmeds for about 6.2 billion rupees (US$83.08 million) in cash, days after e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc launched an online drug sales service in India.

Vitalic and its subsidiaries, collectively known as Netmeds, were incorporated in 2015. Netmeds is a licensed e-pharma portal that offers authenticated prescription and over the counter (OTC) medicine along with other health products in India.

The Covid-19 crisis, which spurred a wave of online shopping, has led to increased competition between Amazon, Walmart-owned Flipkart, Reliance's upstart online grocery service, JioMart and a range of other smaller players for a share in the world's second most populous country.

India is yet to finalize regulations for online drug sales, or e-pharmacies, but growth of online sellers such as Medlife, Netmeds, Temasek-backed PharmEasy and Sequoia Capital-backed 1mg has threatened traditional drug stores.

Many trader groups are against e-pharmacies, saying they would lead to sale of medicines without proper verification. – Nampa/Reuters

RWE to fund renewable energy

German utility group RWE launched a bumper share issue to back its expansion into renewable energy, with part of the proceeds to pay for its US$480 million purchase of wind turbine maker Nordex's project development pipeline.

The capital increase, representing an increase of 10% in RWE's equity, will be placed with institutional investors via an accelerated book building process.

The bookrunner on the deal said investors had put in enough orders to sell the entire offering at 32.55 euros per share, a 5% discount to RWE's market price - valuing the capital hike at around 2 billion euros (US$2.4 billion).

Part of the proceeds will be used to finance the planned acquisition and completion of 2.7 billion gigawatts (GW) in European wind and solar projects acquired from Nordex in the deal that was made public at the end of July.

RWE, Germany's biggest utility, wants to increase its renewables portfolio to more than 13 billion GW and invest a total of 5 billion euros by the end of 2022. – Nampa/Reuters

Apple expands repair shop

Apple Inc said on Monday it had expanded a program that provides parts and training to independent repair shops to cover its Mac computers.

Apple initially launched the program last year, but it only covered iPhones, the company's biggest-selling product. Mac users previously either had to use Apple or an authorized warranty service provider to get fixes with parts directly from Apple.

Apple last month reported an uptick of 21.6% in quarterly Mac sales to US$7 billion, as many employees shifted to working from home. Its market share grew to 7.3% in the second quarter from 6.3% a year earlier, according to research firm IDC.

"When a device needs repairs, we want people to have access to a safe and reliable solution — this latest expansion joins the thousands of repair locations we’ve added over the past year," Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief operating officer, said in a statement.

Apple's shift in repair practices came after years of calls from right-to-repair groups who had criticized the company for, among other things, only providing genuine parts and training manuals to firms such as Best Buy Inc that were to do warranty-related work on its devices. – Nampa/Reuters