PNGAY - Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd.
| Previous Close | 22.87 |
| Open | 23.25 |
| Bid | 0.00 x 0 |
| Ask | 0.00 x 0 |
| Day's Range | 22.91 - 23.25 |
| 52 Week Range | 16.93 - 25.08 |
| Volume | 105,154 |
| Avg. Volume | 113,892 |
| Market Cap | 216B |
| Beta (3Y Monthly) | 1.44 |
| PE Ratio (TTM) | 13.17 |
| EPS (TTM) | 1.74 |
| Earnings Date | N/A |
| Forward Dividend & Yield | 0.43 (1.87%) |
| Ex-Dividend Date | 2019-09-03 |
| 1y Target Est | N/A |
- Benzinga
Blockchain And AI Subsidiary Of China's Largest Insurer Raises US IPO Expectations To $504M
In an updated filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, OneConnect Financial Technology Limited, a blockchain and AI subsidiary of Chinese insurer Ping An Insurance (Group) Co of China Ltd’s (OTC: PNGAY) increased the amount it hopes to raise as part of its initial public offering. Come again? The fintech company, which has the second-largest number of blockchain patents in China, is now aiming to sell up to 36 million American depositary shares priced between $12 and $14. If all the ADSs are sold, OneConnect could raise anywhere between $432 million and $504 million in the IPO.
- PR Newswire
Ping An Completes First Venture Investment in India to Enhance Auto Services Ecosystem
Ping An Insurance (Group) of Company of China, Ltd. (hereafter "Ping An" or the "Group", HKEx:2318; SSE:601318) announced that Ping An Global Voyager Fund, its overseas investment arm, has led a US$70 million Series D in Indian auto technology company CarDekho, alongside Sequoia Capital and Hillhouse Capital. This is Ping An's first venture investment in India.
- PR Newswire
Ping An Receives Two Awards from Hong Kong Institute of Directors
Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. (hereafter "Ping An" or the "Group", HKEx:2318; SSE:601318) has received two awards at the Directors Of The Year Awards 2019, organized by the Hong Kong Institute of Directors. Ping An's Board of Directors won the Board award in the Listed Companies Boards category for its outstanding corporate governance. Dr. Ma Mingzhe, Chairman and CEO of Ping An, received the individual award in the Listed Companies Executive Directors category for adopting global practices in corporate governance and risk management and innovation in corporate governance.
- Reuters
UPDATE 1-Ping An's OneConnect launches up to $504 mln U.S. IPO in down round: sources
Ping An Insurance's OneConnect Financial Technology launched a U.S. initial public offering (IPO) of up to $504 million on Tuesday, reducing both its target offering size and valuation. The price range values OneConnect at between about $4.5 billion and $5.5 billion in its long-awaited public offering, said people with knowledge of the matter. The float comes as tech investor SoftBank smarts from the abandoned share sale of major portfolio firm WeWork, as well as its first quarterly loss in 14 years dragged down by an $8.9 billion hit at its giant Vision Fund, through which it invested in OneConnect.
- Bloomberg
China’s Insurance Giant Is Morphing Into a Tech Company
(Bloomberg Markets) -- Just 31 years after it was founded in China’s southern city of Shenzhen, Ping An Insurance (Group) Co. has grown into the world’s second-largest insurer by market value after Berkshire Hathaway Inc.—more valuable than Allianz SE and AIA Group Ltd. combined. A financial supermarket that offers insurance, asset management, banking, and trust services, Ping An (which roughly translates to “safe and well”) added a focus on technology in the wake of the financial crisis. Now it has five groups of internet platforms, which it calls ecosystems, focused on finance, property, automotive, health care, and services for the “smart city.” More than 576 million users and 100 Chinese cities are connected to at least one of those ecosystems. One of the businesses, Ping An Healthcare and Technology Co., which runs the health-care portal Good Doctor, has already listed separately. Shanghai Lujiazui International Financial Asset Exchange Co., the unit that manages the finance website Lu.com, postponed a planned public offering in 2016 when the government cracked down on peer-to-peer lending. Ping An has started licensing technology to peers at home and abroad. Below are excerpts from Bloomberg Markets’ September interviews about the company’s strategy, conducted separately with two of Ping An’s co-chief executive officers, Jessica Tan and Lee Yuan Siong. (Lee will be leaving at the end of January to become AIA Group CEO and president on June 1.)BLOOMBERG MARKETS: How will technology change Ping An in the next decade?JESSICA TAN: For technology, we have a three-step path. The first is to enable finance with technology, using technology to very aggressively innovate our business model from sales to risk control and operations, which we’ve been doing in the past 11 years. The second step is to use technology to enable the ecosystems, targeting either consumers or businesses and the government. Then it’s the ecosystems nurturing finance when they’ve reached a certain size, but that takes some time. That’s started, especially in terms of new-client acquisition, as it’s an area where we started out early. But the real benefits here have yet to show themselves.In 10 years we’ll just become a “technology-plus-finance” company. We’re already starting to show that. Technology’s contribution to revenue remains small to the company now, even though it’s already a big number—38.4 billion yuan [$5.4 billion] in revenue in the first half of this year from the 11 tech companies. But when we do better at the second and third steps, the contribution from technology will become bigger and bigger.BM: How does Ping An’s tech measure up with that of competitors around the world?JT: We now have 32,000 researchers, a combined 101,000 tech staff at the 11 tech units, more than 20,000 patents—96% are invention patents—and eight research institutes. In terms of input, our technology strength is unparalleled among financial institutions.Even compared to globally leading technology companies, we’re often even stronger in the area of finance. Some of our technologies are rarely seen or even impossible to find among financial institutions globally. Ping An OneConnect’s [fintech and cloud computing] products domestically are being used by 618 banks, 84 insurance companies, and nearly 3,000 other nonbanking financial institutions. In seven overseas markets, there are about 27 financial institutions using them, and most of them are relatively large financial institutions. So I believe we’re very competitive here.BM: What is the response to Ping An’s technology in the rest of Asia?JT: There’s a lot more demand than we expected. When OneConnect set up its overseas office [in Singapore] about one year ago, we thought a small office would do. Now it has more than 200 full-time employees [in Singapore, Indonesia, and Thailand].At present, demand is particularly strong in three areas. One is SME [small and midsize enterprise] financing, which is a very hot topic at home and abroad. Our advantage here is that we have the technology to truly aggregate many data to create risk profiles of small and medium-sized businesses. And since we’re a financial company ourselves, financial companies believe our model can work. And even if you don’t trust me, I can do it myself with my own money.The second one is personal finance, another area with very, very strong demand. The third area is efficiency improvement. Asia, in many places, still depends on people for sales, but we have a lot of sales management tools.We’ve done this ourselves. I can improve the productivity of 1.4 million agents; we absolutely can improve it for your people. As long as financial institutions want to do it, we’re a very good partner.Many people are worried that we’re competing with the local financial institutions, because Ping An has a reputation domestically of being strong. I would say, “Look, I’m just an enabler.”“After moving online, you can accumulate massive data as every step leaves a data trail”BM: How many potential unicorns are there in the company’s incubator, and what do they do?JT: It’s hard to say. Whether it’s 11 or any other number is not important. What’s more important is we do our job around those five areas [finance, health, auto, property, and the smart city]. For finance, Lufax and OneConnect are the main ones. One serves clients directly and the other enables the entire market. I guess there won’t be new ones. OneConnect will have more modules, while Lufax will become more and more efficient, with its wealth management robot popularizing wealth management services.The reason we now have 11 tech units is a management decision. It’s actually very hard for a company as big as we are to keep innovating and stay nimble. We encourage the use of small teams to try things out while coordinating among themselves with clear positions for everyone.BM: How much more can the insurance business do to achieve cost savings, efficiency improvements, and other value creation from technology?LEE YUAN SIONG: Using new technology to empower our business is a never-ending journey. We started earlier than others, have done more, and gone further, but that doesn’t mean we’re already close to the end. What we need to do is to always keep ahead of peers—moving faster and further, with them chasing behind us.In terms of specific indicators, our life insurance business, including internal management, is already 93% online and paperless. We can hit 100% within a year, but being online and paperless is no end to the application of technology. The four main business lines of property insurance are about 90% online and paperless and could also achieve 100% within a year.After moving online, you can accumulate massive data as every step leaves a data trail. Then you can digitalize, with data guiding your decisions for business operations, management to services, sales, and risk control. The third step is using AI to make judgments and decisions. We’ve seen clearly the benefits, and we’re just taking action to realize them in every aspect of the business.We’re pushing the group as well as the business units to, within 18 to 36 months, achieve full digitalization—with data driving management decisions at every step. We’ve been employing artificial intelligence in various scenarios for intelligent management, such as in auto claims settlement, pricing of property insurance, as well as the interviews of agents.The value can be seen in many ways, from enhanced customer satisfaction to better risk management and higher efficiency. Our auto insurance combined ratio is 3 percentage points lower than the industry’s, which is a long-term and direct impact. The nonperforming ratio of our loans is also very low.BM: You’ve said Ping An is undervalued because investors are underestimating the value of your technology. Could there be risks that investors are seeing but you aren’t?LYS: We’ve been building an integrated financial-services model, which is different from the universal banking seen abroad and has achieved very good results. From the growth in the number of clients and profit per client, you can see it’s actually a very successful model. We’ve been telling the capital market to see our potential value in the growth of our clients and per-client profit. That’s starting to be accepted by the market.The ecosystems are an upgrade of our entire technology segment. That includes the listings of the units, the tech products, which create direct value. Besides that, when the ecosystems enable our integrated financial services, it creates additional value and should add a premium to the valuation of our integrated financial services.Almost one-third of our new clients come from the ecosystems, and that’s why our client number keeps rising, to 196 million. Profit per client keeps rising and the number of products per client keeps increasing, too.The ecosystems are not yet included in the valuation models in the capital market. The value of the integrated finance is partly reflected—so the value of the core business isn’t fully reflected, either. So every segment has room. As to how much room, I won’t give guidance. It’s up to the capital market to assess.BM: How will autonomous driving affect auto insurance?LYS: It will have a relatively big impact on the current business conditions of auto insurance, which we must admit. How it’s going to change depends on, firstly, the advance of technology, and secondly, how the legal environment adapts to autonomous driving: how to assign responsibility when accidents occur—who’s responsible and how big is the responsibility. It’s going to change auto insurance, but it’s also going to bring opportunities, such as liability insurance.BM: How does Ping An compete with online insurance offerings from tech companies?LYS: Indeed, a lot of interpersonal communications and transactions are now taking place online, and that’s why we are moving onto the internet. We have massive offline forces and networks, but we’ve already moved online.Our life insurance Jin Guan Jia [or “golden housekeeper”] app has 220 million users. The property insurance unit’s Ping An Auto Owner app has more than 70 million users, and even the small health insurance unit has 10 million app users, and Lufax has more than 40 million users. So while we have huge offline forces, we’re actually very much internet-based already, with communication and interaction between clients and our agents, service staff, and managers taking place online highly efficiently.We focus on finance and health, and have deeper understanding about client needs in those two domains than pure e-commerce, social, or news-oriented internet platforms do. With our huge internet presence, our offline service networks are actually an advantage.We’re changing every year. When younger generations born after 1990 and 2000 become the main consumers, financial institutions need to understand how to interact and communicate in ways they like. So we’re prepared for the competition. There was simply no other option.To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Dingmin Zhang in Beijing at dzhang14@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Christine Harper at charper@bloomberg.net, Jon AsmundssonFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Reuters
Ping An's OneConnect to launch $500 million U.S. IPO in rare down round: sources
Ping An Insurance's OneConnect Financial Technology plans to launch a U.S. initial public offering (IPO) for about $500 million on Tuesday, people with knowledge of the matter said, reducing both its target offering size and valuation in a rare "down round". The unit of China's biggest insurer by market value, Ping An Insurance Group Co of China Ltd, is looking for a valuation of between $4.5 billion and $5.5 billion in its long-awaited public offering, said the people. OneConnect, which provides technology solutions to small and medium-sized financial institutions, was eyeing a valuation of about $8 billion and an IPO of up to $1 billion, sources told Reuters in June.
- Reuters
Battling slowing sales, insurer AIA hires new CEO from rival Ping An
Asia-focussed insurer AIA Group Ltd on Friday named a senior executive at Chinese rival Ping An Insurance Group Co as its chief executive officer to replace company veteran Ng Keng Hooi. Lee Yuan Siong, a co-CEO at Ping An Insurance, will take over as CEO and president-designate from March 1, 2020, and will assume full responsibility from June 1, Hong Kong-headquartered AIA said in a statement issued to the stock exchange. Before joining Ping An, China's largest insurer by market value, in 2013, Lee worked at Prudential Plc and the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
- Moody's
China Ping An Insurance Overseas (Hldgs) Ltd. -- Moody's announces completion of a periodic review of ratings of China Ping An Insurance Overseas (Hldgs) Ltd.
Announcement of Periodic Review: Moody's announces completion of a periodic review of ratings of China Ping An Insurance Overseas (Hldgs) Ltd. Hong Kong, November 18, 2019 -- Moody's Investors Service ("Moody's") has completed a periodic review of the ratings of China Ping An Insurance Overseas (Hldgs) Ltd. and other ratings that are associated with the same analytical unit. The review was conducted through a portfolio review in which Moody's reassessed the appropriateness of the ratings in the context of the relevant principal methodology(ies), recent developments, and a comparison of the financial and operating profile to similarly rated peers.
- Benzinga
China's Largest Insurer Blockchain Subsidiary Files For US IPO
OneConnect Financial Technology Ltd, a subsidiary of China’s largest insurer Ping An Insurance (Group) Co of China Ltd (OTC: PNGAY ), filed for an initial public offering with the U.S. Securities and ...
- Bloomberg
Ping An’s OneConnect Financial Files for IPO Amid U.S. Lull
(Bloomberg) -- China-based cloud fintech platform OneConnect Financial Technology Co. filed for an initial public offering in a listing that could help buoy the sagging market for new U.S. listings.The company, one of several Ping An Insurance (Group) Co. businesses backed by SoftBank Group Corp., listed its offering size as $100 million in a filing Wednesday. That’s typically a placeholder that may change.OneConnect opted for a New York listing despite U.S.-China tensions. The company earlier considered a Hong Kong listing with a target of raising about $1 billion at a valuation of about $8 billion, Bloomberg reported in February.OneConnect’s filing follows this year’s surge of U.S. IPOs that peaked with Uber Technologies Inc.’s $8.1 billion offering in May. Twenty listings in October raised $2.41 billion, though plans for several big listings were scrapped or delayed, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.The year’s U.S. listings -- 158 raising more than $47 billion combined -- have included 24 by China- and Hong Kong-based companies that accounted $3.05 billion that total. Only three of those companies are currently trading above their offer price, the data show.SoftBank’s StrugglesOneConnect, backed by SoftBank’s Vision Fund, provides technology solutions that help increase revenue and manage risks for small and midsize financial institutions in China.SoftBank has placed bets on companies under the state-linked insurer Ping An, as part of its play in combining technology and insurance. Last year, Vision Fund invested in Ping An Good Doctor and Ping An Healthcare Technology.SoftBank’s dealmaking prowess is being questioned after WeWork abandoned plans for an IPO of as much as $3.5 billion and the uncertain path to profitability for some other of its portfolio companies, including Didi Chuxing.WeWork’s troubles shouldn’t affect OneConnect’s plan for a public listing or its valuation, Ping An co-Chief Executive Officer Jessica Tan said in an interview Sunday, citing potential demand for enterprise technology services in China.Loss GrowsOneConnect had a net loss of $147 million on revenue of $218 million during the nine months ended Sept. 30, compared with an $82 million net loss on revenue of $128 million for the same period last year, the filing shows. Since 2017, Ping An Group has extended to OneConnect more than $1 billion in loans with interest rates ranging from 4.55% to 7.3%.The offering is being led by Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Ping An Securities Group Holdings Ltd. OneConnect said in the filing that it plans to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange or the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol OCFT.(Updates with SoftBank investments in seventh paragraph)To contact the reporters on this story: Crystal Tse in New York at ctse44@bloomberg.net;Yueqi Yang in New York at yyang492@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Liana Baker at lbaker75@bloomberg.net, ;Polina Noskova at pnoskova@bloomberg.net, Michael Hytha, Matthew MonksFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Simply Wall St.
Should You Think About Buying Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. (HKG:2318) Now?
Let's talk about the popular Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. (HKG:2318). The company's shares saw its...
- PR Newswire
Ping An Joins UNLEASH 2019 to Support Innovation for Sustainable Development Goals
HONG KONG and SHANGHAI, Nov. 6, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Ping An Insurance (Group) of Company of China, Ltd. (hereafter "Ping An" or the "Group", HKEx: 2318; SSE: 601318) is proud to represent the financial technology sector as a partner of UNLEASH 2019, the global innovation lab for sustainable development, in Shenzhen, China November 6 to 13. UNLEASH is bringing together a cross-section of the world's top talent between the ages of 20 and 35, including more than 1,000 academics, entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs and technical experts to create solutions to address the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). "Innovation for sustainable development is at the heart of Ping An's strategy.
- PR Newswire
Ping An Reports Steady Growth of 21.5% in Operating Profit Attributable to Shareholders of Parent Company in 9M 19
SSE: 601318) today announced its results for the nine months ended 30 September 2019. As of 30 September 2019, the Group had over 200 million retail customers, up 9.5% from the beginning of the year, and 594 million internet users, up 10.4% from the beginning of the year. In the first nine months of 2019, the Group acquired 29.72 million new customers, of whom 11.58 million or 39.0% were sourced from internet users within the Group's five ecosystems.
- Bloomberg
Hong Kong Police Already Have AI Tech That Can Recognize Faces
(Bloomberg) -- Hong Kong law enforcement authorities have access to artificial intelligence software that can match faces from any video footage to police databases, but it’s unclear if it’s being used to quell months-long pro-democracy protests, according to people familiar with the matter.Police have been able to use the technology from Sydney-based iOmniscient for at least three years, and engineers from the company have trained dozens of officers on how to use it, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public. The software can scan footage including from closed-circuit television to automatically match faces and license plates to a police database and pick out suspects in a crowd.In addition to tracking criminals, iOminiscient’s artificial intelligence can be used for everything from finding lost children to managing traffic. In one training session that took place after the protests began in June, the people said, officers asked how to automatically identify license plate numbers using dashboard cameras.Questions over the use of facial recognition technology have loomed over the protests, stoking fears that Hong Kong is moving closer to a mainland-style surveillance state. Demonstrators have worn masks, destroyed CCTV cameras, torn down so-called smart lampposts and used umbrellas to hide acts of vandalism. Authorities in turn used an emergency law this month for the first time in more than half a century to ban face masks, a move that triggered increased violence.“Hong Kong people are afraid of being captured by the CCTV cameras,” said Bonnie Leung, a district councilor and a former leader of the Civil Human Rights Front, which has organized some of the biggest protests in the past few months. “Why are people still wearing face masks? Because of the police surveillance.”While Hong Kong’s government has disclosed some ways it uses facial recognition technology, Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s administration and the police haven’t publicly confirmed whether they are using it to monitor the protests. Patrick Nip, secretary for constitutional and mainland affairs, said in June that no government department had procured or developed automated facial recognition-CCTV systems or applied the technology in CCTV systems.Nip’s office referred all questions on facial recognition technology to the police, which didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.iOmniscient declined to comment on whether Hong Kong’s police use its facial recognition technology. The company said that its technology also has the capability to keep identities anonymous for such uses as crowd control. Its systems are used in more than 50 countries and only a small portion of overall revenue comes from Hong Kong, where business opportunities are relatively limited given privacy concerns and fewer cameras compared with other cities, according to the firm.Under Hong Kong’s privacy laws, which are more stringent than the mainland, members of the public must be informed if they’re subject to surveillance. If authorities are matching faces or names to identity markers, that would fall under the privacy ordinance, according to Stuart Hargreaves, a law professor at Chinese University of Hong Kong who researches surveillance and privacy issues. However, police can claim an exemption if the data is being used to detect or prevent crime.“Is the ‘facial recognition’ simply the police combing through video footage for ‘known individuals,’ or is there some kind of automated AI system at play?” Hargreaves said. “The truth is we simply do not know.”The world’s five most-watched cities are all in China, with the top city of Chongqing having about 168 cameras per 1,000 people, according to estimates by Comparitech. By comparison, Hong Kong’s 50,000 CCTVs are one-tenth the number in London and not enough to put it in the top 20 most-watched cities.Hong Kong authorities have tried to appease concerns by pointing out that there is no in-built facial recognition in recently installed smart lampposts or in CCTV cameras at China government offices. Still, the technology has been used in the city for more than a decade, including at the airport and Shenzhen border for immigration control.Next year a new electronic identity system is scheduled to come into effect in which as many as 100 public services will make use of biometric authentication, including facial recognition, eye scans, and finger and voice prints. A unit of Ping An Insurance Group Co., whose shareholders include the Shenzhen government, is responsible for the design, implementation and support of the core system, as well as facial recognition and imaging processing, according to a government statement in April.Some Chinese companies recently blacklisted by the U.S. over human rights concerns in the far west region of Xinjiang have their tech in Hong Kong. Face scan technology from AI startup Yitu Technology will be among the options that staff can choose to access the headquarters of the government’s electrical and mechanical services department, according to a June statement on the three-month trial project. Yitu didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co. cameras with facial recognition capabilities are installed outside of buildings including the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, though the facial recognition function hasn’t been turned on, according to responses from government agencies to lawmaker Charles Mok. The department told him it sent footage from its cameras to police seven times since the protests began.“The whole thing is: do you trust the government with your data?” said Mok, who has been in the information technology industry for more than 20 years. “That’s the problem, if there’s a whole breakdown of trust.”A Hikvision spokesperson said its products are sold through third parties, so it cannot confirm camera locations or whether a specific function is turned on. The group opposes the U.S. sanctions and is working to address concerns, recently retaining former U.S. Ambassador Pierre-Richard Prosper to advise on human rights and compliance.On Hong Kong’s streets, riot police have sought to avoid the cameras even while arresting more than 2,000 protesters, including nearly 100 people for violating the mask ban. They’ve used flashlights to disrupt media coverage, and some officers removed ID numbers and donned masks to hide their identities for fear that they could become victims of personal attacks online, known as doxxing. Apple Inc. recently pulled a live mapping app used by protesters to track some police deployments including of water cannons.Hong Kong protesters have continued distributing masks at rallies, telling demonstrators to take one “if you aren’t feeling well” to take advantage of exemptions in the law.At least one Hong Kong company, TickTack Technology, pulled out of the smart lamppost program after protesters tore one down and found a Bluetooth Beacon the company used to signal its location to devices including smartphones. Demonstrators then doxxed some of the group’s founders.“We prefer to be low-profile till things cool down,” a TickTack spokesman said by email.Hong Kong’s Innovation and Technology Bureau said in a statement that it “deeply regrets” that a local enterprise was cowed into stopping the supply of its technology, calling it a “serious blow” to local innovation. The government has denied that the lampposts have facial recognition capabilities.Hong Kong’s colleges are also involved in facial recognition. Tang Xiaoou, a professor at Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Department of Information Engineering, is a founder of SenseTime, the world’s most valuable artificial intelligence startup.The developer of facial recognition was among eight Chinese companies blacklisted by the U.S. over Xinjiang, where the Chinese government has implemented a massive program of surveillance and re-education camps to monitor the local mostly Muslim population. The company said it sees its technology as a “global force for good” and is disappointed with the U.S. sanctions, and will work to address any concerns.Sensetime said its focus in the city is on education and it does not have any contracts with the Hong Kong government. The group published Hong Kong’s first textbook on artificial intelligence for secondary schools.Banks including HSBC Holdings Plc allow clients to open accounts with selfies under guidelines of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, which is also considering allowing face scans for ATMs. Customs guidelines allow firms to use face scans for security.The current protests may dampen enthusiasm for greater use of facial recognition. As demonstrations have become more violent and intense over the weeks, the number of masks has grown -- including, more recently, those of Chinese President Xi Jinping and the Guy Fawkes mask associated with the Anonymous movement.“The government is just trying to take away our rights,” Angus, a 22-year-old student wearing a surgical mask and black clothes, said on the day Lam announced the ban. “They’re just the tool of the Chinese government. We don’t want to be China.”(Updates with Hikvision comment.)To contact the reporter on this story: Blake Schmidt in Hong Kong at bschmidt16@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Daniel Ten Kate at dtenkate@bloomberg.net, Adam Majendie, Chris KayFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Benzinga
Avia Solutions Acquires Chapman Freeborn
Cyprus-based Avia Solutions Group, a multipurpose aviation holding company, has completed the acquisition of 100% of the shares of U.K.-headquartered Chapman Freeborn Group. The entitles signed the initial ...
- MarketWatch
How the hostile bid lost its aura
There have only been 17 completed or pending hostile deals launched so far this year. That is the lowest number since 1998 for the comparable year to date when there were 14, according to data from Dealogic.
