Top read stories include Serba Dinamik, EPF, AirAsia X, Tesla

       Corporate News

       Serba Dinamik takes legal actions against EY Consulting to block release of findings

       Serba Dinamik Holdings Bhd is taking Ernst & Young Consulting Sdn Bhd to court, seeking block its special auditor from revealing any findings from the special independent review. The Originating Summons (OS) against EY Consulting was filed at the High Court of Malaya on Nov 5, Serba Dinamik said today. Serba Dinamik, in July, appointed EY Consulting as the independent reviewer on Bursa Securities' directive to assess the veracity of the audit issues raised by its former auditor KPMG. EPF: Announcement on ESG practices by year-end The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) is expected to announce a sector sustainability policy framework by year-end as guidance for its future investment that will comply with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices. Chief investment officer Rohaya Mohammad Yusof said ESG has now become extremely important in investors' decision-making in order to achieve value enhancement as well as to mitigate risk. She said there is a lot of ongoing engagement with companies in order to understand where they are in this particular journey, given their differences in pace in ESG adoption. Astro-unveils-new-netflix-streaming-packages" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; --darkreader-inline-color: #337dff;" target="_blank">Astro unveils new Netflix streaming packages Astro Malaysia Holdings Bhd views its partnership with Netflix and new subscription packages to be its biggest draw to customers. Astro's group chief operating officer and chief executive officer for television operations Euan Smith said that the group would be able to draw in customers with the United States-listed over-the-top (OTT) streamer's huge additional content. Smith added that the exciting new features on the Ultra Box would allow its customers to enjoy more of their favourite local shows and live sports and now includes all of Netflix's originals, films and documentaries. Iconic completes construction of RM200mil PPE manufacturing facility Iconic Worldwide's wholly-owned subsidiary Iconic Medicare Sdn Bhd has completed its new RM200mil personal protective equipment (PPE) manufacturing facility for gloves and medical face masks here in Batu Kawan.In a statement Wednesday, Iconic said it obtained the Certificate of Completion and Compliance on Nov 9. At the initial stage, Iconic has started running four double former glove dipping lines, and plans to increase to six by end of the year. By the first quarter of 2022, a total of 12 double former glove dipping lines and 20 medical face mask production lines would be installed and commissioned.

       Aviation

       AirAsia-group-appoints-currie-as-chief-commercial-officer" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; --darkreader-inline-color: #337dff;" target="_blank">AirAsia Group appoints Currie as chief commercial officer

       AirAsia Group has appointed former adidas executive Colin Currie as its chief commercial officer with effect from Wednesday. He brings a wealth of experience at a global company which has also focused on Asean and can drive data integration within the group to speed up our revenue growth and create a new breadth of synergies across many of our new and exciting projects. Prior to joining adidas, Currie worked in the music and entertainment industry as managing director of Sony BMG Music Malaysia. Before that, Currie developed a broad knowledge of marketing in Hong Kong and Australia through key marketing positions with Citibank, Ansett Australia and Telstra Mobile. Mavcom urges AirAsia X to fully reimburse ticket purchasers The Malaysian Aviation Commission (Mavcom) has urged AirAsia X Bhd to fully reimburse its ticket holders whose flights have been cancelled, in view of current developments where they will only receive a fraction of the ticket purchase price. Correspondingly, ticket holders of AirAsia X, whose flights had been cancelled due to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent grounding of airlines, will be able to redeem only 0.5% of their purchased ticket values. In the statement, it said AirAsia X had repeatedly given its assurances that it would reimburse air travel consumer who were not able to fly due to flight cancellations. Economy

       GDP shrank 4.5% in 3Q but economy on recovery mode in 4Q and next year

       Malaysia’s economy shrank by 4.5% in the third quarter ended Sept 30, 2021 compared with a 16.1% expansion in the second quarter but the economy is on a recovery trajectory in the fourth quarter and extending into 2022. Bank Negara Malaysia said on Friday the Malaysian economy is expected to improve following the normalisation of economic activities. For 2021, the domestic economy is on track to expand by between 3% and 4%. "Growth will be supported by the increase in economic activities as containment measures are progressively relaxed, amid continued policy support. The various relaxations of restrictions for fully vaccinated individuals including for interstate travel would also spur tourism-related activities," it said. In addition, the strength in global demand will continue to support export growth. Working longer in old age for survival Many working Malaysians will need to play catch up but the question is, how many of them would achieve the required basic savings by the age of 55? The EPF estimates that members will need to work between an extra four to six years to rebuild the savings that have been utilised during the pandemic. Without working longer or having sufficient pension support, many older Malaysians would easily fall into poverty in just a few years post-retirement. After all, Malaysians on average are living about 16 years longer after the retirement age of 60. The World Bank calls for the country’s minimum retirement age to be increased to 65

       Tesla

       Elon Musk loses US$50bil in two days in record wealth plunge

       Elon Musk has lost US$50bil (RM207.53bil) so far this week after Tesla Inc shares plunged for the second day in a row. It's the biggest two-day decline in the history of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and the biggest one-day fall after Jeff Bezos's US$36bil (RM149.42bil) plunge following his divorce from MacKenzie Scott in 2019. The drop narrows Musk's lead over Bezos as the world's richest person to US$83bil (RM344.49bil). Elon Musk sells US$5bil of Tesla shares Elon Musk, who frequently stokes controversy on Twitter, created a firestorm over the weekend with a survey asking whether he should sell part of his Tesla stake. He also didn't mention in the tweets that he has millions of stock options that must be exercised before next August, when they expire. The stock pared those declines Wednesday, closing up 4.3%, and rose 2.5% before the start of regular trading Thursday.