Shares in Chinese electronic appliance maker Midea closed nearly eight percent higher on its Hong Kong debut Tuesday, having raised around US$4 billion in the city’s biggest initial public offering for more than three years.

The firm closed at HK$59.1 following early exchanges where it spiked to HK$60.0, up from its HK$54.8 list price, which was at the top of the range indicated in its prospectus.

Midea’s bumper listing fueled hopes that the Hong Kong bourse can attract more top Chinese firms and regain its crown as the world’s top venue for IPOs.

The Chinese finance hub has suffered a steady decline in new offerings since a regulatory crackdown by Beijing starting in 2020 led some Chinese mega-companies to put their plans on hold.

The city saw just 30 IPOs in the first half of this year, compared with more than 100 annually between 2013 and 2020.

“If this manages to hold on to gains for the week, it would definitely create a better IPO environment, paving the way for more to come,” Rockpool Capital’s chief investment officer Benjamin Wong told Bloomberg News.

Midea’s IPO has eclipsed the combined valuation of all of Hong Kong’s new listings so far this year, and is the city’s largest since JD Logistics and Kuaishou Technology in the first half of 2021.

The Foshan-based company last week expanded the number of shares on offer by around 15 percent to 566 million—an indicator of strong demand.

In a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange on Monday it said the international portion of the IPO was subscribed by more than eight times, before taking into account the adjustment to the offer size.

Midea chairman Paul Fang called the listing “a strategic step forward in the company’s globalization”, the South China Morning Post reported on Tuesday.

Cornerstone investors, including a subsidiary of Cosco Shipping Holdings and part of UBS Asset Management Singapore, agreed to buy Midea stocks worth US$1.26 billion.

Founded in 1968, Midea has become one of the world’s largest sellers of home appliances such as washing machines and air conditioners and it also owns the German industrial robot maker Kuka.

Last month it reported a 14 percent rise in net profit in the first half of 2024 despite weakening consumer spending due to China’s economic slowdown, while revenue hit US$52.7 billion.

The company’s shares in Hong Kong were offered at a 20 percent discount compared to its stock price in Shenzhen, where it has been listed since 2013.

Hong Kong’s stock exchange received a boost earlier this year after Chinese regulators unveiled measures to support the city’s status as a finance hub.

The bourse operator will also change its policy this month to keep trading through typhoons and heavy storms, in a bid to raise competitiveness.

© 2024 AFP

Chip-making giant Intel on Monday said it was delaying its plans to build two mega chip-making factories in Germany and Poland as the company faces lower demand than anticipated.

The announcement will come as a major blow to the German and Polish governments that have heavily subsidized the projects and touted them as a boost to their national industry.

Intel also said it would pull back on its projects in Malaysia, but said that its US plans would remain unaffected.

In Germany, construction work on the Intel project was due to begin in 2023 but it stalled after the Ukraine war sent inflation soaring.

German officials and the company were then locked in talks on financing for months, but both sides finally signed a deal in June 2023, which included increased subsidies.

Germany stepped up its subsidy to launch the 30-billion-euro ($33 billion) factory project to almost 10 billion euros, some three billion more than first offered.

“We recently increased capacity in Europe through our fab (or factory) in Ireland, which will remain our lead European hub for the foreseeable future,” Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said in a statement.

“We will pause our projects in Poland and Germany by approximately two years based on anticipated market demand,” he added.

In Poland, Intel had received $1.8 billion to set up a semiconductor factory near Wroclaw.

EU countries are seeking to boost production of semiconductors, used in everything from fighter jets to smartphones, and reduce reliance on Asia after pandemic-induced shortages hit some industries, and Russia’s war on Ukraine brought home the risks of over-dependency.

On Monday, Intel also said it would receive up to $3 billion in direct funding from the US government, to boost its manufacturing of semiconductors for the US military.

This is part of efforts to “secure the domestic chip supply chain,” according to an Intel statement.

The company also said it would work with the Department of Defense to improve the resilience of US technological systems.

© 2024 AFP

Meta late Monday said it is banning Russian state media outlets from its apps around the world due to “foreign interference activity.”

The ban comes after the United States accused RT and employees of the state run agency of funneling $10 million through shell entities to covertly fund influence campaigns on social media channels including TikTok, Instagram, X, and YouTube, according to an unsealed indictment.

“After careful consideration, we expanded our ongoing enforcement against Russian state media outlets,” Meta said in response to an AFP inquiry.

“Rossiya Segodnya, RT and other related entities are now banned from our apps globally for foreign interference activity.”

RT was forced to cease formal operations in Britain, Canada, the European Union and the United States due to sanctions after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, according to the indictment unsealed in New York,

US prosecutors quoted an RT editor-in-chief as saying it created an “entire empire of covert projects” designed to shape public opinion in “Western audiences.”

One of the covert projects involved funding and direction of an online content creation company in Tennessee, according to the indictment.

Russia is the biggest source of covert influence operations disrupted by Meta at its platform since 2017, and such efforts at deceptive online influence ramped up after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to threat reports released routinely by the social media giant.

Meta had previously banned the Federal News Agency in Russia to thwart foreign interference activities by the Russian Internet Research Agency.

The US Department of State in September said it is engaged in diplomatic efforts to inform governments around the world about Russia’s use of RT to conduct covert activities and encourage them to take action to limit “Russia’s ability to interfere in foreign elections and procure weapons for its war against Ukraine.”

© 2024 AFP

As anyone who has looked for a job can tell you, finding one isn’t the easiest process. This experience can be even more challenging if you’re new to a country and speak with what is perceived to be a “foreign” accent.

An accent can often impact how we are viewed and judged by others. Despite being proficient in a second language, having an accent considered “foreign” can still feel like a barrier.

At a time when more newcomers are coming to Canada and looking for jobs, it’s important to gain a deeper understanding of accent bias.

In our research, we have focused on how second language accents are associated with listener bias, broadly understood as negative responses to a speaker whose pronunciation is influenced by their previously known languages.

We conducted studies on what human resources (HR) instructors, students and professionals know about accent bias, how they understand it and how they enact it in making decisions about a person’s employability.

Accents and bias

Accents are normal. They signal that a person speaks a language or dialect from a particular geographic area or that the person is a second language speaker who grew up speaking another language.

People notice accents readily, even though they generally have little difficulty understanding accented speakers. However, many people, including accented speakers themselves, often believe they should change their accent or just work hard to get rid of it.

Some accented speakers may choose or be urged to take accent modification courses. This is despite extensive research showing that accent reduction training is generally ineffective.

There are compelling reasons why someone might want to change the way they speak. Accents provide listeners with information about speakers, such as where they come from or what other languages they speak. However, accents can also be a source of listener bias.

For instance, people who speak with second language accents often elicit negative stereotypes such as being considered less trustworthy, less intelligent or less pleasant to listen to. They can also face outright discrimination in the legal system and the housing market.

Accent bias may also play out in the workplace, with reports of accented speakers facing exclusion, receiving lower pay, being downgraded in employability evaluations (especially in jobs with high communication demands) and having fewer professional opportunities. Accent bias also comes with negative consequences for a person’s well-being, including increased stress and poorer mental health.

Because securing a job is crucial for newcomers, it’s essential to understand what HR specialists, as gatekeepers to gainful employment, know about second language accents and how they respond to accented speakers.

Research on HR

We began our three-phase research by interviewing 14 HR students, six HR instructors and 16 HR professionals in two Canadian cities, Calgary and Montréal, to hear their perspectives on accent bias.

We found that HR instructors do not generally discuss accents in their university coursework. Nonetheless, students understand and can articulate examples of accent bias and discrimination in their own experiences. We also found that the HR professionals we spoke with consider a person’s qualifications and ability to communicate effectively to be more important than speaking without a noticeable accent.

Despite our interviewees’ positive outlook and their willingness to engage with accent bias and its real-world implications, many still held stereotypical views of accented speakers.

These findings led us to investigate how accents play a role in HR students’ decision-making about a job applicant’s employability. We asked 80 HR students from Calgary and Montréal to listen to recordings of simulated job interview responses. The job applicants differed in their language backgrounds, which were Arabic, English or Tagalog. We then asked the HR students to indicate how likely they would be to hire these individuals if they were professionals applying to different roles.

Despite research that often points to bias against applicants whose resumes and speech mark them as newcomers, the HR students in our study could easily distinguish between the more and less qualified candidates regardless of language background. In some cases they preferred the highly skilled applicants from the Tagalog and Arabic language backgrounds to applicants who spoke English as their mother tongue.

Our follow-up study with current HR professionals similarly pointed to their ability to focus on job applicants’ skills and knowledge and to their willingness to disregard accent.

Sharing session

Considering that second language speakers express concerns about speaking with an accent and that HR students and professionals desire accent bias training, we conducted a sharing session that brought together recent newcomers to Canada and current HR professionals to grapple with accent bias.

Participants were asked to confront myths about accents, such as those that portray accented speakers as unwilling to integrate into the Canadian workplace. They were also encouraged to consider how accents form part of an individual’s cultural heritage rather than a lack of effort to adapt.

Newcomers overwhelmingly expressed that an accent is a sign of their identity. The HR professionals noted a deepened understanding of the implications of speaking with an accent. Everyone agreed on the importance of focusing on potential employees’ relevant experience and ability to communicate successfully over speaking with a local accent.

Accents in the real world

Stereotypes develop when people see individuals belonging to certain social groups perform roles considered customary for them. To change stereotypes and reduce prejudice, there must be greater representation of accented speakers in prominent occupations such as a lawyer, a news anchor, and a politician.

Inter-group contact is also a powerful tool for reducing prejudice. Workplaces should arrange opportunities for coworkers to collaborate on teams with skilled and successful second language speakers. This would go a long way toward dispelling various myths about accents, including the expectation that second language speakers and newcomers are only suitable for entry-level, low-prestige jobs, or that their performance is inferior to those who speak English as their mother tongue.

Our accents are part of what makes us who we are, and having a “foreign” one does not mean a person is any less qualified or suited for a job. As Canada becomes more diverse, hearing different accents is a common experience. Nurturing meaningful interactions with newcomers will promote greater inclusion of individuals who speak with accents.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.