Corporate bits | Labor bureau holds OSH tour at MGM

Last week, a group of 60 professionals and practitioners from the local hospitality and catering industry visited MGM Macau for a presentation on MGM’s occupational safety and health (OSH) initiatives, followed by a guided tour of the resort’s catering operations and award-winning kitchens.

The Catering Industry Occupational Safety and Health Tour was organized by the Labour Affairs Bureau (DSAL).

The activity began with a speech by Wong Chi Hong, Director of DSAL, who shared that the tour provides a great platform for industry practitioners to gain fresh perspectives on improving their OSH.

Workplace health and safety is a prime concern at MGM, according to a statement issued by the gaming operator.

Earlier this year, MGM signed the “Occupational Safety and Health Charter,” an industry-wide commitment to workplace safety initiated by DSAL.

The company also received a total of 15 awards, including the silver award, in Corporate Safety Performance in the 2nd DSAL Catering Industry Occupational Safety and Health Award Program.

Tencent said to plan driverless technology

Tencent Holdings Ltd. has developed its own autonomous driving system, according to sources related to the matter, becoming the latest player to dive into an already crowded field that could become a USD42 billion industry.

The social media giant intends to leverage its mapping and artificial intelligence technology to compete in a sector that has attracted investment from the likes of local rivals Baidu Inc. and Alphabet Inc. (AI), as well as Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo, the sources said, before requesting not to be named due to the private nature of the matter. It is unclear how far the development effort has advanced, though Tencent has a prototype and begun testing the system internally, the sources said. Tencent’s share price rose as much as 3 percent in Hong Kong trading, to the highest level since the company’s initial public offering in 2004.

Tencent, whose now-ubiquitous WeChat service emerged from an internal development project, would be by far China’s biggest entrant into autonomous driving. While it bought about 5 percent of Tesla Inc. in March and is a big backer of ride-sharing giant Didi Chuxing and mapmaker NavInfo Co., few expected the gaming and social media company to come up with its own self-driving technology. That would pit it squarely against Baidu Inc., which has invested billions of dollars on AI and driving research and intends to get autonomous vehicles on roads by 2018.

Well Link Bank inaugurated

Well Link Bank, which was named Novo Banco Ásia until September 2017, is planning to open branches in Macau, the bank’s president of the board of directors, Zhang Shengman, told TDM.

The bank was inaugurated under the new name yesterday. New shareholders bought it partly from Novo Banco spending a total of MOP183 million to buy 75 percent of the Portuguese bank.

Well Link Bank’s main shareholders are now Well Link Group (26 percent); Novo Banco (which keeps a 25 percent share); the Ma family (with 15 percent of the shares and Group KingKey (also holding 15 percent of the shares).

Novo Banco was once Portugal’s largest lender by market value (Banco Espírito Santo) – before a rescue plan was put in motion. That plan consisted of splitting the troubled financial institution into a “good bank” – renamed Novo Banco, housing healthy assets – and a “bad bank,” housing riskier assets.