Sime Darby to restructure group

KUALA LUMPUR • Malaysian conglomerate Sime Darby said it will undertake a restructuring of the group ahead of the planned spin off of its plantations and property businesses.

The restructuring will include the group's borrowings, the transfer of certain assets - including land - within the group, and capitalisation of inter-company loans, Sime Darby said in a statement.

The world's largest oil-palm planter by land size posted its second-quarter results yesterday, which showed net profit more than doubled from a year ago. Profit rose to RM644 million (S$204 million) for the quarter ended December, from RM285 million a year ago.

BLOOMBERG

Lax penalties behind fakes: Alibaba

BEIJING • China's Alibaba Group Holding yesterday blamed ambiguous laws and lax penalties for the root of its difficulties in enforcing laws against counterfeiting, as the firm lobbies to be taken off a United States blacklist of marketplaces notorious for fakes.

In a statement, the e-commerce giant said it reported almost 4,500 leads on counterfeiting operations to the authorities last year, but they resulted in just 33 convictions, a vast majority of which secured probation.

The minimum value limit for reporting an illegal counterfeiting operation is 50,000 yuan (S$10,200), it added. Alibaba ramped up its anti-counterfeit campaign after its top e-commerce platform, Taobao, was returned to an annual US Trade Representative blacklist of "notorious marketplaces" in December.

REUTERS