SINGAPORE, March 31 (Bernama-GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- GCP Applied Technologies Inc. (NYSE: GCP) (GCP or the Company), a leading global provider of construction products, today announced it is implementing price increases for Concrete Admixtures, Cement Additives and Specialty Building Materials in Asia Pacific.
To continue providing the exceptional solutions GCP’s customers rely on, at the levels of service they require, it is necessary to increase prices for all construction products effective April 1, 2022.
“The global supply chain impacts on raw material and freight costs have been unprecedented over the past nine months and costs are not expected to subside in the near future. We have continued to increase our inventory levels to service our customers’ needs, and added freight capacity to ensure timely delivery. We are committed to provide customers with the highest-performing products and industry-leading technical service. GCP’s regional sales team will contact our customers individually to discuss the details of the price increase,” commented Jimmy Ho, GCP’s President of Asia Pacific Region.
About GCP Applied Technologies
GCP Applied Technologies (NYSE: GCP) is a leading global provider of construction products that include high-performance specialty construction chemicals and building materials. GCP partners with producers, contractors, designers and engineers to achieve performance and sustainability goals. The company has a legacy of first to market and award-winning solutions that have been used to build some of the world’s most renowned structures. GCP is focused on continuous improvement for its customers, end-users and the environment.
For more information, visit GCP's website at www.gcpat.com.
Media Relations
Catherine Meihofer
+1 678-575-1927
mediainfo@gcpat.com
Investor Relations
William I. Kent, IRC
+1 617-498-4344
investors@gcpat.com
SOURCE : GCP Applied Technologies Inc.
Thursday, 31 March 2022
GCP ANNOUNCES ASIA PACIFIC PRICE INCREASE ON ALL CONSTRUCTION PRODUCTS
FASTLY ACQUIRES FANOUT TO UNLOCK REAL-TIME APP DEVELOPMENT AT THE EDGE
SAN FRANCISCO, March 31 (Bernama-BUSINESS WIRE) -- Fastly, Inc. (NYSE: FSLY), the world’s fastest edge cloud network provider, today announced its acquisition of Fanout, a platform that makes it easy to build and scale real-time and streaming APIs such as live chat support, ecommerce, video streaming, gaming, collaborative editing, and more. The acquisition is part of Fastly’s broader growth strategy to identify and deploy technologies and talent that increase performance, security and innovation for customers.
Today, a digital experience’s speed and performance are key to customer engagement and conversion. The integration of Fanout technology into Fastly’s powerful network will help enable real-time app development at the edge with increased time-to-market, reduced friction, and unprecedented scale.
“With the addition of the Fanout technology into Fastly’s portfolio, it positions Fastly well to support customers that want to migrate away from existing, complicated in-house WebSocket stacks, as well as customers who don't have engineering resources to build a push architecture for real-time data and communications to any device, anywhere,” said IDC Research Vice President Ghassan Abdo. “To add this functionality into the same stack where applications are already being built should help resource-constrained developers at SMBs and enterprises alike.”
Fanout’s value to the Fastly platform is its revolutionary ability to:
- Deliver real-time development that is transport agnostic. Fanout makes this happen without constraints on the number of connected clients and with true 1-to-many message fan-out.
- Allow customers to use their existing HTTP origin instead of maintaining a complicated and expensive WebSocket or other push protocol messaging infrastructure dedicated solely to real-time app development
- Streamline workflows efficiently and free developers to build the best possible experience for their users without having to waste time worrying about the intricacies of real-time protocols.
“We’ve always been driven to create the tools our customers need for building and delivering exceptional digital experiences behind the best of the web,” said Joshua Bixby, CEO of Fastly. “Integrating Fanout’s real-time application technology into ours gives developers a consistent development experience, empowering them to effortlessly upgrade their end-user experiences in a fraction of the time and with fewer resources. The integration will also allow customers to leverage Fastly’s global scale to support the needs of the largest enterprises.”
For more information, check out Fastly’s latest blog post, “Fastly + Fanout: why real-time messaging and edge computing are an amazing combination.”
About Fastly
Fastly is upgrading the internet experience to give people and organizations more control, faster content, and more dynamic applications. By combining the world’s fastest global edge cloud network with powerful software, Fastly helps customers develop, deliver, and secure modern distributed applications and compelling digital experiences. Fastly’s customers include many of the world’s most prominent companies, including Pinterest, The New York Times, and GitHub. For more information on our mission and products, visit https://www.fastly.com.
Source: Fastly, Inc.
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Contact
Media Contact:
press@fastly.com
IR Contact:
Vernon Essi, Jr.
ir@fastly.com
Source : Fastly, Inc.
Wednesday, 30 March 2022
21K SCHOOL AIMS TO BECOME THE LARGEST ONLINE SCHOOL IN SOUTH ASIA BY 2023
MUMBAI, India, March 30 (Bernama-BUSINESS WIRE) -- 21K School—India’s first online-only school—is well on its way to becoming the largest online-only K12 school in South Asia. It will be registering over 15,000 students for the upcoming academic year by July 2022, and by 2023 the school plans to have over 30,000 students. Presently, 21K School has students from over 35 countries who have been the strong promoters helping the community grow.
21K School is a leading online-only school that offers accessible, world-class education to children between the age of 3 to 18 years, residing in any geographical location and time zone. With over 200 highly trained and best-in-class teachers, 21K School has an enviable teaching quality which is rated at an industry beating 96% approval. While students enrolling at 21K School can choose to study from three curriculums—Indian, American, and British—its disruptive education model is helping create a new category with personalised, affordable, and flexible schooling for them. The online-only school has recently partnered with Cambridge UK to offer career pathway programs from schooling to admission in universities across the UK for higher education. The team has taken their deep understanding of technology and pedagogy to create a school of the future.
21K School helps students significantly cut down their commute time to and from school, thus giving them more time at hand to pursue language studies, performing arts, sports, etc. Furthermore, students from 21K School have gone on to publish books, develop games, compete in state and national level sporting events, and yet have never had to miss a day of school. Santosh Kumar, CEO & Co-founder, 21K School, said, “21K School continuously aims to provide world-class education from nursery to Grade 12, with an ease of access to everyone, anywhere, anytime. Outside our regular target audience, we have seen a high level of inbound interest from parents who have to frequently move cities due to jobs, or parents from Tier 2 & 3 cities who yearn for high quality education or those in metros but cannot afford the sky-rocketing price of schooling. With online schooling making a breakthrough in the education ecosystem, 21K School focuses on broadening its reach to help students fulfil their quest for holistic education and be ready for future.”
About 21K School:
Founded in 2020, 21k School is the first online-only school in India. Co-founded by Santosh Kumar, Joshi Kumar, Dinesh Kumar and Yeshwanth Raj Parasmal, the school’s objective is to make world-class education accessible to all children irrespective of their geographical location and fluid lives. The school is known for its intellectual rigor, application-based learning, flexible options, trained faculty, and an environment of collective learning in a community that grows together instead of competing with each other. The school has 3,500 plus happy students going to 30,000 over the next 18 months - across 35 countries and is well poised for global expansion.
View source version on businesswire.com:
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220329005489/en/
Contact
Vasudha Rao, Adfactors PR, +91-9820347118
Source : 21K School
AM BEST AFFIRMS CREDIT RATINGS OF CHINA TAIPING INSURANCE (MACAU) CO., LTD.
HONG KONG, March 30 (Bernama-BUSINESS WIRE) -- AM Best has
affirmed the Financial Strength Rating of A (Excellent) and the
Long-Term Issuer Credit Rating of “a” (Excellent) of China Taiping
Insurance (Macau) Co., Ltd. (CTIM) (Macau). The outlook of these Credit
Ratings (ratings) is stable.
The ratings reflect CTIM’s balance
sheet strength, which AM Best assesses as very strong, as well as its
strong operating performance, neutral business profile and appropriate
enterprise risk management.
CTIM risk-adjusted capitalization, as
measured by Best’s Capital Adequacy Ratio (BCAR), remained stable and
is at the strongest level. The company’s capital continues to grow in
2021 through partial profit retention and is supported by positive
operating results. The company’s investment strategy remained
conservative and stable, with the majority of its investment assets in
cash and investment grade bonds. The company’s reinsurance program
remained comprehensive with reinsurer panels of good credit quality,
notwithstanding, the reinsurance dependency of the company is moderate.
CTIM
continues to be profit generating in 2021, supported by positive
underwriting and investment results. While the company’s net loss ratio
remained stable, its net expense ratio is showing an increasing trend,
attributed to growing management expenses. The company’s investment
portfolio continues to generate profits through interest and dividend
income to support its overall strong operating results. Notwithstanding,
the investment yield remained moderate but stable, attributed to the
company’s conservative investment strategy.
CTIM maintains a long
track record as the leader in Macau’s non-life insurance segment and
has a market share of close to 35% in 2021 based on gross premium
written. The company’s underwriting portfolio and distribution channel
were stable and diversified, while the company continues to develop its
online channel and explore cross-selling opportunities in its affiliated
life insurance company in Macau, China Taiping Life Insurance (Macau)
Company Limited.
CTIM is well-positioned at its current rating
level. Negative rating actions could occur if there is a material
decline in the company’s risk-adjusted capitalisation or a significant
and sustained deteriorating trend in its operating performance. A
weakening credit profile of the parent company, China Taiping Insurance
Holdings Company Limited, also may have a negative impact on CTIM’s
ratings.
Ratings are communicated to rated entities prior
to publication. Unless stated otherwise, the ratings were not amended
subsequent to that communication.
This press
release relates to Credit Ratings that have been published on AM Best’s
website. For all rating information relating to the release and
pertinent disclosures, including details of the office responsible for
issuing each of the individual ratings referenced in this release,
please see AM Best’s Recent Rating Activity web page. For additional information regarding the use and limitations of Credit Rating opinions, please view Guide to Best’s Credit Ratings.
For information on the proper use of Best’s Credit Ratings, Best’s
Performance Assessments, Best’s Preliminary Credit Assessments and AM
Best press releases, please view Guide to Proper Use of Best’s Ratings & Assessments.
AM
Best is a global credit rating agency, news publisher and data
analytics provider specialising in the insurance industry. Headquartered
in the United States, the company does business in over 100 countries
with regional offices in London, Amsterdam, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore
and Mexico City. For more information, visit www.ambest.com.
Copyright © 2022 by A.M. Best Rating Services, Inc. and/or its affiliates. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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Contact
Paul Lam
Financial Analyst
+852 2827 3402
paul.lam@ambest.com
Christopher Sharkey
Manager, Public Relations
+1 908 439 2200, ext. 5159
christopher.sharkey@ambest.com
Christie Lee
Senior Director
+852 2827 3413
christie.lee@ambest.com
Jim Peavy
Director, Communications
+1 908 439 2200, ext. 5644
james.peavy@ambest.com
Source : AM Best
Tuesday, 29 March 2022
UPGRAD'S STUDY ABROAD SET TO BECOME THE LARGEST PLAYER IN THE GOING-ABROAD SPACE IN SOUTH ASIA; SETS REVENUE TARGET OF $130MN FOR 2023
ATLANTA, March 29 (Bernama-BUSINESS WIRE) -- upGrad Abroad, the ‘Study Abroad’ vertical of Asia’s leading higher EdTech company upGrad, launched a high decibel campaign last week with the legendary Amitabh Bachchan, announcing the future for undergraduates and postgraduates studying abroad with the right blend of online learning for the first year, followed by the on-campus thereafter. Just in the last 8 months, upGrad Abroad has enrolled 1,500 learners and onboarded 18 partner universities.
The Study Abroad vertical has set a target to become the largest player in the segment by 2023 — to enroll over 25,000 learners and cross an annual revenue run rate of $130Mn by then. India as a market for students going abroad to study is in the top 2 countries in the world and that number has soared from 440,000 in 2016 to 770,000 in 2019 and will cross 1.8Mn students annually by 2024. The core geographies from which upGrad learners can choose include the USA, UK, Australia, Canada, and Germany.
Commenting on the same, Ankur Dhawan, President - upGrad Abroad said, “The only way to democratize transnational education is by offering learners the chance to study from any global university of their choice and yet make it much more affordable and accessible than it's ever been before. With upGrad’s ability to offer online to start with and then move to on-campus learning, we are uniquely placed to open up this market exponentially.”
“The world has changed a lot in the last half-decade and most Indians want to be in their own country or come back to their own country to work and build their future. India is a prime example as it is a land of myriad opportunities as it’s slated to be the 3rd largest economy in the world. The market for traveling overseas to pursue higher education and specialization, along with global exposure before settling, is where we believe upGrad has created the right blend of an offering with the right partnerships, to change the lives of many learners with unbridled ambition,” added Mayank Kumar, MD & Co-Founder, upGrad.
About upGrad
upGrad — started in 2015 — is a pioneer in the online education revolution, focused on powering career success for a global workforce of over 1.3 billion. It is one of the few Integrated LifeLongLearning Tech Companies in the world — spanning the college learner to the working professional from the age group of 18-50 years and across Undergrad courses, Campus & Job Linked Programs, Studying Abroad, short form to executive programs to Degrees, Masters and Doctoral — with a learner base of over 2 million across 100+ countries and over 300 University partners and a robust enterprise business with a client base of 1,000 companies worldwide.
upGrad’s Global Learning Engine rests on four pillars — (a) its large repository of original & owned content and IP, (b) its own best-in-class proprietary tech platform, (c) its high touch human-led delivery service backed by coaches & mentors, and (d) an 85% course completion track record, backed by a further 80% career outcomes guaranteed performance.
Already termed Asia’s higher EdTech leader, it has offices in the UK, U.S., Middle East, India, Singapore & Vietnam, and with a presence in many more countries.
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Contact
UpGrad | Neha Prasad |neha.prasad@upgrad.com
Source : upGrad
Friday, 25 March 2022
GLOBAL SURVEY VALIDATES THE EMERGENCE OF A NEW PRACTICE AREA IN ENTERPRISE IT VALUED AT $30 BILLION
SAN DIEGO & PARIS, March 25 (Bernama-BUSINESS WIRE) -- Kyriba, (“the Company”) a global leader of cloud-based finance and IT solutions, today announced the results of a major IDC survey commissioned by Kyriba. The global survey results of over 800 corporate finance executives validate the emergence of a new practice area in Enterprise IT that includes risk management, payments, real-time connectivity, treasury management and working capital finance. The survey further confirms that predictive analytics, APIs, and artificial intelligence are key integrated technologies required by financial leaders to optimize enterprise liquidity.
Leading CFOs leverage technology integration to unify financial data and processes
The survey highlights a group (“leaders”) who outperformed the survey set in operational efficiency, technology adoption, and process maturity:
- Enterprise Liquidity: 51% of leaders can produce a consolidated view of cash and liquidity in under one hour compared to 8% of the less equipped companies;
- Risk Reduction: 79% of leaders have implemented very effective payment fraud prevention with only 16% of laggards reporting confidence in their programs; 69% of leaders effectively hedge to protect their liquidity with less than 5% of laggards reporting well performing hedge programs;
- Real-Time Decisions: 93% of leaders leverage real-time insights compared to only 36% of less digitized organizations, while 85% of leaders integrate real-time data from partners and third-party members into their enterprise platforms;
- Investing in Technology: 51% of leaders and 43% of all respondents are planning to increase expenditures on liquidity platforms.
“CFOs’ new mission is to identify and activate all possible sources of liquidity to continually adapt to new global volatility. This survey confirms that very digitized organizations are inventing new liquidity management practices that mitigate risk while optimizing treasury, payments and working capital finance enterprise-wide and in real-time. Their CFOs deliver actionable intelligence downstream to business decision-makers by transforming data through AI and API-enabled platforms. We are witnessing the birth of a new category of software - Enterprise Liquidity Management,” said Samuel Guillon, SVP Strategy at Kyriba.
“We believe that liquidity management platforms can help CFOs improve the new practices they have already established to build resilience, generate value and unlock growth,” said Guillon.
Liquidity management is reshaping the vendor software market to create a new estimated $30b business
“Overall, the survey findings show the increasing importance of liquidity to financial leaders. The Office of the CFO is becoming a liquidity office, driving transformation through data-driven business decisions. Financial leaders demand systems that are built to aggregate, analyze and disseminate data. This need is driving the emergence of intelligent platforms built upon APIs and unified data. The survey demonstrates that CFOs recognize the need to invest in the tools, skills and resources to manage liquidity at an enterprise level,” said Kevin Permenter, Research Director, Financial Applications at IDC.
“There is a massive opportunity here for vendors to step in and help CFOs as their role changes. Taken together, we estimated the total available market for such Enterprise Liquidity Management software at $30 billion in 2021, but the longer-term opportunities for software vendors are much larger,” said Permenter.
The IDC White Paper, commissioned by Kyriba, A New Practice Area Emerges for CFOs: Enterprise-wide Liquidity Management, doc #US48341221, November 2021, is available here.
The survey was conducted online by IDC in August 2021 amongst 811 treasurers based in the US (31%), Europe (53%) and Asia (16%).
About Kyriba:
Kyriba empowers CFOs, Treasurers, and their IT counterparts to transform treasury, payments, working capital, and connectivity solutions to activate liquidity as a dynamic, real-time vehicle for growth and value creation. Kyriba is a secure, scalable SaaS platform that leverages artificial intelligence, automates payments workflows, and enables thousands of multinational corporations and banks to maximize growth, protect against loss from fraud and financial risk, and reduce operational costs. With 2,000 clients worldwide, including 25% of Fortune 500 and Eurostoxx 50 companies, Kyriba manages more than 1.3 billion bank transactions per year, and 250 million payments for a total value of $15 Trillion annually.
Kyriba is headquartered in San Diego, with offices globally. For more information, visit www.kyriba.com.
View source version on businesswire.com:
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220324005223/en/
Contact
Americas
Daniel Shaffer
dshaffer@kyriba.com
+1 858-263-2218
EMEA
Caroline Peyrat
caroline.peyrat@kyriba.com
+33633372920
Source : Kyriba
SKYDRIVE, SUZUKI REACH FOR THE SKIES IN FLYING CAR COMMERCIALISATION PARTNERSHIP
KUALA LUMPUR, March 25 (Bernama) -- SkyDrive Inc (SkyDrive) and Suzuki Motor Corporation (Suzuki) jointly announced on March 22 a partnership for the commercialisation of flying cars.
SkyDrive is a leading manufacturer of flying cars in Japan and is currently engaged in the development of a compact, two-seater electric-powered flying car with plans for full-scale production.
Suzuki is one of Japan's leading automakers with expertise that includes manufacturing and selling compact cars in international markets.
Under the terms of the agreement, SkyDrive and Suzuki will start consideration to collaborate in areas of business and technology that include technology R&D, planning of manufacturing and mass-production systems, development of overseas markets with an initial focus on India, and promotion of efforts to attain carbon neutrality.
According to a statement, SkyDrive aims to begin air taxi service during the 2025 World Exposition in Osaka, Japan, as well as to initiate service in other regions of Japan.
Suzuki, which has the company motto ‘Develop products of superior value by focusing on the customer’, currently offers products in three mobility categories -- automobiles, motorcycles, and outboard motors.
The company aims to remain indispensable to people by staying closely attuned to their lives and providing mobility. The partnership with SkyDrive will provide Suzuki with opportunities to explore and potentially add flying cars as a fourth mobility business.
Headquartered in Shinjuku, Tokyo, SkyDrive was established in July 2018 with the mission of "leading a once-in-a-century mobility revolution."
For more information, visit: https://en.skydrive2020.com/ and https://www.globalsuzuki.com/
-- BERNAMA
Wednesday, 23 March 2022
PEBSTEEL RELEASES AN ALL-NEW BRAND IDENTITY FOR A NEW PHASE OF DEVELOPMENT
HOCHIMINH CITY, Vietnam, March 23 (Bernama-GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- PEB Steel Buildings Co., Ltd. (Pebsteel), a leading company in the pre-engineering steel construction industry, launches its refreshed brand identity to the market. The rebrand supports Pebsteel's long-term vision of offering customers innovative, sustainable, and cost-effective solutions during a new development phase.
Construction and industrial sectors are expected to recover strongly after COVID, resulting in enormous demand for pre-engineered steel buildings, steel structures. According to Global Industry Analysts, the world market for pre-engineered steel construction is estimated to grow from $27.1 billion in 2020 to $49.1 billion in 2026 at a compound annual growth rate of 10.1%. Asia-Pacific is the fastest-growing market for pre-engineered buildings and steel structures due to rapid industrialization and urbanization in emerging economies.
Additionally, pre-engineered buildings have become increasingly popular in the construction market thanks to their numerous advantages. They are more cost-effective and energy-efficient than conventional construction methods. Warehouses, office complexes, hangars…are among other various applications.
Pebsteel is a long-standing company with a solid record of 6,000 pre-engineered buildings and steel structures in over 50 countries. Pebsteel's outstanding projects include the highest Unilever factory in Indonesia with a height of 68 meters; the largest clear span of 128 meters for the Lufthansa hangar in the Philippines; and the longest FCB Warehouse building in Thailand with a total length of one kilometer. Pebsteel also broke its own record by building a 14-story office tower in Manila, as well as creating a unique curved corridor for the Okada Manila hotel and resort complex.
Founded in 1994 by Sami Kteily and Adib Kouteli in Europe with Japanese stakeholders (Nippon Steel and Okaya & Co., Ltd), Pebsteel operates in 10 regional sales offices and has the headquarters in Vietnam. Sami Kteily, Executive Chairman of Pebsteel, said: "The rebrand is an important milestone for Pebsteel. After 27 years of development, Pebsteel reaffirmed its leading position as a total solution provider for pre-engineered steel buildings and steel structures. Amidst the ever-evolving fast-paced construction market, Pebsteel has introduced a new brand tagline – ENGINEERED BUILDING SOLUTIONS - to reflect its aspiration of creating effective solutions for a prosperous future. The company has also updated the logo to demonstrate its efforts to evolve and move towards prosperity with its customers, partners, and employees."
Media contact : marketing@pebsteel.com.vn
https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/f73e0d2a-94de-4cf7-905f-4097b942c582
SOURCE : PEB Steel Buildings Co., Ltd