Daily Briefing: Razer sets up mask manufacturing line in Singapore amidst COVID-19 shortage; KKR shelves to sell Goodpack amidst market turmoil

And Manpower minister plans on penalties for firms who are not following the guidelines.

From Channel News Asia:

Gaming company Razer plans to set up an automated face mask manufacturing line within 30 days to produce a couple of million certified masks each month.

The company said that it had initially converted existing product manufacturing lines in China to make and donate masks for immediate relief, with initial shipments going out earlier this week.

However, the company had been inundated by requests due to an extreme shortage of face masks and PPEs in SEA, and decided to set up a line in Singapore.

"Many of the face masks in the market are not properly manufactured, do not meet certification standards and offer little or no protection to the users," said Razer in its release.

The company said that its masks will be a standard three-layer face masks, supplying both the local and regional market.

From DealStreetAsia:

KKR & Co. shelves to sell Singapore-based Goodpack, an immediate bulk container maker, after the coronavirus outbreak impacted valuations for the proposed deal, according to multiple sources.

The group received bids from a few consortiums after tapping more than a dozen potential buyers late last year for a deal that could value Goodpack at about $2b.

However, the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak took a toll on Goodpack’s sales process.

According to Refinitive, a successful deal would have ranked as one of the largest PE-backed sales in the past few years in Asia, excluding Japan and Australia.

From Bloomberg:

Singapore is working on penalties for companies that don’t follow regulations on social distancing and telecommuting, according to Josephine Teo, the country’s minister for manpower.

Last week the government ordered more than 30 companies to stop work immediately after it found they hadn’t been following safe-distancing measures. It will be an offense for employers not to put in telecommuting measures where the nature of the work permits it, the authorities have said.

However, only some 40% of workers in the city’s central business district are following government directives to work from home.

Teo added that regulations are being worked out for companies that don’t follow the guidelines.

You're the reader we write for. You're also the person our partners want to reach.

If that sentence describes you — a founder, a C-suite, someone whose attention companies pay good money for — then you already understand why SBR works. We've spent twenty years earning the trust of readers exactly like you. Which is exactly what makes this an interesting place for your company to show up, too.

The ways it can show up are broader than most people assume — thought leadership articles, sponsored content, industry summits across Southeast Asia, regional awards programmes, podcasts, and media placements in print and digital. The right fit depends on what you're trying to do, which is why we'd rather start with a conversation than send a rate card.

If your company has something this audience should know about, we'd like to hear what you're working on.

No rate cards until we understand the brief. It's a better use of everyone's time.

Book a meeting

| Or download the media kit (PDF)

240,000 senior readers quarterly in print Top 1,700 Singapore companies reached

7 markets across Southeast Asia

Top News

30 One-Sentence Stories From People Who Have Built Better Habits

None of these stories are mine. They were sent to me by readers of Atomic Habits. My hope is that these examples will illustrate how real people are putting the book into practice. They will show you what people are actually doing to build good habits and break bad ones. And hopefully, they will spark some ideas for how you can do the same.

news conversion

SBR 5 Lorem Ipsum News 2 [8 May]

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.

SBR 4 Lorem Ipsum [8 May Top Stories]