[월:] 2024년 08월

Recently, there was some heartwarming news: actor Mun Ka-young donated 100 million won ($75,000) to Ewha Womans University Medical Center. The money came from part of the earnings of her first essay collection, “PATA,” published in March.

Given that the publishing market has long been in a slump, it seemed questionable whether such an amount was even feasible.

However, officials from publishing companies said that earning 100 million won in royalties is “not an unreasonable number.”

In the publishing industry, it’s common for authors to receive 10 percent of the cover price per book sold. With “PATA” priced at 22,000 won, the royalty per book would be 2,200 won. Selling around 45,500 copies would bring in over 100 million won.

“PATA” created quite a buzz, going into a second print run just a day after pre-orders began. Her book debuted at number four on Kyobo Bookstore’s comprehensive bestseller list.

Last month, the book also secured rights deals 카지노 with publishers in Taiwan and Indonesia, paving the way for its international release.

However, this marks another example of the severe wealth gap in the publishing world.

An official at a publishing company said, “Mun Ka-young is well-known as an actress who reads a lot, so even regular readers would be curious about her book.

It’s true that a well-known author with a fanbase will find it easier to sell books than an average writer.”

Mun’s influence as a “book lover” is indeed remarkable. After she recommended Somerset Maugham’s “The Razor’s Edge,” part of Minumsa’s World Literature Collection, through Kyobo Bookstore last month, orders for the book surged.

According to Minumsa Publishing, on Aug. 28 alone, they received hundreds of orders from bookstores.

If you want to see the positive influence of a celebrity who loves books, look no further than actress Mun Ga-young.

Doosan Group withdrew its controversial plan to merge construction equipment firm Doosan Bobcat into money-losing Doosan Robotics upon strong opposition from retail investors and warnings from authorities, but questions still remain over the group’s ongoing efforts to restructure its governance of units.

Bobcat and Robotics announced on Thursday they both decided to annul their contract to exchange their shares for the merger, scrapping their merger proposal.

Doosan Group initially proposed to spin off Bobcat from its parent Doosan Enerbility, a plant facilities company, and merge it into Robotics under a ratio of exchanging 100 Bobcat shares with 63 Robotics shares.

This, however, faced strong backlash from not only retail investors but also financial companies and the National Pension Service, as they complained about 추천 assigning greater value to the shares of the struggling robotics firm.

Despite scrapping the merger plan, the Doosan companies said in letters to investors that the group will proceed with spinning off Bobcat from Enerbility and make the construction equipment maker a subsidiary of Robotics, citing the necessity of “giving Enerbility capital flexibility for investments.”

Enerbility explained that this spinoff is essential because Bobcat has a debt of 700 billion won ($525 million) and separating this from Enerbility’s financial books will improve the company’s capabilities to attract additional investments for its nuclear energy businesses with healthier fiscal prudence.

On a sweltering evening, Aug.16, at Seoul World Cup Stadium, Lucas Rodrigues da Silva of FC Seoul scored a crucial goal. Around 12,000 fans rose from their seats, some groaning in despair while others cheered in delight.

Immediately, the chief referee handed the ball to Lee Jae-won, Chiliz’s head of business development in Korea. Lee then placed the ball in an NFC-enabled case in the stadium. After the match, the autographed ball was promptly listed on the Match Worn Shirt website, an auction platform in which Chiliz holds a 20 percent stake.

The entire process was broadcast live and recorded. Anyone who scans the NFC can watch the replay of the goal, a video of the player signing the ball, and access an NFT verifying its authenticity.

Fans eagerly bid against each other to purchase the ball, which eventually sold for $992 after 17 bids. The highest price fetched so far in the K League was 스포츠 $2,485 for a goal-scoring ball from Ki Sung-yueng, surpassing even the price of a Serie A Super Cup final goal ball.

Jung Sung, a strategic business manager at K League, said it’s crucial for a league to create as many opportunities as possible for fan engagement and experiences that spectators can truly enjoy.

“The ultimate goal is to enhance the value of K League, and collaborations like this are key to achieving that,” Jung said.

The strife between K-pop powerhouse HYBE and its subsidiary Ador’s CEO Min Hee-jin, who is known as NewJeans’ producer, is even more heightened as HYBE replaces Min with Kim Ju-young, its former chief human resource officer (CHRO), as Ador’s new head.

HYBE announced, Tuesday, that it held a board meeting on the day and appointed Ador’s new CEO to take over Min’s position, while Min remains as the company’s inside director and producer for NewJeans. It explained that Kim, who has expertise in human resources from working in different fields, is expected to take the role of stabilizing and restructuring the internal organization of Ador.

“Ador, internally, will separate production and management divisions. This has been a principle for all other (HYBE) multi-labels, but so far, Ador was the only exception where the CEO oversaw both production and management,” it said in the release.

“(With the recent changes), Ador plans to provide full support for NewJeans’ growth and greater success.”

However, Min quickly shared her side of the story on the management change, saying that she didn’t step down willingly and was fired, which violates the 한국을 shareholders’ agreement she had with the company. The agreement guarantees her a five-year term, of which she has only served two years.

She claimed HYBE’s decision also goes against the May 31 court order that prevents HYBE from exercising its voting rights to remove her from the position.

“HYBE claims to have terminated the shareholders’ agreement, but this claim has no basis, and CEO Min never acknowledged the termination,” Min’s law firm said in the release. “CEO Min was dismissed against her will and did not step down voluntarily. And Ador’s board of directors unilaterally notified her that she would be in charge of producing duties.”

The parent company soon refuted her claim, saying all the procedures for the board meeting were carried out properly, complying with the law and the company’s regulations. It added that Min was present at the meeting through video chat and the decision came after a “thorough discussion” of the best option for NewJeans’ and Ador’s future.

However on Friday, Min rejected a proposed contract from Ador that would have her continue producing for NewJeans, deeming the terms unreasonable. According to Min, the delegation of duties agreement allows her to produce NewJeans from Tuesday, the day of her dismissal, through Nov. 1. She argues that the contract’s short-term nature — just over two months — is impractical given NewJeans’ extensive plans, including a world tour in 2025.

Min, who previously worked at SM Entertainment for about 17 years, is a veteran creative director who took part in visual work for top K-pop stars including Girls’ Generation, SHINee, f(x), EXO and Red Velvet, before joining HYBE in 2019 as chief brand officer (CBO).

In 2021, HYBE established its subsidiary label Ador, investing 16.1 billion won into the venture with Min at the helm as CEO. Following the meteoric rise of NewJeans the next year, Min secured a shareholder agreement with HYBE in March 2023, obtaining an 18 percent stake in Ador.

This agreement included a 15 percent put option, allowing her to sell her shares for 13 times the operating profit. Min and HYBE were negotiating to adjust the terms of the agreement later that year after Min requested to raise the price of put options.

Democrat Kamala Harris leads Republican Donald Trump 45 percent to 41 percent in a Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Thursday that showed the vice president sparking new enthusiasm among voters and shaking up the race ahead of the Nov. 5 election.

The 4 percentage point advantage among registered voters was wider than a 1 point lead Harris held over the former president in a late July Reuters/Ipsos poll. The new poll, which was conducted in the eight days ended Wednesday and had a 2 percentage point margin of error, showed Harris picking up support among women and Hispanics.

Harris led Trump by 49 percent to 36 percent – or 13 percentage points – among both women voters and Hispanic voters. Across four Reuters/Ipsos polls conducted in July, Harris had a 9 point lead among women and a 6 point lead among Hispanics.

Trump led among white voters and men, both by similar margins as in July, though his lead among voters without a college degree narrowed to 7 points in the latest survey, down from 14 points in July.

The findings illustrate how the U.S. presidential race has been shaken up over the summer. President Joe Biden, 81, folded his flailing campaign on July 21 after a disastrous debate performance against Trump sparked widespread calls from his fellow Democrats to abandon his re-election bid.

Since then, Harris has gained ground against Trump in national polls and those in critical swing states. While national surveys including Reuters/Ipsos’ give important signals on the views of the electorate, the state-by-state results of the Electoral College determine the winner, with a handful of battleground states likely to be decisive.

In the seven states where the 2020 election was closest – Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina, Michigan and Nevada – Trump had a 45 percent to 43 percent lead over Harris among registered voters in the poll.

A separate Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll published later on Thursday showed that Harris was either leading or tied with Trump in each of those states.

That poll showed Harris led Trump by 2 percentage 카지노 points among registered voters across the seven states and was ahead by 1 point — a statistical tie — among likely voters. The margin of error was 1 percentage point across the seven states.

“It’s obvious that running against Harris is more challenging for Trump given the shift in these numbers, but it’s certainly not insurmountable,” Matt Wolking, a Republican campaign strategist who worked on Trump’s 2020 campaign, said in response to the Reuters/Ipsos poll results.

He said Trump needs to stay as focused as possible in his campaign “so he’s not scaring” away voters who were leaning his way because they didn’t like Biden.

Since formally accepting the Democratic nomination last week, Harris has embarked on a tour of battleground states including Georgia, where Biden had been hemorrhaging support before he ended his campaign.

North Korea’s newly appointed ambassador to Singapore took office this week, state media reported Friday, in the latest move to resume diplomatic activities long stalled due to the isolated country’s strict COVID-19 restrictions.

Ri Kil-song officially began his term Tuesday after presenting his credentials to Singapore’s President Tharman Shanmugaratnam, according to the 추천 North’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The Singaporean leader expressed hopes for the stabilization of the lives of victims of recent floods in North Korea, the KCNA said. Late last month, heavy rains flooded large areas along the Amnok River in the northern part of the country.

Ri appears to have served as a vice foreign minister handling Asian affairs until 2020.

North Korea has recently made efforts to restart in-person diplomatic activities after easing its border restrictions in August 2023, appointing new ambassadors to Vietnam, Thailand and Romania.

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a suspended sentence for Seoul education chief Cho Hee-yeon on charges of abuse of power in connection with the reinstatement of dismissed teachers years ago, stripping him of his post as the city’s top education official.

The top court handed down the 18-month prison term to the superintendent of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education. The court suspended the sentence for two years, meaning that he will not have to serve prison time if he stays out of trouble during that period.

Under the laws, a superintendent must resign 스포츠 if a sentence of imprisonment or greater is confirmed.

Cho was indicted in 2018 for allegedly abusing his power to reinstate five dismissed teachers, including former members of a teachers’ labor union.

Cho was elected as Seoul’s education chief for the third time in 2022, with a four-year term. The by-election to elect the next education chief is scheduled for Oct. 16.

Samsung Life Insurance and Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance, the respective leading companies in the country’s life and non-life insurance sectors, have raised their interest rates on mortgages, joining a move by banks in response to financial authorities’ increasing pressure to curb the growth of household debt.

The latest action by the major insurance companies is widely seen as their intention to prevent a so-called balloon effect, meaning that mortgage demand could shift to insurance companies, which are subject to relatively looser government regulations.

Samsung Life raised its rates by an average of 0.2 percent on Wednesday.

According to the rates published on the firm’s website, the figures for non-face-to-face loans ranged from 3.49 percent to 4.79 percent, but the rates for face-to-face loans disclosed to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) were slightly higher, 한국을 ranging from 3.59 percent to 4.94 percent. This means the actual interest rates customers will receive when applying for a loan will be on average 0.2 percent higher than before, according to industry officials.

Samsung Fire raised its rates by 0.49 percent on Monday. As a result, its rates have increased to a range of 3.68 percent to 6.13 percent.

These rate hikes came at a time when banks have implemented various measures to curb the growth of housing loans, ranging from raising interest rates to reducing loan terms and limits.

This led the lower end of interest rates on mortgages offered by insurance companies to fall below those of banks for the first time in 10 months.

According to the financial watchdog’s data, Thursday, if a mortgage is set for a property worth 300 million won ($225,000), with a loan amount of 100 million won, a 30-year term and a fixed interest rate, Samsung Life’s mortgage rates range from 3.59 percent to 4.94 percent. In contrast, the rates offered by major banks were recorded at 3.63 percent to 6.03 percent.

With the industry leaders in the insurance sector initiating interest rate hikes, attention is now focused on whether other firms will join the trend.

Raising interest rates is an effective way for these businesses to enhance their returns in terms of asset management.

Now that they have gained justification by aligning with the government’s policy to manage growing household debt, it is cautiously expected that it is only a matter of time before other insurers follow suit.

Some, however, also express concerns, as FSS Governor Lee Bok-hyun recently criticized the banks’ interest rate hikes, describing it as an “easy” way out to comply with the authorities’ instruction to curb the growth of household loans.

“Rather than making overt adjustments to interest rates, we plan to manage mortgages through other measures, such as tightening loan screening processes,” an official from one of the major life insurance companies said.

Macau on Monday issued a series of executive orders authorizing six casino concessions in the city to run foreign exchange (FX) businesses on their properties.

According to GGRAsia’s previous contract comparison, the government no longer specifies limits on the number of currency exchange counters each casino concessioner can operate at a particular location.

The new executive order, one for each concessionaire, was signed by Macau’s current chief executive, Hoatseng, on Aug. 15 and goes into effect Tuesday (Aug. 20). According to the wording of the new order in Macau’s official languages, Chinese and Portuguese, they grant casino concessionists general authority to operate currency exchange stations inside their respective casinos.

According to the new executive order, the location and “technical standards” of the exchange will be set by the Game Inspection Coordination Bureau, the city’s game regulator.

The Macao Monetary Authority is responsible for setting “specific conditions” for casino concessionists to operate currency exchanges. 메이저사이트

According to recent and previous government orders, the Macau casino concessionaire is the only company that can operate a foreign currency exchange station within its gaming facilities.

GGRAsia has contacted the Macau Financial Services Administration for comment on the purpose of the change of wording in relation to the foreign exchange approval for casino properties. We have not received a response until this story has been posted online.

Macau’s government has stepped up efforts to cope with unauthorized currency exchanges by third parties inside or near game venues. The Macau government has proposed criminalizing such activities in the gaming and non-gaming sectors of casino resorts through amendments to a draft bill called the “Gambling Crime Prevention Act.” The issue will be discussed further in the city’s legislature.

Most bets at Macau casinos are denominated in Hong Kong dollars, with the majority of Macau visitors from mainland China and assets can be denominated in yuan, mainly in Chinese currency.

Capital Group Companies Inc., one of the world’s largest investment managers, cut its public stake in Macau casino operator Galaxy Entertainment Group Inc by 3.17 percentage points.

Capital Group’s shareholding in Casino Group fell to 4.84% from 8.01%, in three trading sessions on August 13, 15 and 16, according to data released on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, where Galaxy Entertainment is listed.

4,674,760 shares were disposed of in the first transaction. The event had an in-market component with an average price of less than HK$29.30 ($5.60) per share and an out-of-market component with an average price of less than HK$19.00 per share in cash.

The Aug. 15 deal included 38,194,265 shares of Galaxy Entertainment stock. The average price of components in the market was just over HK$29.32 per share, while the out-of-market segment averaged just over HK$18.93.

In the third transaction, 89,359,493 shares were sold. The event had a market component with an average price of just under HK$30.44 per share and an out-of-market component with just under HK$19.98 per share in cash.

The intra-market weighting of off-market components during the transaction was not mentioned in any of the disclosures. 동행복권파워볼

Galaxy Entertainment’s stock has been a component of Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index since June 2013, according to Casino Group’s corporate website.

Galaxy Entertainment, which operates the Kotai-based Galaxy Macau gaming resort (pictured) and the Starworld hotel and casino in downtown Macau, posted median revenue of HK$4.39 billion, up 51.8% year-on-year.

Shares of the Galaxy closed at HK$29.55 on Aug. 15, up 1.03% on the day. By the close of Aug. 16, they were up 5.58% on the day, according to exchange data.

As of Dec. 31, Capital Group was managing $2.5 trillion on behalf of investors and institutions worldwide, according to its corporate website.