Category: 3. Business

TOKYO, JAPAN – December 25, 2025 – Blackstone (NYSE: BX) today announced that Real Estate funds managed by Blackstone (“Blackstone”) have entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Tokyo C-NX (the “Asset”), a Grade A logistics asset located in central Tokyo. Valued at over JPY 100 billion (US$641 million), this marks the largest logistics transaction in Japan this year and underscores Blackstone’s commitment to investing in sectors that support Japan’s economic growth.
  
The Asset – a 1.6 million square feet, 5-story warehouse in Tokyo Bay, within a 15-minute driving distance from the city center – serves as a mission-critical distribution hub. Japan continues to see steady demand for high-quality warehousing solutions, driven by its expanding e-commerce sector – now the fourth-largest globally – and a shift towards a more digitalized economy.
 
Daisuke Kitta, Head of Real Estate Japan, Blackstone, said: “We are pleased to invest in a premium asset in logistics, a fast-growing sector and one of Blackstone’s highest conviction investment themes. This reinforces our focus on investing in critical industries shaping Japan’s future and demonstrates our ability to offer scale, speed, and certainty to Japanese corporates seeking trusted partners to advance their strategic goals. We are committed to partnering with Japanese businesses and continuing to contribute in meaningful ways to the evolution of Japan’s economy.”
  
Japan is a high conviction market for Blackstone, where the firm has built partnerships with leading corporates including Seibu Holdings, Kintetsu Group, and Sony Group. In recent years, it has accelerated its investments across businesses. In Real Estate, Blackstone has built a diversified portfolio across logistics, residential, hotels, data centers, and offices. Earlier this year, Blackstone completed the acquisition of Tokyo Garden Terrace Kioicho for $2.6 billion (~JPY 400 billion) in the largest real estate investment at the time by a foreign investor. Blackstone is also building its data center presence in Japan through AirTrunk, a leading data center platform in the Asia Pacific region, further strengthening its position as the world’s largest data center provider and a major investor across the AI value chain.
 
Blackstone is a significant investor in logistics globally. Over nearly 15 years, the firm has made investments at scale in the United States, Europe, and in the Asia Pacific region across Japan, India, Australia, Greater China, and South Korea.
 
About Blackstone
Blackstone is the world’s largest alternative asset manager. Blackstone seeks to deliver compelling returns for institutional and individual investors by strengthening the companies in which the firm invests. Blackstone’s over $1.2 trillion in assets under management include global investment strategies focused on real estate, private equity, credit, infrastructure, life sciences, growth equity, secondaries and hedge funds. Further information is available at www.blackstone.com. Follow @blackstone on LinkedIn, X (Twitter), and Instagram.
 
Blackstone
Mariko Sanchanta
[email protected]
080 8702 7386
 
Kekst CNC
Minako Otani
[email protected]
090-3239-9348

Nestled away in a small second-storey shop in Perth’s CBD, Clinton Howe dissects an analogue camera as the sound of mechanical whirrs fill the air.

The workshop smells of steel, leather and dust. 

It’s an environment the technician knows well — after all, he’s been fixing cameras for almost half a century.

Mr Howe is one of the last of his generation of analogue camera repairers in Australia, and he’s worried it’s becoming a dying art as he nears retirement next September.

Yet business is booming at the twilight of his career, as more young people discover the joy of using film cameras. 

“They’re tactile, they’re everything. You know, when you pick it up, you just go, oh, god, how good is this?” he says.

Young embrace film

Mr Howe has seen a resurgence in young people using vintage cameras, with most of his customers aged under 35.

“I like the fact that I can deal with people, especially young people. It keeps me young,” he says.

He estimates there are less than a dozen people in his job across the country, and less than five in Western Australia, most of whom are semi-retired.

“It’s a very hard business to get into because there are so many idiosyncrasies, and so many different things to learn, and each camera’s different,” he says.

“Once you learn the basics, it gives you the tools with which you apply to most cameras and that’s why I’ve always been a hands-on repair man.”

His hands have been hard at work since he took a break from university in 1978 to work at his stepfather’s shop in Perth’s picturesque London Court.

Forty-eight years later, Mr Howe is still there, making him one of Perth’s longest-serving repairers still working. 

Film ‘more precise’

Many in the tight-knit film photography industry know of Mr Howe’s work, even if they don’t know his name. 

Among them is 21-year-old music photographer Lizzie Wilkie, who’s been shooting analogue for six years.

“It’s an exciting process, I love it,” she says.

“When it comes to film, I’m a lot more precise and careful with the photo … it’s a stronger memory.”

Ms Wilkie has old cameras from her grandparents, and buys some second-hand from op shops. Not all of them work.

She’s been putting off fixing some, but feels a sense of urgency now knowing that technicians like Mr Howe are retiring.

“My film camera, I use a lot with bands and for my job. If that were suddenly to die, I’d probably not know what to do,” she says.

The new guard

When Mr Howe packs up shop in September 2026, it won’t be the end of his legacy.

Daniel Ward, a 37-year-old camera technician, has bought Mr Howe’s sea of spare parts, and is ramping up work for film camera repairs at the shop he owns in Malaga in Perth’s northern suburbs.

With 19 years of fixing film and digital cameras already under his belt, Mr Ward says he’s “not at all” worried about the future of film, but it might become harder to find camera parts.

Mr Ward has learnt a few things from his colleague — former co-owner of the camera shop in Perth’s north and retiring technician, 69-year-old Nigel Boots.

“I have a lot of confidence in Daniel because he’s been doing film cameras for [more than] 16 years, plus all the other ones,” Mr Boots says.

Mr Boots has been repairing cameras for 53 years, and thinks his former business is in good hands, with plans to train up other young technicians.

Optimism about the future 

While Mr Howe has faith in the younger technicians, he is worried a generation of hands-on experience may become lost.

“Even now I’m getting problems I’ve never ever seen before, and I’ve been in the game for nearly 50 years, so what chance has a kid that’s been in the game for five years?” he says.

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But he remains optimistic about the future of film.

“Honestly, I think film photography will stay. Digital photography will go,” the camera stalwart says.

“I guarantee that there will be certain [film] cameras that will still be going in another 100 years.”

The veteran technician still plans to do the odd repair job after he leaves the workshop, but it’s the relationships he’s fostered with customers that mean the most to him.

“To me they’re part of the family and they always have been,” Mr Howe says, the hint of a tear in his eye.

“I look forward to seeing them again.”

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Mitsui & Co., Ltd. (“Mitsui”, Head Office: Tokyo, President and CEO: Kenichi Hori), together with Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (“Mitsubishi Electric”, Head Office: Tokyo, President and CEO: Kei Uruma), SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation (“SKY Perfect JSAT”, Head Office: Tokyo, Representative Director, President & Chief Executive Officer: Eiichi Yonekura), Synspective Inc. (Head Office: Tokyo, CEO: Motoyuki Arai), Institute for Q-shu Pioneers of Space, Inc. (Head Office: Fukuoka, President & CEO: Shunsuke Onishi), Axelspace Corporation (Head Office: Tokyo, President & CEO: Yuya Nakamura), and Mitsui Bussan Aerospace Co., Ltd. (Head Office: Tokyo, President: Morihiro Aoki) was awarded the Ministry of Defense (Japan)’s public tender for the “satellite constellation^* project” on December 24th.

This project is a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) aimed at strengthening the Ministry of Defense’s intelligence-gathering capabilities by building and operating a satellite constellation managed by private companies.

Existing commercial satellite imagery services may not consistently deliver images at the timing required by the Ministry of Defense. Through this project, Mitsui and its partners will aim to ensure stable and timely image acquisition by building and operating a dedicated satellite constellation, granting the Ministry priority imaging rights. Mitsui, Mitsubishi Electric and SKY Perfect JSAT plan to sign a basic agreement with the Ministry of Defense in January 2026. Subsequently, the three companies will establish a special purpose company for this project and, in February 2026, sign a five-year project contract with the Ministry.

Under its Medium-term Management Plan 2026, Mitsui has identified Industrial Business Solutions as a strategic growth area, aiming to build mobility, infrastructure, and digital platforms that support industries. Through this project, Mitsui and its partners will contribute to strengthening national security in the space domain by meeting the Ministry of Defense’s image acquisition needs.

*A system that operates a large number of small satellites in orbit in an integrated manner.

Project Overview

Since 2020, as a part of its corporate information website, Honda has been operating “Honda Stories,” as one of the owned media platforms that communicates the current initiatives and future vision of Honda. It introduces Honda initiatives from the past, present and future, including the underlying thoughts and passions of each initiative, through interviews with Honda associates, executives and other stakeholders.

In addition to Honda Stories, Honda has been communicating a wide range of information through multiple owned media platforms:

• “Honda Technology” introduces Honda technologies with more technical insights.
• “Honda Design” introduces initiatives related to design works
• “Motorsports” and “HRC” introduce various Honda initiatives in motorsports
• “Honda Sports Challenge” introduces various Honda corporate sports activities.

The use of multiple owned media platforms has enabled Honda to present a single theme from multiple perspectives. However, having multiple owned media platforms created a challenge, making it difficult for users to find related articles on the same theme all at once. To address this challenge, Honda launched Discover Honda, a new content curation media platform that enables users to find related articles from multiple Honda owned media while leveraging the unique expertise of each medium.

Initially, Discover Honda will primarily curate content from Honda Stories, Honda Technology, Honda Design, Motorsports, HRC, and Honda Sports Challenge. Moving forward, Honda is planning to expand the range of owned media included in the curation.

Gold has hit multiple records in 2025, but analysts believe the rally is far from over, with some forecasting the yellow metal could climb to US$5,000 per ounce amid geopolitical tensions and a buying spree by central banks.

Spot gold broke through the US$4,500-per-ounce mark for the first time, reaching a record US$4,510 on Christmas Eve on Wednesday, which was 72 per cent higher than the end of last year, when it stood at US$2,624.

Local prices rose in tandem, with gold in Hong Kong hitting a record HK$41,855 (US$5,382) per tael (37.51 grams) on Monday, according to the exchange.

Fung expected the rally to continue in 2026, with prices potentially hitting US$5,000 per ounce.

An Oregon company is blaming President Donald Trump’s signature budget bill for more than 100 layoff notices it sent to staff two days before Christmas.

In a notice sent to the state on Tuesday, Medford-based solar company Purelight Power said it is cutting 109 jobs nationwide and shuttering operations as it prepares to file for bankruptcy liquidation.

About 84 people in Medford will be laid off, as well as another 25 people who work remotely.

The Republican-backed One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which canceled federal tax credits meant to encourage solar power adoption, “had a significant impact on the Company’s business and profitability,” Purelight CEO JD Beck wrote in a letter to the Oregon Dislocated Worker Unit, which supports employers and workers experiencing layoffs.

Purelight specialized in selling and installing rooftop residential solar panels and in helping homeowners navigate tax credits to help with those costs.

Its business strategy had relied on tax credits that it expected would continue for a full decade under the Inflation Reduction Act, passed in 2022 at the urging of then-President Joe Biden.

When Republicans reversed federal support for solar projects, Purelight “reduced its operating costs, attempted to size its business appropriately to the new sales volume, and shifted to selling via a third-party ownership model,” Beck told the state.

But it was not enough for a company that was already facing economic challenges before the policy shift.

Climbing costs and interest rates strained the business as Purelight emerged from a merger with Solgen Power from Tri-Cities, Washington, Beck wrote.

In January, Purelight laid off all 104 Washington state workers who had worked at Solgen, according to the Tri-City Herald.

With the reversal of public support for renewable energy under Trump, “incentives for solar energy vanished, and investments dried up,” and Purelight was unable to finance new projects, sell its assets to another company, or take out a loan to fund operations, Beck said.

ISLAMABAD (Web Desk) – The government is considering replacing its net metering policy for rooftop solar with a net billing mechanism for solar consumers across the country, an official confirmed on Wednesday, as Islamabad looks to ease financial strain on the struggling power sector.

Under the proposed framework for the net billing system, electricity generated by rooftop solar systems and exported to the national grid by consumers would be bought at a rate 60 percent lower than the previous price of electricity. Consumers, on the other hand, will continue to buy power from the national grid at the prevailing commercial rates.

Net metering, on the other hand, allows power consumers to offset exported units directly against imported electricity at the same price.

Government officials say the policy change is aimed at easing mounting financial pressure on Pakistan’s power sector, where rapid solar adoption has reduced revenues for distribution companies even as fixed capacity payments to power producers continue to rise.

“Under the proposed regulations, net billing will apply to both old and new customers who will have to pay full commercial tariffs for all imported units,” a National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) official told Arab News on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the media.

However, he clarified the new rules would be implemented after a public hearing and NEPRA obtains feedback from stakeholders.

As per the government’s proposal, which is available on NEPRA’s website, new solar consumers would get the lower average energy price while existing customers would continue receiving the higher PPP rates until the expiry of their seven-year contracts.

Pakistan Energy Minister Sardar Awais Leghari told Arab News the government would present its position during NEPRA’s public hearing expected next month.

“Contractual obligations will be fulfilled for existing consumers while new consumers will receive energy rates for their produced units as per NEPRA’s proposal,” Leghari said, adding that consultations would continue for at least a month.

Asked whether the policy could be revised, Leghari said: “Only if the regulator approves.”

The government’s proposal has sparked strong concerns among consumers, energy experts and industry stakeholders, who warn the plan could slow the adoption of renewable energy as Pakistan struggles with climate vulnerability, rising fuel import bills and deepening circular debt in the power sector.