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The luxury watchmaker unveiled a line of 500 one-of-one customizable timepieces.

Owners of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs will soon be able to show off their PFPs on their wrist, enshrined in a one-of-a-kind TIMEX watch.

The collaboration between TIMEX and the Bored Ape Yacht Club community will bring the release of 500 timepieces that will display an owner’s Ape or Mutant prominently on the watch’s face. Those who buy the watch will be able to customize it, with a choice of case, strap, and selected etchings.

The sale of Timepiece Forge Pass NFTs began today, which can be minted for 2 ETH, or around $2,500 as of this writing. Around mid-December, Forge Pass owners will be able to design their own watch on TIMEX’s website.

Each physical watch will be accompanied by an identical, digital version as an NFT, separate from the Forge Pass NFT. But they won’t arrive in time for the holidays and are expected to be shipped to purchasers sometime in the second quarter of 2023.

"Timex is entering Web3 by keeping creativity and community at the forefront," said Shari Fabiani, Timex Group’s senior vice president of global marketing and creative services. “We are redefining and pushing the boundaries of physical, virtual, and now phygital products."

Just last month, Timex declared itself "timekeepers of the metaverse" with a release of a branded challenge in the game Fortnite.

The creative direction for the BAYC watch collaboration was provided by longtime members of the Ape community, including Josh Ong and CryptoVonDoom. "As a part of the OG Bored Ape community, it's been dope to collaborate with the OGs of watchmaking," VonDoom said in the announcement.

A presale took place at an invite-only party for the Ape community that ran alongside Art Basel in Miami on Friday. The event represented the continued emergence of brand-name NFTs as a force in the world of art and fashion. A few custom-made timepieces from TIMEX featuring Apes were visible at the art fair, where the watchmaker hosted an event.

At Art Basel, All Seeing Seneca—the pseudonymous lead artist behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club—made moves as well. Three of Seneca’s animated artworks minted as NFTs were sold through auction house Phillips, in addition to her first physical piece of artwork.

Mohammed bin Salman could invest $500 million to back CS First Boston and CEO-designate Michael Klein

Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and a U.S. private-equity firm run by Barclays BCS -0.89% PLC’s former chief executive are among investors preparing to invest $1 billion or more into Credit Suisse’s CS 9.39% new investment bank, people familiar with the matter said.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is considering an investment of around $500 million to back the new unit, CS First Boston, and its CEO-designate, Michael Klein, some of the people said. Additional financial backing could come from U.S. investors including veteran banker Bob Diamond ‘s Atlas Merchant Capital, people familiar with that potential investment said. Credit Suisse previously said it had $500 million committed from an additional investor it hasn’t named.

Credit Suisse has received a number of proposals from investors interested in CS First Boston. Credit Suisse Chairman Axel Lehmann at a conference on Thursday said it has other firm commitments in addition to the $500 million from the unnamed investor. The bank hasn’t received a formal proposal from any Saudi entity, some of the people familiar with the matter said.

Credit Suisse is spinning off the New York-based investment bank as part of a fresh start after being buffeted by scandals, regulatory scrutiny and steep losses. It is raising $4.2 billion in new stock that separately will make Saudi National Bank its largest shareholder. It isn’t clear if Prince Mohammed would make the investment through that bank, or another investment vehicle. He is chairman of the country’s sovereign-wealth fund, Public Investment Fund, which along with another government fund is Saudi National Bank’s main owner.

Credit Suisse’s stock scraped lows in recent days from the new share sale and a warning from the bank that customers pulled $88.3 billion in investments and deposits. The stock rebounded 9% Friday following comments by Mr. Lehmann that the outflows largely stopped.

Separating CS First Boston would give it a clean balance sheet and move it beyond Credit Suisse’s wider losses and thorny legal issues. Many of its bankers defected to rivals this year. Those staying are being promised a share of profits through a partnership model. The name revives the First Boston brand that made Credit Suisse a force on Wall Street after expanding beyond Switzerland in the 1970s, with Mr. Diamond among its alumni. Analysts say the separation could be lengthy and complex.

Mr. Klein is to lead the new firm after a career as one of the world’s most sought after deal makers for companies and investors. As a Credit Suisse board member since 2018, he led a review of the investment bank’s strategy over the summer, then got tapped by the bank’s other board members to run the spinoff.

Making CS First Boston independent could take around two years, Mr. Lehmann said Thursday at the FT Global Banking Summit. He said its balance sheet, structure and governance are being discussed with the Federal Reserve.

Mr. Klein’s involvement opened the door to Prince Mohammed’s potential investment, people familiar with the talks said. Mr. Klein is a trusted adviser in the kingdom from deals such as the 2019 initial public offering of state-owned oil giant Saudi Arabian Oil Co.

Prince Mohammed has encouraged Saudi investment into businesses as diverse as electric-vehicle manufacturer Lucid Motors Inc., Twitter Inc., Uber Technologies Inc., Citigroup Inc. and the Premier League soccer club Newcastle United, making the kingdom an increasing force in the U.S. and globally.

Saudi National Bank is to become Credit Suisse’s largest shareholder with a 9.9% stake through the $4.2 billion stock sale being completed this week. Chairman Ammar al-Khudairy said the investment would foster deal-making and bring more banking know-how to the country, and that it might invest in CS First Boston too.

Atlas Merchant’s potential investment was first reported by Global Capital. The private-equity firm typically forms consortia with other investors to buy stakes in financial companies.

While at Barclays, Mr. Diamond tapped Mr. Klein for advice in taking over U.S. operations of Lehman Brothers, a complex carve-out similar to the one going on at Credit Suisse. An Atlas Merchant operating partner, Tom King. worked with Mr. Klein at Citigroup.

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South Korea’s largest steelmaker grapples with weaker demand as global economy cools

Posco, one of the world’s largest steelmakers, has warned that a strong dollar and weak Korean won are inflating the cost of imported raw materials and dragging down profitability, at the same time the company is grappling with subdued steel demand from the global economic slowdown.

The dollar’s surge to a 20-year high has raised concerns about depressed global economic growth. Despite rallying in recent weeks, South Korea’s currency has depreciated nearly 10 per cent against the dollar in 2022. A property market downturn in China, the world’s biggest steel market, has also weighed on Posco’s earnings.

“The exchange rate is having a big impact on us as we have to purchase raw materials in dollars,” said Kim Hag-dong, the company’s chief executive, during an interview at the company’s sprawling headquarters in Pohang on South Korea’s south-east coast.

“Our margin has been squeezed as energy prices go up, but we can’t raise our product prices because of weak market conditions.”

The operating profit margin of the world’s sixth-largest steelmaker dropped to 3.6 per cent in the third quarter of 2022 from 20.3 per cent a year earlier, hit by lower steel prices and one-off losses from flood damage at its domestic plant following a typhoon in September.

“In the past, when the exchange rates rose, our export competitiveness was boosted. But now interest rates are also rising, so this hampers business activities, slashing demand,” said Kim. “Higher raw material prices are also causing concern to us, along with the sluggish economy.”

The 63-year-old chief is an industry veteran who has spent more than 30 years between the company’s two main steelworks and is now in charge of leading its green transition.

Kim said he was worried that global steel demand was not picking up, predicting a 1 per cent increase next year, mostly in India and south-east Asia. He expected the steel industry cycle to recover in the second half of next year after hitting the bottom in the first half.

“We hope that the Chinese market situation will improve as lockdowns are likely to ease now that Xi’s third term has begun,” he said. “The Chinese property market downturn will have a big impact on us if the market deteriorates, but it is hard to predict how much worse the market will be.”

The cautious optimism comes as Posco, South Korea’s largest corporate emitter of carbon, accelerates its efforts to decarbonise in response to tougher regulations and customer demands.

Posco became Asia’s first steelmaker to declare its ambition to go carbon neutral by 2050. It is working to use hydrogen instead of coking coal to melt iron ore and remove oxygen for steelmaking.

“I think low-carbon steelmaking will be possible in the long term,” said Kim. “But production costs will rise in the process, so a consensus should be reached from investors and governments to end-use customers like automakers and shipbuilders to share the cost and responsibilities in order to make the transition possible.”

Kim said the green transition was necessary to expand its market share in Europe, where steelmakers are more actively developing low-carbon technologies to meet tougher environmental regulations, while its US exports are restricted by import quotas.

“We’ve almost given up hope for US exports but we need to retain our foothold in the European market,” he said. “If we don’t reduce carbon emissions, we can’t expand into Europe.”

Kim added that Posco needed to build its presence in the US for its “many US customers like automakers” as Washington’s regulation against steel imports is likely to become stronger.

“In order to retain our customers, we are thinking of setting up joint ventures there and are contacting many companies for this,” he said. “It is getting harder to export steel to US automakers unless we produce it in North America.”