KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 8 (Bernama) -- Bursa Malaysia closed almost flat on Tuesday as buying interest rotated away from index heavyweights towards smaller-cap construction stocks, with sentiment affected by geopolitical uncertainty, said an analyst. At 5 pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) eased 0.39 of a point to 1,714.40 from Monday’s close of 1,714.79. The benchmark index opened 1.65 points lower at 1,713.14 and moved between 1,710.44 and 1,714.50 throughout the trading session. The broader market was almost evenly balanced, with decliners leading gainers 548 to 546, while 598 counters were unchanged, 1,107 were untraded and 25 were suspended. Turnover expanded to 4.13 billion units valued at RM3.14 billion from 3.60 billion units valued at RM2.45 billion on Monday.
Canva Inc is set to acquire image generation startup Leonardo.ai, marking its second acquisition this year as it aims to compete with creative software leader Adobe Inc. This deal will allow Canva to integrate Leonardo.ai’s video and image generation models into its own products. The acquisition, finalized in about a month, is Canva’s fastest to date, according to co-founder Cameron Adams. This follows Canva's recent acquisition of the Affinity suite of software, popular with Apple Inc Mac users. Leonardo.ai, founded in 2022 and backed by Canva investor Blackbird Ventures, raised $31 million last year. Its 120-person team develops software that helps users generate and edit images online using text prompts. Over the past 18 months, users have created over a billion images on its platform. Canva, valued at $26 billion this year, is expanding its AI tools to attract Adobe’s enterprise customers and boost revenue growth. Canva’s recent acquisitions include visual AI startup Kaleido.ai...