■ Shipbuilding
Hyundai wins huge deal
Hyundai Heavy Industries Co, the world's biggest shipbuilder, said it won an order to build seven container carriers worth a combined 655 billion won (US$557 million). Delivery of the ships to AP Moller Singapore Pte will be completed by September 2007, Hyundai Heavy said in a statement filed to the Korea Stock Exchange. At the end of last month, the company's backlog of shipbuilding orders was 193 ships, worth US$10.2 billion. That will help keep Hyundai Heavy's dockyards busy for 33 months, company spokesman Kim Kwang-kook said.
■ Labor
Strikers fired by SMS
South Korea's third-largest credit card issuer fired a quarter of its workforce via mobile phone text messages on Friday, after negotiations with striking unionized workers broke down. KEB Credit Service Co sacked 161 employees, a spokeswoman for the company's parent bank said. "The layoff date is Feb. 28," the message said, according to a member of the union. "We will receive applications for voluntary retirement package until Feb. 28." The firm said it had no method for contacting striking staff other than using SMS. Unionized workers, who make up nearly 90 percent of the firm's 662 staff, have been on strike since mid-December over a takeover by Korea Exchange Bank (KEB), fearing job cuts.
■ Foodstuffs
COFCO may double earnings
China National Cereals, Oils & Foodstuffs Import and Export Corp, the nation's biggest grain trader, aims to double its revenue by 2010 and earn a third of its profit from financial services, the South China Morning Post reported, citing chairman Zhou Mingchen. The company, known as COFCO, earlier formed an insurance brokerage venture with Aon Corp, the world's second-largest insurance brokerage. General Electric Co (GE), the world's largest company by market value, provides a model for Chinese conglomerates to expand, the paper said, citing Zhou. GE earns 40 percent of its profit from finance, Zhou said. COFCO bought an insurance company in New Zealand in 1993, which it renamed Peng Li Insurance.
■ Pay package
HK gives execs bonuses
Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd, Asia's second-biggest stock market by value, said it will pay chief executive Paul Chow HK$8.2 million (US$1.1 million) this year. The payment to Chow, who started last May, includes benefits and pension contributions, the exchange said in a statement. Chow was paid HK$5.6 million for his eight months' work last year, including a HK$200,000 performance bonus. The exchange yesterday reported an 18 percent gain in full-year net income, beating some analysts' estimates, amid a surge in new share sales and trading volumes. Chief operating officer Patrick Conroy, who joined the company on Aug. 18, will be paid HK$6.3 million, making him the exchange's second-highest paid employee, the statement said. Shares of Hong Kong Exchanges dropped HK$0.15, or 0.7 percent, to HK$20.60 at the 4pm close.
■ Budget
HK narrows deficit
Hong Kong's budget deficit narrowed 23 percent in the first ten months of the financial year that ends March 31 as the government collected more income and corporate taxes in January. The deficit from April 2003 through January 2004 narrowed to HK$45.2 billion (US$5.8 billion) from HK$58.4 billion a year earlier, the government said in a statement. For January, the government had a budget surplus of HK$25.8 billion, an increase of 27 percent from a year earlier. In the ten-month period, revenue rose 12 percent to HK$157.7 billion and expenditure increased 2 percent to HK$202.9 billion.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the