Ta Chong posts net NT$20m
Ta Chong Bank (大眾銀行) posted pre-tax net income of NT$405 million (US$12 million) for last month, the nation's fifth-biggest cash card issuer said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
But after a bad debt provision of NT$385 million, Ta Chong's pre-tax net income last month was NT$20 million, it said.
For the first nine months, the bank accumulated a loss of NT$388 million, or a deficit of NT$0.14 per share, according to the filing.
The lender's finance will improve in the near term, after its board last month approved to raise a total NT$21.5 billion from Carlyle Group and private equity fund Corsair Capital LLC through a private placement.
The bank expected to obtain NT$15.5 billion of the fund by the end of the month and the remainder next month.
Central bank to hold auction
The central bank will auction NT$100 billion (US$3 billion) in 364-day certificates of deposits on Oct. 9 as part of its efforts to absorb liquidity from the banking system, the bank said in a statement yesterday.
The certificates will be issued on Oct. 11, the bank said.
In the statement, the bank said banks, credit cooperatives, bills finance companies, investment trust firms and Taiwan Post Co (臺灣郵政) are eligible to take part in the auction.
EVA to fly from Taipei to NYC
EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空), Taiwan's leading international carrier, said yesterday that it will launch non-stop service three times a week from Taipei to New York beginning on Dec. 4.
An airline spokeswoman said it would fly Boeing 777-300ERs for the route, which will give EVA 39 flights a week to four US cities -- New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle.
III to hold patent bidding
The Institute for Information Industry (III) will hold open bidding on patent sales and license agreements on 127 cases involving 199 projects on crucial software technology, III executive vice president Huang Yen-nun (黃彥男) said yesterday.
According to Huang, bids can be submitted until 5pm on Oct. 26, and the III will open the bids at 10am on Oct. 30.
Huang noted that software development can help to increase functions and added value for products in an era of marginal profits.
Consumer electronic products such as cellphones, MP3 players and GPS devices, and businesses related to the Internet, electronic business, digital learning and business intelligence all rely on software advances for more business opportunities, Huang said.
Patent rights help to create commercial value for software development, Huang said.
A total of 22 packages of patent sales and 23 packages of license agreements are related to embedded software, application platforms of software and application solutions, including wireless communication systems, routing protocol technology, human-machine interaction technology, and image recognition technology, Huang said.
Nokia to buy mapmaker Navteq
Nokia, the world's leading maker of mobile phones, said yesterday it had agreed to buy US digital mapmaker Navteq for 5.7 billion euros (US$8.1 billion).
Nokia said it would pay US$78 in cash for each Navteq share, valuing the group at US$8.1 billion.
The acquisition will be subject to regulatory approvals and Navteq shareholders' approval, Nokia said.
Navteq provides comprehensive digital map information for automotive navigation systems, mobile navigation devices and Internet-based mapping applications.
Pacific Sogo gets new boss
Pacific Sogo Department Store (太平洋崇光百貨), the nation's second-largest department store operator, yesterday said its board appointed Huang Ching-wen (黃晴雯) to replace Chung Chin (鍾琴) as the retailer's new chairwoman, a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange showed.
Huang, a vice president in charge of enterprise evelopment under the FarEastern Group's (遠東集團) retail business, will take up her new position immediately, the filing said.
Far Eastern Group acquired Pacific Sogo in 2002 from the Pacific Construction Co (太平洋建設).
Huang had been working with various local TV stations including China Television Co (CTV, 中視), Era TV (年代電視) and Da-Ai Television Channel (大愛電視台) as a TV anchor prior to joining Far Eastern Group in September
of last year.
Chung, former head of the Government Information Office, tendered her resignation in early July citing personal career reasons, even though her second three-year term does not expire until 2009. She became Pacific Sogo's
first chairwoman in 2003.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained