■ ACQUISITIONS
McDonald's sells Pret stake
A private equity company has bought control of Pret A Manger, buying a one-third share from McDonald's in the sandwich company. Bridgepoint Capital Ltd said that the deal, reportedly worth £345 million (US$673 million), will keep Pret's current management team in place. McDonald's took a 33 percent stake in the company in 2001. Pret A Manger, founded in 1986, operates 175 shops in the UK, 14 in the US and 11 in Hong Kong. Sales last year totaled £223 million.
■ INSURANCE
Woe over stronger NT dollar
Taiwanese life insurers may suffer a total of NT$13 billion (US$412.8 million) in losses after the New Taiwan dollar's 2.24 percent gain this month, local media reported yesterday. The NT dollar gained from NT$32.198 against the greenback on Jan. 31 to NT$31.495 on Friday. Central bank statistics showed that the nation's life insurance companies had US$2.265 trillion in overseas assets last year, of which the risk for US$600 billion is not hedged, a Commercial Times report said. If the NT dollar climbs further in the coming week, local insurers may suffer more than NT$20 billion in exchange losses, which would compound poor earnings results this month, the report said.
■ METALS
Alcan broke antitrust rules
EU regulators on Friday charged the world's biggest aluminum producer Alcan Inc -- now owned by mining giant Rio Tinto PLC -- with breaking antitrust rules, alleging its contracts forced customers to buy equipment along with smelting technology. Rio Tinto Alcan spokesman Stefano Bertolli said the company contested the allegations and would cooperate with the European Commission. Canada-based Alcan now has eight weeks to defend itself in writing and can ask for an oral hearing before the European Commission decides on fines or orders it to change the contracts.
■ AVIATION
American met with union
American Airlines executives met with labor union leaders this week to discuss a potential merger with another carrier. American spokesman Andy Backover said they had meetings for more than a year regarding airline industry consolidation with the unions, which include the Transport Workers Union that represents ground workers and the Association of Professional Flight Attendants. The meetings have been subject to a confidentiality agreement, preventing all parties from revealing details of the discussions, Backover told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
■ BRAZIL
Brazil out of debt
Brazil's debt crisis is over and the country has emerged as a net foreign creditor for the first time, the central bank said. The nation's foreign cash reserves last month exceeded the entire foreign debt of Brazil's government and individual companies combined by about US$4 billion, the bank said in a report on Thursday. "It's the first time in the history of Brazil that we are not debtors," Finance Minister Guido Mantega said. Brazil's new status as a creditor could improve its debt rating to investment grade, which would lower Brazil's borrowing costs for future loans, Mantega said. Brazil, which defaulted on its debt in the 1980s and declared a moratorium on debt payments, is riding a boom in demand for key exports such as beef, iron ore and soy. International reserves nearly tripled from US$64 billion in 2003 to US$188.2 billion this week, the bank said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six