■ ELECTRONICS
HP recalls fax machines
Hewlett-Packard Co is recalling about 450,000 fax machines that may overheat and cause burns or catch fire, US officials said on Friday. The recall involves HP Fax 1010 and HP Fax 1010xi models manufactured from November 2002 through September 2004. The products were made in China. The company has received three reports of overheating including two that caused minor property damage, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission said in a statement. No injuries have been reported, the CPSC said. About 367,000 of the units were sold in the US and 84,000 were sold elsewhere.
■ OIL
Iraq to open fourth firm
The Iraqi government said it will allocate about US$8 billion for a yet-to-be-established fourth state-run oil company. It said in a statement yesterday that Maysan Oil Company would manage operations to explore, develop, produce and export oil and gas resources in the oil-rich Maysan Province. The new company will be formed by reorganizing the Maysan Oil and Gas Commission after splitting it off from the Basra-based Southern Oil Company. The plan must be approved by parliament and then ratified by Iraq’s presidential council. Maysan is located about 300km southeast of Baghdad.
■ BANKING
Citigroup shuffles debt team
Citigroup Inc is reorganizing the team that invests in distressed debt, the biggest US bank by assets said on Friday. “We have decided to restructure our Global Special Situations Group in order to maximize the significant opportunities in the global distressed sector,” Citigroup said in a statement. A person at Citigroup familiar with the changes said the business is being split into two segments. One will do customer-focused distressed sales and trading, and will be led by Carl Meyer. The other will be a private investment business led by John Peruzzi.
■ BEVERAGES
Anheuser-Busch touts plans
Anheuser-Busch Cos on Friday detailed its plan to make the company more valuable than the US$65 per share offer it rejected from InBev, and gave profit guidance for this year and next year above analyst expectations. In a conference call with investors, Anheuser-Busch executives reiterated that InBev’s proposal, which it rejected on Thursday, undervalued the St. Louis, Missouri-based company and its future growth prospects. As part of the plan, Anheuser-Busch said it expects low-double digit earnings per share growth in fiscal 2008, with a target of US$3.13 per share. For fiscal 2009, the company expects earnings of US$3.90 per share. Anheuser-Busch said it would drive results partly with price increases, spurred by commodity cost pressures including higher fuel prices and raw material costs.
■ TOURISM
Indians flock to Singapore
A boost in the number of Indian tourists pushed visitor arrivals in Singapore to a new record last month, according to tourism data released yesterday. A total of 828,000 tourists visited Singapore last month, the 63rd consecutive month of record numbers and up 0.8 percent from the same period last year. More than 4.25 million travelers visited the city-state during the first five months. The breakdown showed 103,000 from India, a 60 percent increase over April’s 63,000. The surge propelled Indians into the No. 2 spot on the list of arrivals. Indonesians emerged on top with 136,000 visitors and those from China ranked third.
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
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],”