■REAL ESTATE
Aberdeen trims holdings
Aberdeen Asset Management Co has trimmed its holdings of real-estate developers as surging prices in China, Hong Kong and Macau fuel concerns the property market may be overheating. “Since March, the market was too fast in terms of a recovery,” Nicholas Yeo, head of Hong Kong and China equities, said in an interview on Friday at Aberdeen, which manages US$38 billion in Asian equities. In terms of property stocks, “we’ve done what we wanted to do.” Aberdeen is favoring consumer-related companies that are likely to have greater pricing power, Yeo said. The firm’s holdings include Giordano International Holdings Ltd, a Hong Kong-based clothing retailer, and Dairy Farm International Holdings Ltd, the operator of supermarkets, drugstores and convenience shops throughout Asia, Yeo said.
■ECONOMY
N, S Korean trade drops
Trade between North and South Korea dipped more than 20 percent in the first eight months of this year amid soured relations on the divided peninsula, a lawmaker said yesterday. Trade between the two Koreas fell 24.1 percent to US$929.66 million from January to August from the same period last year, Noh Young-min, a lawmaker with the Democratic Party, said in a statement. He said his office got the figures from the Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs. The trade has declined due mainly to troubles with a joint tour program and a joint industrial park in the North, he said. Ministry officials were not available for comment yesterday, a national holiday.
■ENTERTAINMENT
Miramax to cut production
The Walt Disney Co said on Friday its Miramax Films division will slash the number of movies it produces each year, which it says will lead to “significant cost savings.” The division will now produce about three movies a year, down from the current six to eight, and eliminate 50 jobs in New York and Los Angeles by January. About 20 employees will remain, mostly at the New York headquarters. The announcement on Friday came two weeks after Disney studio chief Dick Cook said he was stepping down immediately as chairman after nearly four decades with the company. Daniel Battsek will continue as president of Miramax.
■ENTERTAINMENT
GE mulls NBC Universal IPO
General Electric (GE) said on Friday it was considering an initial public offering for NBC Universal or a partnership for the media and entertainment giant formed with France’s Vivendi five years ago. “Discussions are ongoing on an IPO,” said the spokesman for GE, which owns 80 percent of NBC Universal, adding that a “partnership” was also a possibility. The GE spokesman initially confirmed that talks were being held with US cable television company Comcast, but later said he was unable to do so “at this stage.”
■BANKING
Three more US banks fail
Three US banks failed on Friday, bringing the total to 98 this year, as regulators continue to shutter financial institutions that are overwhelmed by bad loans and liquidity problems. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) said that Warren Bank in Michigan, Jennings State Bank in Minnesota and Southern Colorado National Bank were closed. Combined, the three latest failures are expected to cost the FDIC’s insurance fund a total of about US$293 million. The FDIC said it expects failures to peak this year and next year, and that industry earnings would recover in 2011.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by