■ENGINEERING
ABB posts profit
Engineering group ABB Ltd has reported a net profit of US$540 million for the fourth quarter. The Swiss-Swedish company more than doubled its net profit compared with US$213 million earned in the same period of 2008. Earnings per share are US$0.24 from US$0.09 the previous year. Zurich-based ABB said yesterday that orders measured in US dollar rose 4 percent during the fourth quarter but fell 5 percent in local currencies. Revenues dropped 4 percent to US$8.76 billion as demand for the company’s process automation and robotics products dropped sharply. ABB says the outlook for this year remains uncertain because of the overall economic climate.
■INSURANCE
Swiss Re reports Q4 profit
Swiss Reinsurance Co has reported a fourth-quarter net profit of 403 million Swiss francs (US$373.4 million). The Zurich-based company had suffered a massive SF1.75 billion loss during the year-earlier period on the back bad investments. Swiss Re says earning per share were SF1.18 compared with a loss of SF5.34 per share in the last three months of 2008. The absence of major disasters allowed the reinsurance company to more than double operating income in its property and casualty business to SF853 million. Swiss Re said yesterday its full-year net profit for last year reached SF506 million compared to a loss of SF864 million the previous year.
■TELECOMS
Willcom files for bankruptcy
Japanese low-cost mobile telephone operator Willcom Inc went bust yesterday with debts of about US$2.3 billion — the country’s second high-profile bankruptcy in less than a month. Willcom, which offers no-frills, low-cost mobile telephones but has never really posed a serious challenge to its bigger rivals, filed for protection with the Tokyo District Court under the corporate rehabilitation law. The company said it aimed to revive its business under the supervision of a state-backed agency that is also overseeing the bankruptcy proceedings of Japan Airlines, which went bankrupt on Jan. 19 with US$26 billion in debt.
■ENERGY
Marcellus investment grows
The flow of money into the exploration of the Marcellus Shale natural gas formation is continuing. Japanese investment house Mitsui & Co announced it is taking a US$1.4 billion stake, or 32.5 percent, in Anadarko Petroleum Corp’s Marcellus Shale assets. The companies announced the joint venture on Tuesday. Anadarko, of Houston, has interests in more than 283,286 hectares in northern Pennsylvania, and is the largest leaseholder in Pennsylvania’s state forests. Mitsui says it expects to invest up to US$4 billion in the venture.
■TELECOMS
Sony Ericsson keeps systems
Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications Ltd, a joint venture between Japan’s Sony Corp and Sweden’s Ericsson AB, said it plans to stay with three mobile operating systems: Microsoft Corp’s Windows, Google Inc’s Android and Symbian, supported by Nokia Oyj. “I’m going to hedge my bets and keep all three,” said chief executive officer Bert Nordberg at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. “If you go out and ask people what operating system they have, I don’t think they know and I don’t think they care.” The mobile-phone maker will start showing the effect of its reorganization in the second half of the year, he said.
■ELECTRONICS
Acer targets mobile phones
Acer Inc, the world’s second-largest laptop computer supplier, aims to sell 10 million mobile phones next year, up from a target of 3 million for this year. “We push aggressively into the mobile-phone market and it’s working nicely,” Gianfranco Lanci, president of Taipei-based Acer, said at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain yesterday. The company will continue to win market share and will still be able to keep its current profit margin of between 15 percent and 20 percent in the mobile-phone business, Lanci said. “We have done the same thing in the laptop market, we know how to keep costs under control and operate efficiently,” he said.
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