■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.
■FINANCE
BoComm mulls offering
China’s Bank of Communications (BoComm, 交通銀行) may try to raise US$4 billion through a rights offering to strengthen its balance sheet, a report said yesterday. A massive lending boom by Chinese banks has left many of them with a reduced capital base. BoComm, one of China’s biggest lenders, has asked investment banks to submit proposals for the offering in Shanghai or Hong Kong, where the bank is already listed, the Financial Times reported, citing people familiar with the matter. A rights offering typically allows shareholders to buy additional company stock at a discounted price during a set period of time.
■HONG KONG
Unemployment holds steady
Hong Kong’s jobless rate stayed at an 11-month low and Secretary for Labor and Welfare Matthew Cheung (張建宗) said unemployment is set “to ease further.” The seasonally adjusted rate for the three months ended Jan. 31 was unchanged at 4.9 percent, the government said yesterday on its Web site. Unemployment peaked last year at 5.4 percent. Hong Kong’s economy expanded for the six months through Sept. 30 after a yearlong recession. The government is due to announce fourth-quarter economic data with its budget on Wednesday.
■INTERNET
‘WSJ’ reports cyberattacks
Coordinated cyberattacks launched from Europe and China breached computers at firms and government agencies worldwide in the past 18 months, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Wednesday. The Journal quoted computer security firm NetWitness as saying the attacks made mountains of data vulnerable to mining by hackers, although the damage had yet to be fully assessed. Information bared to hackers ranged from credit card transactions to intellectual property of slightly more than 2,400 victims, including 10 US government agencies, the Journal said. The hacking operation began in late 2008 in Germany and has yet to be stopped, NetWitness said.
■METALS
IMF ready to sell gold
The IMF said on Wednesday it was ready to sell 191.3 tonnes of gold on the market in a bid to reduce its dependence on lending revenue. At Wednesday’s market price of about US$1,120 an ounce, the gold to be sold would be worth nearly US$6.9 billion. The fund “will shortly initiate the on-market phase of its gold sales program” of a total 403.3 tonnes approved for sale last September, the Washington-based institution said in a statement. The initial phase was set aside exclusively for off-market sales to public entities, such as central banks, among the IMF’s 186 members.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last