BANKING
HSBC chief stays in London
The new chief executive of HSBC Holdings PLC has dropped plans to relocate to Hong Kong, where his predecessor was based to push the bank’s Asia business, and will stay in London, a report said yesterday. Stuart Gulliver will remain in Britain because its time zone is most convenient for running HSBC’s global business, the Financial Times said, adding that he still planned to spend one week a month in the Chinese financial hub. The decision comes despite HSBC saying after Gulliver was hired that he would move to Asia, but still maintain a regular presence in London. The bank’s new chairman, Douglas Flint, is also based in London.
JAPAN
Pension payments hit record
Payouts from the public pension program reached a record US$612 billion in the year to March last year, costing more than 10 percent of the nominal GDP, government figures show. The data, released on Monday, meant one pension recipient was supported by 1.8 people in the workforce, pressuring public and household finances, the Nikkei business daily said yesterday. The ratio between the pension cost and nominal GDP compared with about 6 percent for the US and an average 7.2 percent for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development members in 2005, the Nikkei said.
CONGLOMERATES
Siemens profits jump 15%
Siemens AG is reporting a 15 percent increase in net profit for the quarter from October to last month, on strong rises in new orders and revenue. The Munich-based industrial conglomerate said yesterday that it earned 1.75 billion euros (US$2.4 billion) in its fiscal first quarter — up from 1.53 billion euros a year earlier. The company says new orders were up 19 percent at 22.59 billion euros, while revenue rose 12 percent to 19.49 billion euros. It says the figures benefited from currency translation effects. Siemens says it took a charge of 136 million euros related to the sale of its information technology services division to Atos Origin of France.
CREDIT CARDS
Amex Q4 profits up 48%
American Express Co, the biggest credit-card issuer by purchases, said fourth-quarter profits increased 48 percent as customer spending set a record and fewer overdue payments let the company trim loss provisions. Net income was US$1.1 billion, or US$0.88 a share, compared with US$716 million, or US$0.60, in the same period a year earlier, the New York-based company said on Monday in a statement. The results included a charge of US$74 million, or US$0.06 a share, tied to job cuts in its servicing network, the lender said in a preliminary earnings statement last Wednesday.
ELECTRONICS
TI narrowly tops forecasts
Texas Instruments Inc (TI) on Monday posted fourth--quarter results that narrowly topped forecasts, while the chipmaker said it is now past a “short and shallow downturn” that hit in the second half of last year. The company said it earned US$942 million, or US$0.78 per share, in the period from October to last month. That included US$0.14 per share in one-time gains from the sale of a product line and a tax benefit. Excluding those effects, earnings beat the average estimate of analysts polled by FactSet by US$0.01 per share. In the same period last year, TI earned US$655 million, or US$0.52 per share. Revenue rose 17 percent to US$3.53 billion, beating the analyst forecast of US$3.51 billion.
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],”