FOOD
Dunkin’ Brands’ IPO priced
The parent company of Dunkin’ Donuts and ice-cream chain Baskin-Robbins is pricing its initial public offering at US$19 a share, above the forecast price range. Dunkin’ Brands Group Inc says it is offering roughly 22.3 million shares at US$19 each. The stock was scheduled to start trading yesterday on the Nasdaq market under the ticker symbol DNKN. At US$19 a share, the stock sale will raise about US$423 million before expenses. Dunkin’ Brands plans to use the IPO funds to pay down debt, but could also have money left over for expansion plans.
ELECTRONICS
LG’s Q2 profits tumble
South Korea’s LG Electronics said second-quarter net profits plunged 87.3 percent from a year earlier due to flagging sales of mobile phones and televisions. Net profit was 108.4 billion won (US$103.4 million) from April to last month, compared with 856.4 billion won a year earlier. The second-quarter result represents a return to profitability following two quarters of losses.
AUSTRALIA
Consumer prices up 0.9%
Australian consumer prices rose more than expected last quarter while key measures of underlying inflation were alarmingly high, reviving pressure for an increase in interest rates and lifting the Australian dollar to a 29-year peak. The main trimmed-mean measure of underlying inflation rose 0.9 percent in the second quarter, above the 0.7 percent forecast and matching the high result from the first quarter. The headline measure of consumer prices (CPI) increased by 0.9 percent in the second quarter, again above market forecasts with a range of prices up from fruit to health and petrol. For the year, the CPI was up 3.6 percent, the fastest pace since late 2008.
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
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
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