ENTERTAINMENT
Disney’s revenue jumps 7%
Walt Disney Co reported a better-than-expected 7 percent jump in quarterly revenue, helped by strong advertising that boosted the company’s cable networks. Shares of the media, entertainment and consumer giant gained 3 percent in after-hours trading to US$35.75, from a regular-session close of US$34.70. The operator of the ESPN and ABC networks, a movie studio and theme parks, reported fiscal third-quarter revenue of US$10.68 billion, a 7 percent gain from a year earlier. It posted net income of US$1.48 billion, or US$0.77 per share, versus US$1.33 billion, or US$0.67, a year earlier.
FOOD AND DRINK
Franc bites Nestle’s profit
Swiss food and drink giant Nestle SA posted a drop in half-year earnings yesterday, blaming volatile markets, rising commodity prices and particularly the strength of the Swiss franc for dragging down profits. The Vevey-based company said it earned 4.7 billion Swiss francs (US$6.48 billion) during the first six months of the year. Illustrating the impact of the franc’s surge, the results represented a 24 percent drop when measured in francs, but a rise of almost 30 percent in US dollar terms. The company maintained it would end the year with organic growth at the top end of its target of 5 to 6 percent.
BANKING
Commerzbank net profit falls
Germany’s Commerzbank AG reported yesterday that net profit fell sharply in the second quarter, as the bank wrote down 760 million euros (US$1.1 billion) in bonds issued by financially troubled Greece. The bank otherwise showed improved results from trading securities and from its business financing medium-sized companies in a growing German economy. Net profit fell to 53 million euros from 361 million euros in the same quarter a year ago.
ENERGY
EON posts first quarterly loss
Germany’s biggest energy group, EON, reported yesterday its first ever quarterly loss, as government plans to abandon nuclear energy forced a restructuring plan and the loss of up to 11,000 jobs. EON said it had a net loss of 1.49 billion euros in the three months to June. The loss attributable to shareholders, a slightly wider definition of earnings, came in at 1.58 billion euros, compared with a profit of 1.63 billion euros in the second quarter of last year. EON also cut its full-year forecast and expected dividend as earnings were suffered from weaker sales of electricity and gas.
AIRLINES
Cathay profit tumbles
Cathay Pacific yesterday said net profit tumbled in the first six months of the year, but added it would push on with its expansion plans by ordering 12 aircraft from Boeing worth more than US$3 billion. The Hong Kong-based carrier said it earned HK$2.8 billion (US$359 million) in January-June, 59 percent below the HK$6.84 billion a year earlier, due to soaring fuel prices as well as impact of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami in March. Revenue rose 13.2 percent to HK$46.79 billion.
HUMAN RESOURCES
Adecco’s Q2 profit soars
The world’s biggest temporary staffing group, Adecco, said yesterday its second quarter net profit soared 45 percent to 141 million euros, thanks to strong demand in the industrial segment. Revenues were up 11 percent at 5.166 billion euros for the three months ending June and the Swiss-based group forecast that the third would also be a strong quarter.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the