SOUTH KOREA
Inflation above target range
The country’s inflation exceeded the central bank’s target and all forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey, limiting the scope for an interest-rate cut next month even as threats to growth mount. Consumer prices rose 4.2 percent from a year earlier, matching last month’s gain, Statistics Korea said yesterday in a statement. Prices rose 0.4 percent from the previous month, the biggest gain since August. An increase in electricity prices contributed to this month’s inflation. The government raised charges after the state-owned Korea Electric Power Corp reported a loss for the first nine months of the year. Core prices, which exclude energy and food costs, advanced 3.6 percent this month from a year earlier, compared with a 3.5 percent gain last month, today’s report showed.
REAL ESTATE
Madrid’s Torre Picasso sold
Spanish construction firm FCC sold a landmark Madrid skyscraper to a real-estate firm owned by the owner of the Zara clothing chain for 400 million euros (US$521 million), FCC said on Thursday. The company sold the Torre Picasso to Pontegadea Inmobiliaria, which belongs to Amancia Ortega, Spain’s richest man and the founder of fashion group Inditex, which owns the popular Zara brand, FCC said in a regulatory filing. From its inauguration in 1988 until 2007, the Torre Picasso was the tallest building in the Spanish capital. Designed by Japanese architect Minoru Yamasaki, the creator of the doomed Twin Towers in New York, the 157m high building has 43 floors and a helipad.
MEDIA
Qatar raises Lagardere stake
Qatar Holding has raised its stake in Lagardere to more than 10 percent, making the Gulf state the largest shareholder in the struggling French media-to-aerospace conglomerate. The oil-rich emirate has been a staunch supporter of Lagardere chief executive Arnaud Lagardere even as some shareholders assailed his strategy for the company his father founded, which competes with Pearson PLC and Bertelsmann AG in radio and book publishing. Lagardere, which also is a top shareholder in Airbus parent EADS, has struggled this year as its fledgling sports business has been plagued by integration problems.
HEALTHCARE
GE settles billing claim
GE Healthcare, a branch of General Electric, has paid the US government a settlement of US$30 million plus interest for improper billing by a company it bought in 2004, officials said on Thursday. The case over Amersham Health Inc concerned claims filed under the False Claims Act, according to which the company caused the Medicare program for the elderly to overpay for a drug used to diagnose heart disease. The government alleged Amersham Health provided false or misleading information to Medicare on the number of doses available from vials used in treatment, which meant Medicare paid at artificially inflated rates.
AVIATION
AMR shares delisted
AMR Corp, American Airlines’ parent company, which filed for bankruptcy last month, said on Thursday that its stock would be dropped from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The shares will stop trading on the NYSE before the opening bell on Thursday. The delisting includes AMR common stock and some company-issued notes. AMR said that the NYSE notified the Fort Worth, Texas, company of the move after the average closing price of AMR shares fell below US$1 for 30 straight trading days.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Microsoft Corp yesterday said that it would create Thailand’s first data center region to boost cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, promising AI training to more than 100,000 people to develop tech. Bangkok is a key economic player in Southeast Asia, but it has lagged behind Indonesia and Singapore when it comes to the tech industry. Thailand has an “incredible opportunity to build a digital-first, AI-powered future,” Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella said at an event in Bangkok. Data center regions are physical locations that store computing infrastructure, allowing secure and reliable access to cloud platforms. The global embrace of AI
Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San