CAMERAS
Olympus reports net loss
Scandal-hit Olympus yesterday reported a net loss of ¥33.08 billion (US$426 million) for the nine months to December amid a massive accounting cover-up that has tarnished the image of corporate Japan. For the full-year to March, the camera maker said it expected a net loss of ¥32.0 billion, owing to one-off costs unrelated to the loss scandal. The forecast is the first since the scandal broke last year, with the company previously saying it could not make a full-year projection because it did not know the full ramifications of the scandal. For the nine months to December, Olympus reported that operating profit fell 19.0 percent on-year to ¥25.9 billion on sales of ¥624.6 billion, which were up 0.1 percent.
THAILAND
Banks to help repay debt
Thailand’s banks will pay a fee equivalent to 0.47 percent of their total deposits to the Bank of Thailand starting in July as part of a plan to repay state debt, Thai Finance Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong said. Publicly listed banks will pay 0.01 percent of their total deposits into the national deposit-protection fund and 0.46 percent will be used to help pay long-term debt, Kittiratt told reporters yesterday in Bangkok. The government approved a plan last month to shift responsibility for repaying 1.1 trillion baht (US$35.7 billion) of state debt to the Bank of Thailand. Kittiratt said the move could save the government as much as 64 billion baht a year in interest payments and provide scope to finance flood defenses.
COSMETICS
Avon execs in bribery probe
US prosecutors investigating whether US executives at beauty products company Avon broke foreign-bribery laws have presented evidence in the probe to a grand jury, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. Citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, the newspaper said that authorities are focused on a 2005 internal audit report by the company that concluded Avon employees in China may have been bribing officials in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Avon had earlier said it first learned of bribery allegations in 2008, the report said. The audit found several hundred thousand dollars in questionable payments to Chinese officials and third-party consultants in 2005, the paper said.
MUSIC
Quake boosts piano sales
Sales of pianos in Japan jumped 11 percent last year, the first rise in 17 years, as people replaced instruments damaged in the country’s devastating earthquake, a trade body said yesterday. Takahiro Ito of the Shizuoka Instrument Manufacturing Association said more than 18,100 pianos were sold last year, up from about 16,300 the year before. “Last year, especially in the Tohoku region, pianos broke down after the quake and some customers wanted to buy new ones,” he said. Tohoku was badly hit by the magnitude 9 earthquake and resulting tsunami of March 11, with huge swathes of the coastline destroyed.
TELECOMS
SingTel profit falls 9.6%
Singapore Telecommunications Ltd (SingTel) said its quarterly profit dropped 9.6 percent due to losses at its Pakistan unit and an African telecoms company owned by its Indian affiliate. SingTel yesterday said that profit for the October-to-December quarter fell to S$902 million (US$717 million) from S$998 million a year earlier. Operating revenue rose 2.7 percent to S$4.8 billion from S$4.7 billion a year earlier. The company said a stronger Singaporean dollar also crimped profits from its regional units.
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