AUTOMAKERS
BMW has best quarter ever
German automaker BMW said yesterday that the first quarter of this year was its best ever, with an 18.1 percent rise in net profits on a 12 month comparison to 1.35 billion euros (US$1.8 billion). Sales surged by 14.1 percent to 18.3 billion euros and earnings before interest and tax by 18.8 percent to 2.13 billion euros, also exceeding expectations. The firm, which makes top-of-the-range cars, said it expected to achieve sales and pre-tax profits records for the year.
INVESTMENT
Temasek ‘rebalancing’
Singapore state investment company Temasek Holdings said it raised about US$2.5 billion by selling part of its stake in Bank of China (中國銀行) and China Construction Bank (中國建設銀行). Temasek said in a statement yesterday that “the rebalancing move is partly to prepare for other opportunities that could arise in China and elsewhere.” Temasek said it still had about US$18 billion invested in Chinese banks after the sales. Temasek bought a US$2.3 billion stake in Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (中國工商銀行) from Goldman Sachs last month.
BANKING
SocGen earnings tumble
French bank Societe Generale (SocGen) said earnings dropped sharply in the first quarter of the year as it booked losses from dumping complex structured financial products in an ongoing bid to meet new international banking capital requirements. The bank said profit from corporate and investment banking, its largest division, slumped 40.6 percent in the quarter as the bank took losses disposing of 4.9 billion euros (US$6.43 billion) in collatoralized debt obligations and other risky, capital--intensive assets. In a statement yesterday, Societe Generale said that the steep drop in investment banking left its overall net profit down 20 percent at 732 million euros in the first quarter.
ALCOHOL
Diageo reports sales growth
Diageo PLC, the world’s biggest distiller, reported third-quarter sales growth, as sales in emerging markets and higher-priced spirits in the US offset declines in Europe. Organic sales growth, which excludes the effect of acquisitions and currency fluctuations, rose 6 percent in the three months to March 31, the company said yesterday. Sales grew fastest at Diageo’s Latin America and Caribbean unit during the first quarter, advancing 18 percent. North America showed a 5 percent improvement compared with last year as consumers drank more expensive spirits.
FINANCE
Visa’s Q1 profit rises 30%
Visa said on Wednesday that its profit for the first three months of the year was up 30 percent from the previous year, primarily because credit card use rose in the US and overseas. The company said Americans rang up 12 percent more on their charge cards for the quarter. However, debit card use grew by only 4 percent, the slowest growth in a year. For the quarter, Visa said its net income was US$1.3 billion, or US$1.60 per share.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Novartis to buy Fougera
Swiss pharma giant Novartis said on Wednesday it is buying dermatology generics group Fougera for US$1.525 billion, making it the new market leader in the field of generic dermatology medicines. Novartis said it would pay cash for the acquisition and that Fougera would be integrated into its generic pharmaceutical division. Fougera posted sales of US$429 million last year and employs about 700 people.
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
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],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained