FAST FOOD
McDonald’s recalls tumblers
McDonald’s in Japan said on Wednesday it was recalling giveaway glass tumblers after 78 people reported being injured by the Olympic-themed freebies. The fast food giant said it had received 130 complaints after handing out the tumblers to purchasers of “Value Sets,” which included fries and a soft drink, during their “Olympic Cheer Coke Glass Campaign” in June and last month. McDonald’s said they gave away 6 million tumblers in Japan, some of which had “glass protrusions” on their edges or insides because of a manufacturing error. Company spokesman Kazuyuki Hagiwara said flawed metallic moulds used by the producer of the glasses were to blame.
FOOD AND DRINK
Nestle profits up 8.9%
Swiss food and drinks giant Nestle SA posted a 8.9 percent rise in first-half profits but predicted that the remainder of this year will be challenging. Helped by strong demand from emerging markets, price rises and cost-cutting, the world’s biggest food and beverage maker said its net profit rose to 5.120 billion Swiss francs (US$5.27 billion) from January to June, up from SF4.703 billion in the comparable period last year. The Vevey, Switzerland-based company’s said those profits came on first-half sales of SF44.1 billion, which was 7.5 percent up on last year’s equivalent of SF41 billion a year ago. Nestle said it expects underlying sales growth of 5 to 6 percent for the remainder of the year due to its strong first half.
INSURANCE
Aegon Q2 profits down 50%
Aegon NV, the Dutch insurer that does most of its business in the US, said second quarter net profit fell by more than 50 percent, due to a charge on its Dutch life insurance business. Net profit was 254 million euros (US$314 million), down from 521 million euros in the same period a year ago, including the 265 million euros charge to bring Dutch “unit-linked” plans into line with their current value. The company yesterday said “underlying earnings” — a measure that seeks to strip out asset value reassessments, investment gains and other adjustments to give a clearer picture of the company’s operational performance — was up 2.7 percent to 337 million euros.
BANKING
Commerzbank sees drop
Commerzbank, Germany’s second-biggest bank, yesterday said it expected net profit in the second half of the year to be lower than in the first, with no end to the eurozone debt crisis in sight. “We still do not expect the macro-economic and market environment to stabilise in the second half of 2012. Against this background, we expect net profit in the second half of the year to be below the net profit of the first six months,” Commerzbank said in a statement. Commerzbank said its January-June net profit amounted to 644 million euros, down 36 percent from a year earlier. In the second quarter alone, net profit was down by 25 percent from the preceding three months at 275 million euros.
BANKING
UBS unaware of data theft
UBS AG said it wasn’t aware of any data theft after the Financial Times Deutschland on Wednesday reported that the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia obtained a CD with account information from the Swiss bank on German clients suspected of tax evasion. “We are not aware of having fallen victim to any data theft,” said Yves Kaufmann, a Zurich-based spokesman for UBS.
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
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