FINANCE
ING to cut jobs on profit dip
ING Groep NV, the biggest Dutch financial-services company, will cut 2,350 jobs in its banking and insurance units after reporting a 64 percent fall in third-quarter profit. Net income fell to 609 million euros (US$783 million) from 1.69 billion euros a year earlier, the lender said in a statement. Profit fell after losses on hedges protecting the insurer’s capital and a charge related to changed policyholder behavior assumptions at its US annuity unit. Amsterdam-based ING said yesterday it would cut 1,350 jobs by 2014 and another 1,000 in commercial banking to make savings of 460 million euros annually from 2015.
FINLAND
August GDP fell 0.6%
The economy contracted for the first time since February 2010, as the debt crisis weighed on demand for Finnish goods. GDP adjusted for working days shrank an annual 0.6 percent in August, compared with a revised 0.1 percent growth in July, Helsinki-based Statistics Finland said yesterday, citing trend indicator data. Revisions to the GDP data may be “significant,” particularly when economic cycles turn, the statistics office said.
BANKING
BNP earnings recover
France’s largest bank, BNP Paribas SA, yesterday said its profit bounced back in the third quarter after being slammed by exposure to Greek debt last year. The bank said that third-quarter profit reached 1.3 billion euros, up from 541 million euros in the same period last year, when it was hit by a huge writedown on Greek debt. The growth in earnings was largely due to strong investment banking activity. Its investment banking unit, CIB, saw pretax profit rise 7.3 percent to 732 million euros.
RETAIL
Burberry beats forecasts
British luxury goods group Burberry beat forecasts with a 6 percent rise in first-half pretax profit, as its most wealthy shoppers continued to spend despite a faltering global economy. The group, best known for its camel, red-and-black check pattern, yesterday said it made a profit before tax and one-off items of £173 million (US$276 million) in the six months to Sept. 30. Total first-half revenue was £883 million, up 8 percent at constant exchange rates, with first-quarter growth of 11 percent slowing to 5 percent in the second.
ENERGY
TEPCO seeks more aid
Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), the Japanese operator of the nuclear power plant devastated in last year’s disasters, is seeking more government financial support, saying the cost of the cleanup may be double its original estimate of ¥5 trillion (US$62.5 billion). TEPCO made the appeal in a management “action plan” it presented yesterday. The firm received a ¥1 trillion bailout and was put under government ownership. It has raised electricity rates to help cover the costs it faces due to the accident.
BANKING
Moody’s lifts Japan outlook
Moody’s Investors Service raised its outlook for Japan’s banking system to “stable” from “negative,” citing prospects for modest economic growth, as well as strong capital and access to funding. The change is the first since Moody’s assigned the negative outlook in 2008, it said in a statement yesterday. Japanese authorities remain willing to support troubled banks, which is credit positive, Moody’s said, adding that risks to banks from their holdings of Japanese government bonds were low.
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
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six