AVIATION
Cathay offers retirement
Hong Kong flag carrier Cathay Pacific yesterday asked its cabin crew to volunteer for early retirement as part of its cost-cutting measures to boost profitability amid a global slowdown. Cathay has been trying to trim costs after it fell into the red in the first half of last year with a HK$935 million (US$121 million) loss, partly due to high fuel prices that have also dragged down other regional airlines’ performance. The airline said the scheme would be offered to flight attendants who joined the firm before September 1996 to cut costs, as well as to help facilitate recruitment and promotion opportunities.
GAMING
Atari US files for bankruptcy
Videogame maker Atari’s US operation has filed for bankruptcy protection in an effort to separate from its French parent company, which is filing a similar motion separately in France. Atari, which turned 40 last year, was a videogame pioneer with games like Pong and Centipede. The company said in a statement the move was necessary to secure investments it needs to grow in mobile and downloadable video games. In its court filing, Atari said it had between US$1 million and US$10 million in assets and between US$10 million and US$50 million in debt. It expects to sell its assets or confirm a restructuring plan in the next three to six months.
TELECOMS
Ericsson buys Devoteam unit
Swedish telecommunications equipment maker Ericsson on Monday said it would buy the telecoms and media unit of French technology consultant Devoteam. About 400 France-based information technology services professionals will join the company under a deal the company said would strengthen its consulting capabilities. The value of the transaction was not disclosed. Ericsson said Devoteam has 5,000 employees in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
BREWING
SABMiller Q3 sales up 17%
Global brewer SABMiller said its overall revenues rose 17 percent in the third quarter compared with last year, sustained by improving growth in its key Latin American markets. Lager volumes were up 2 percent on an organic basis for the quarter, the maker of Miller Lite, Grolsch and Peroni said, with overall performance in line with its expectations. Growth in volume terms was held back by a decline in China, where cold weather dampened demand.
South KOREA
Energy subsidy to change
The government, which has spent US$2.6 billion to foster a domestic market for clean energy, plans to change the way it subsidizes renewables to encourage private energy providers to take more initiatives. Under the plan, a certain amount of subsidies will be paid depending on the renewable source and its energy yield, rather than a set ratio of subsidies in excess of base tariffs, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy said in an e-mail yesterday.
RETAIL
India clears IKEA plan
India’s foreign investment panel has cleared a nearly US$2 billion plan by IKEA to open stores in the country. Two months ago, India’s Foreign Investment Promotion Board rejected 15 of IKEA’s 30 product lines, including food and textiles. However, late on Monday, Indian Commerce Minister Anand Sharma said the investment board had cleared the plan because the government was committed to playing a constructive role in encouraging foreign direct investment.
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],”
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
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