PORT OPERATORS
Westports launches IPO
Malaysia’s Westports Holdings Bhd started taking orders yesterday for a US$630 million initial public offering (IPO), which is expected to be one of the country’s biggest share sales this year. Westports said in a statement that it is offering 813.2 million shares at a price of up to 2.50 ringgit. The listing on the Malaysian Stock Exchange has been scheduled for Oct. 18, said the company, which manages the shipping terminal at the country’s main port of Klang and is partly owned by Asia’s richest man, Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠). Up to 710.9 million shares are to be offered to institutional investors, while the rest has been earmarked for the public.
JAPAN
Trade deficit swells
The nation’s trade deficit swelled to a larger-than-forecast ¥960.3 billion (US$9.8 billion) last month as imports outpaced the growth in exports. Boosted by higher fuel costs, imports rose 16 percent from a year earlier to ¥6.74 trillion, while exports climbed 14.7 percent to ¥5.78 trillion. The deficit was a quarter bigger than the ¥768.4 billion gap seen in August last year. Japan’s trade accounts fell into deficit as costs for importing crude oil and natural gas soared following the closure of nuclear plants after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that led to meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.
UNITED STATES
SEC seeking CEO pay data
Regulators proposed a new rule on Wednesday to force companies to reveal how much their chief executives are paid in relation to other employees. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) voted 3-2 in favor of the proposed measure, which was mandated in the Dodd-Frank Act, the vast financial regulation overhaul approved in 2010 following the Wall Street crisis. Public companies are already required to disclose the compensation of their chief executives and other executive officers to the SEC. The commission announced a 60-day period for receiving comments on the proposal, before deciding whether to implement it.
FAST FOOD
McDonald’s ups its dividend
McDonald’s Corp is raising its quarterly cash dividend by 5 percent, bringing its fourth-quarter payout to more than US$800 million. The world’s largest hamburger chain said its quarterly dividend would increase to US$0.81 from US$0.77 for an annual total of US$3.24 per share. It will make the next payout on Dec. 16 to shareholders of record at Dec. 2. McDonald’s expects to return between US$4.5 billion and US$5 billion to its shareholders through dividends and stock repurchases this year. McDonald’s has raised its dividend every year since making its first payout in 1976. In July, the company reported a 4 percent rise in second-quarter profit, but missed expectations and warned of a tough year ahead,.
SOFTWARE
Oracle profit beats forecasts
Higher software revenue helped lift Oracle Corp’s fiscal first-quarter net income by 8 percent. The business software maker’s adjusted profit beat Wall Street forecasts, while its revenue fell short. For the quarter ended Aug. 31, the company earned US$2.19 billion, or earnings per share of US$0.47, up from US$2.03 billion, or US$0.41 per share, in the same quarter last year. Revenue increased 2 percent to US$8.37 billion from US$8.18 billion. The company also said on Wednesday that its board had declared a quarterly cash dividend of US$0.12.
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