ONLINE RETAIL
Amazon strikes in Germany
Workers at Amazon.com’s German operations were set to go on strike yesterday, in the middle of the crucial Christmas holiday season, in a dispute over pay that has been raging for months. The Verdi union said workers would strike in Amazon’s logistic centers in Bad Hersfeld and Leipzig and, for the first time, in Graben. A delegation of German workers also planned a protest at Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle, helped by US workers unions. Today, workers in Amazon’s center in the German town of Werne are to protest, Verdi said.
ECONOMY
Brazil to boost growth
Brazil will shun creative accounting as it bolsters its fiscal situation next year and increases transparency, Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega was reported as saying on Sunday. Brazil is seeking to bolster sagging growth, which has suffered in the global downturn of recent years, while also combating above-target inflation and low competitiveness. However, Mantega said in an interview published on Sunday that the Brazilian government expects its fiscal position to improve as it raises taxes. He said he believed ratings agencies would maintain Brazil’s rating of “BBB,” the second-lowest investment-grade level, even if that was placed on negative watch earlier this year by Standard & Poor’s.
TAXATION
Ex-UBS exec faces court
A former top UBS executive is due in US court for the first time on Sunday after his extradition from Italy for helping thousands of Americans hide billions of dollars from the taxman. Raoul Weil, 54, was extradited earlier this month, five years after his indictment by a US federal grand jury in 2008 for his alleged role in overseeing cross-border business. The Swiss national was arrested in mid-October after using his real name to check into a luxury hotel in Bologna. He has denied the allegations against him.
RETAIL
Carrefour to buy malls
French big-box retailer Carrefour plans to buy dozens of shopping malls next to its hypermarket stores. The retailer said on Saturday that it and eight investors would buy 127 malls in France, Italy and Spain from Paris-based Klepierre for 2 billion euros (US$2.75 billion). Carrefour already owns 45 malls in France. All the shopping centers will be held by one new company. Carrefour has been struggling for years, even before the European debt crisis decimated its biggest markets, and has seen a dizzying string of strategy changes. Georges Plassat took over as chief executive last year, pledging to cut costs and make the company a leader again in the all-in-one hypermarkets it has historically excelled at. The deal needs regulatory approval, but should close in March or April next year.
ENERGY
Toshiba to buy into UK
Toshiba’s US unit Westinghouse is close to announcing plans to buy Spanish utility Iberdrola’s 50 percent stake in British nuclear consortium NuGen for over £100 million (US$163 million), the Financial Times reported, citing sources. The Japanese-owned engineering group will announce the move within days, the paper said, citing people close to the talks. NuGen, a joint venture of Iberdrola and French utility GDF Suez, owns a site at Sellafield on the remote northwest coast of England where it plans to build 3.6 gigawatts of nuclear capacity. Winning a majority stake in NuGen would give Toshiba a foothold in pro-nuclear Britain.
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