ENERGY
US gas firm mulls options
Chesapeake Energy Corp, the second-largest US natural gas producer, said it is looking at options including the sale or a spinoff to existing shareholders of the company’s oilfield services unit. The unit, Chesapeake Oilfield Operating LLC, had sales of about US$2.2 billion last year and is able to work as a stand-alone firm, the Oklahoma City-based energy producer said in a statement. The unit earns about 35 percent of its revenue from contracts with companies other than its parent. The oilfield services business “will offer Chesapeake and its shareholders enhanced return opportunities as a stand-alone company,” Chesapeake chief executive officer Doug Lawler said in the statement. “A separation … is aligned with our strategies of financial discipline, and profitable and efficient growth from captured resources.”
ELECTRONICS
LG focuses on top models
LG Electronics Inc is withdrawing its range of lower-priced smartphones in China as South Korea’s second-biggest phone maker tries to revive profit by focusing on premium models that run on fourth-generation (4G) networks. LG is in talks with three mobile operators in China to expand sales of premium devices, Park Jong-seok, the head of LG’s mobile-communications division. told reporters in Seoul. It is boosting the number of its products that run on 4G networks to better compete with Chinese producers. “We have the world’s best LTE technology and the China market is shifting toward LTE,” Park said. “We’ve been pulling out all cheap smartphones and decided to closely collaborate with mobile operators in the premium segment.”
FOREX
UK in talks on yuan-clearing
UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said the nation is in “active” discussions with China to establish a yuan-clearing bank in London and this should be done in “fairly short order.” “Everyone is committed to the idea in principle so it’s just the practicalities of it,” he said on Sunday in an interview in Sydney, where he is attending a meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors. “The renminbi [yuan] market, it’s really expanding rapidly in London and the clearing bank is the next logical step,” he said. The Bank of England said in November last year that it was ready to help set up such a bank, following a government announcement that China and the UK would introduce direct trading between the yuan and the British pound. Osborne last week said that the UK will host the first international yuan conference in this summer.
BANKING
German bank alters US plans
Deutsche Bank has laid out plans to reduce its US balance sheet as the US Federal Reserve adopts new rules to shield the country’s taxpayers from costly bailouts, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. The lender is expected to reduce its US$400 billion balance sheet in the US to about US$300 billion in part by reassigning operations such as its Mexican arm and its Frankfurt and Tokyo-based repo businesses that are currently part of its US business elsewhere, the newspaper reported. The daily said that the bank will also reduce a sizeable chunk of its repo business in the US after discovering that some of its clients were not making use of its other offerings. The bank may reassign US-based operations to Europe or Asia to reduce assets in its US division, the newspaper said.
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
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last