AUTOMAKERS
Ford boss planning to retire
Alan Mulally will likely retire and be replaced as chief executive of Ford Motor by chief operating officer Mark Fields by the end of next year, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. Fields could stake over the chief executive position as soon as Thursday next week, according to some media reports. Mulally, a former top executive at Boeing, won strong reviews for his leadership of Ford, helping it avoid a government bailout during the financial crisis. The No. 2 US automaker notched impressive sales growth under Mulally. Earnings rose 26.3 percent last year to US$7.2 billion.
TECHNOLOGY
Philips posts Q1 loss
Royal Philips NV says its first-quarter profits declined as growth slowed in several divisions and consumers spent less on light bulbs. The world’s largest lighting maker yesterday said first-quarter net profit was 138 million euros (US$190 million), down from 161 million euros in the same period a year earlier. Revenues were down 4.8 percent to 5.02 billion euros. It said profit margins worsened in part due to restructuring costs. Chief executive officer Frans van Houten cited “market headwinds in among others, Russia and China,” and said the strong euro also hurt reported figures.
STOCKS
Card firm to list in London
British greeting cards retailer Card Factory plans to list its shares on London’s stock market next month, joining a spate of store groups seeking flotations as the outlook for consumer spending improves. The over 700-store firm, majority owned by private equity group Charterhouse Capital Partners, yesterday said it expected to raise £90 million (US$151 million) from an offer of new and existing shares to institutional investors. The firm sold more than 285 million single cards in the year to Jan. 31 and revenue grew 9 percent to £326.9 million, while underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation rose 9.2 percent to £80.4 million at a margin of 24.6 percent.
LAW
Samsung calls in expert
Samsung Electronics Co says Apple Inc’s patent-infringement claims of US$2.19 billion are 57 times higher than what the Galaxy maker should pay if a jury finds it infringed smartphone technology. Samsung called on a Yale University business school professor on Monday to make its case to a federal jury in San Jose, California, that if it has to pay anything, the amount should be as little as US$0.35 a phone — a stark comparison to Apple’s demand for more than US$40 a phone. The South Korean company also began its offensive attack on Monday, accusing Apple of infringing two of its patents.
MINING
Goldcorp drops hostile bid
Canadian giant Goldcorp on Monday said it would drop its hostile takeover bid for rival Osisko Mining, leaving Yamana Gold and Agnico Eagle Mines Limited to go it alone. Goldcorp had offered C$7.65 per share, but last week Yamana and Agnico Eagle upped the ante in the bidding war with a cash-and-stock offer worth C$8.15 per share, in a deal valued at C$3.9 billion (US$3.54 billion). Osisko’s main asset is a massive gold mine in Canada’s Quebec Province. Over its 16-year lifespan, the Malartic mine is expected to turn out 500,000 to 600,000 ounces of gold per year, according to the company.
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