COMMUNICATIONS
Samsung profits slip
Samsung Electronics Co expects its second-quarter earnings to be “not that good,” chief financial officer Lee Sang-hoon said. The company is expected to post operating profit of 8.4 trillion won (US$8.2 billion) in the three months ending June, according to the average of 35 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Samsung’s earnings have slipped from a record 10.2 trillion won in the third quarter of last year as sales of its Galaxy devices are squeezed by Apple Inc iPhones in the high-end market and inexpensive Chinese producers in the budget segment.
FRANCE
Growth is disappointing
France’s state statistics agency dealt a blow to French President Francois Hollande’s government on Tuesday as it said the economy would grow less then predicted this year and unemployment would rise. The INSEE statistics agency said the French economy would grow by only 0.7 percent this year, lower than a government prediction of 1 percent. It said unemployment would rise in the second quarter by 0.1 point to 9.8 percent and stay at that level until the end of this year. France’s economy grew by only 0.4 percent last year.
GERMANY
Consumers more confident
Consumer confidence in Germany is rising again, buoyed by the European Central Bank’s recent decision to cut interest rates, a new poll found yesterday. Looking ahead to next month, market research company GfK’s headline household confidence index was forecast to rise to 8.9 points next month from 8.6 points this month. For the past four months, the index has stagnated.
UTILITIES
Paris selling GDF Suez stake
France’s cash-strapped government on Tuesday put its 3.1 percent stake in energy giant GDF Suez up for sale, in a bid to raise funds to buy a controlling stake in Alstom. At the close, GDF Suez shares stood at 20.8 euros, valuing the sale at 1.56 billion euros (US$2.1 billion). The proceeds from the sale of 75 million shares to selected investors “can be used to finance the state’s purchase of a stake in Alstom,” France’s economy and finance ministers said in a statement.
AUTOMAKERS
Toyota launches fuel cells
Japanese auto giant Toyota will start selling its first fuel cell sedan this financial year, with a price tag of around ¥7 million (US$70,000), the company announced yesterday. The vehicles will be rolled out by March and beyond the home market during the summer of next year, it said, in a move that will see the environmentally friendly cars available in the US and Europe. This is the first time Toyota has given a specific timeframe for its fuel cell cars, which it had previously said would go on the market next year.
FINANCE
Briton sentenced for fraud
A former senior Credit Suisse investment banker was sentenced on Tuesday in New York for hiding US$100 million in losses on sub-prime mortgage bonds in the 2007 US housing market collapse. David Higgs had already pleaded guilty in 2012 to charges of falsifying the Swiss bank’s records, and agreed to cooperate in the probe of several Credit Suisse officials, and so was sentenced to time served, the US Justice Department said. The British citizen was also ordered to pay nearly US$1 million in fines and forfeiture of gains.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure