CONSTRUCTION
AECOM buying URS
US infrastructure and services group AECOM is buying engineering firm URS Corp for about US$6 billion including debt, creating an industry leader, the companies said in a joint statement on Sunday.Los Angeles-based AECOM offered URS US$56.31 per share, or about US$4 billion for the San Francisco company, in addition to US$2 billion in its debts, the companies said. The merged company will have a presence in 150 countries and about 95,000 employees, the statement said. It would have calendar-year pro forma sales for last year topping US$19 billion.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Shire backs AbbVie bid
London-listed pharmaceutical company Shire PLC said yesterday it was ready to recommend a new £31 billion (US$53 billion) takeover offer from AbbVie, entering talks after receiving a fifth bid from the US firm. Chicago-based AbbVie, which wants to buy Shire in order to cut its tax bill and diversify its products, made the offer of £53.20 per share on Sunday following a request from the Dublin-based group for an improvement on the previous offer of £51.15 per share.
AUTOMAKERS
Strike shutters Ford plant
Ford Motor Co said yesterday it has temporarily suspended production at one of its South African plants due to a strike at some of its suppliers. Members of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa downed tools in the engineering and steel sector on July 1, demanding 12 to 15 percent annual wage increases from employers. Only Ford’s Pretoria plant was affected and its other plant in Port Elizabeth was operating normally, a Ford spokeswoman said.
RETAIL
David Jones backs takeover
Shareholders in Australia’s oldest department store, David Jones, yesterday approved an A$2.1 billion (US$1.98 billion) takeover of the upmarket chain by South African retail giant Woolworths Holdings. The David Jones board had unanimously backed the Woolworths proposal, and the A$4 a share offer was overwhelmingly supported by shareholders, winning close to 90 percent approval. Woolworths hopes its acquisition will allow it to become one of the 10 largest department store operators in the world.
CONFECTIONERY
Lindt to buy Russel Stover
Swiss chocolate maker Lindt & Spruengli says it is buying US manufacturer Russell Stover Candies Inc, for an undisclosed sum. Lindt CEO Ernst Tanner said yesterday that the purchase provides “a unique opportunity for us to expand our North American chocolate business.” The company says the deal will make it the No. 3 chocolate manufacturer in North America. Russell Stover, which also owns the Whitman’s brand, is based in Kansas City, Missouri, and has four factories — in Kansas, Texas and Colorado. It has about 2,700 employees and annual sales of around US$500 million.
AUTOMAKERS
China backs electric cars
At least 30 percent of newly purchased government cars are set to be electric or other types of “new energy vehicles,” Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday, as the country attempts to tackle air pollution and encourage the electric car market. A joint plan from five government ministries and departments calls for about a third of cars bought for state use from this year to 2016 to rely on clean energy, and the percentage will be raised year by year after that, the report said.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by