CHINA
Japanese firm fined
China’s antitrust regulator fined bearing maker NSK Ltd ¥2.9 billion (US$28 million) for violating rules, the first Japanese company to be punished amid an industry-wide probe into pricing practices. NSK said it is cooperating fully with the investigation by China’s National Development and Reform Commission into its transactions and would make a further disclosure if the fine has any impact on its full-year forecasts, the Tokyo-based company said yesterday in a statement to the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The commission said this month that it had completed an investigation into 12 Japanese companies and will punish violators.
INSURANCE
Fosun eyes Swiss Re unit
Hong Kong-listed Fosun International Ltd (復星國際) is in talks to buy a Swiss Re AG US life insurance arm in a possible US$400 million to US$500 million deal, Bloomberg reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. However, a deal to buy the company, Aurora National Life Assurance Co, had not yet been reached and could still fall through, the news agency said, citing sources. Fosun International is the parent company of Fosun Group, backed by Chinese billionaire Guo Guangchang (郭廣昌).
SHIPPING
Maersk upgrades outlook
A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S raised its full-year profit forecast after the company’s container-shipping line, the world’s largest, said earnings are rising because of higher freight volumes and lower costs. Earnings excluding discontinued operations, impairment losses and divestment gains are expected to total US$4.5 billion, compared with a previous forecast of US$4 billion, Copenhagen-based Maersk said yesterday in a statement. Maersk Line said this year’s profits would be significantly above last year’s result of US$1.5 billion.
AVIATION
Skymark soars on rumor
Skymark Airlines shares soared yesterday after a report said Malaysia’s AirAsia was eyeing the struggling Japanese carrier, but both firms dismissed the story, with AirAsia’s chief executive Tony Fernandes saying he had “never seen such rubbish.” The Tokyo-listed stock jumped 27.77 percent to finish at ¥230, its maximum allowable single-day gain, on the report in Japan’s leading Nikkei business daily. The report said AirAsia was in talks with its lenders over a possible bid for Skymark.
ECONOMY
UK pay gap widens: report
The heads of Britain’s largest companies earned 143 times as much as their average employee last year, a study said on Monday, exposing the growing pay gap between bosses and workers. The wage divide has nearly tripled since 1998, when the average chief executive of firms in the FTSE 100 earned 47 times as much as staff, the report found. The largest pay gap was at mining group Randgold Resources, where boss Mark Bristow was paid £4.4 million (US$7.36 million) last year — 1,500 as much as his average employee.
INTERNET
Google buys Jetpac startup
Google Inc confirmed on Monday it has bought the startup behind Jetpac, an app that creates travel guides by analyzing pictures from social networks such as Instagram. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Jetpac said that its application would be removed from Apple’s online App Store in the days ahead. The company was founded about three years ago and is based in San Francisco.
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
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”