INTERNET
Mega fails in listing bid
Internet file-storage company Mega Ltd, launched in 2013 by indicted entrepreneur Kim Dotcom, has failed in a bid to list on New Zealand’s stock market. Mega announced plans last year to list through a maneuver known as a reverse takeover. However, TRS Investments, the intended vehicle for the listing, filed a notice with the market yesterday saying that Mega had failed to get approval from its shareholders for the takeover.
NIGERIA
Oil collapse hits salaries
Minister of Finance Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said Africa’s richest economy is borrowing money to pay salaries as it struggles through a “difficult cash crunch” brought on by halved oil prices. Ngozi tried to be upbeat in a speech after the legislature on Tuesday approved a budget for this year revised three times because of slashed oil prices. Oil provides 80 percent of revenues for the government of Africa’s biggest petroleum producer. Ngozi said that “revenue challenges” have prohibited the release of any funds for capital expenditure, though food prices and single-digit inflation remain quite stable.
CREDIT
S&P raises Pakistan rating
Standard & Poor’s (S&P) on Tuesday revised Pakistan’s credit rating outlook from stable to positive and forecast higher GDP growth for this year to 2017, amid a stint of economic reforms. In a statement, the agency said that the country had made significant progress in stabilizing its economic, fiscal and external performance, alongside eased financing conditions. Standard & Poor’s also revised its earlier average growth estimates for this year to 2017 from 3.8 percent to 4.6 percent.
AUTOMAKERS
BMW confident about year
German automaker BMW AG yesterday said it was confident about the outlook for this year after getting off to a good start in the first three months. Group revenues grew significantly by 14.7 percent to 20.917 billion euros (US$23.5 billion) from January to March. Underlying or operating profit rose 20.6 percent to 2.521 billion euros and net profit came in at 1.516 billion euros, up 4 percent on the year. Unit sales climbed 8.1 percent to 526,669 units, “thus setting a new record for the period,” the company said in a statement.
FOOTWEAR
Puma cuts profit forecasts
Puma SE cut its full-year forecasts, expecting earnings to decline as much as 37 percent as the German sports-gear maker contends with an appreciating US dollar against most major currencies. Earnings before interest and tax would be between 80 million euros and 100 million euros, down from 128 million euros a year earlier, also due to higher marketing expenses and expansion costs, the shoemaker said yesterday. Puma stock fell as much as 7.2 percent, the steepest intraday decline since July 2012.
RETAIL
Sainsbury announces loss
Sainsbury yesterday said it posted an annual loss as Britain’s biggest supermarkets face fierce competition from German-owned discounters Aldi and Lidl. Sainsbury posted a loss after tax of £166 million (US$253 million) for the year to March 14 compared with net profit of £716 million in the last fiscal year. Underlying pretax profit slid 14.7 percent to £681 million, the group’s first such fall in a decade.
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