BANKING
UBS may close Aussie unit
UBS Group AG is shutting its Australian wealth management unit, with senior employees offering to serve clients through a new company, people with knowledge of the matter said. UBS Wealth Management Australia head Mike Chisholm and senior client advisers are forming Crestone Wealth Management, the people said. The advisers moving to Crestone account for about 80 percent of the unit’s revenue, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the matter is private. The Swiss bank’s exit is the result of a more than month-long review. UBS wealth management president Juerg Zeltner said last month that an evaluation was under way. UBS, which reported a 54 percent jump in pretax profit at its wealth-management unit in the first quarter, might announce the exit as soon as this week, one of the people said. A spokesman for UBS in Zurich declined to comment.
BEVERAGES
Suntory to buy drinks unit
Suntory Beverage & Food Ltd is to buy Japan Tobacco Inc’s vending machine businesses for about ¥150 billion (US$1.2 billion), the cigarette maker said yesterday. The Suntory Beverage acquisition also includes the transfer of two drinks brands, Roots and Momono Tennensui, Japan Tobacco said in a statement to the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The Nikkei Shimbun reported the deal earlier, without saying where it got the information. Parent Suntory Holdings Ltd president Takeshi Niinami in February said that Suntory Beverage was looking into whether to make the acquisition. Japan Tobacco was exploring the sale after saying in February it would exit its drinks business.
BANKING
Vatican bank profit jumps
The Vatican bank posted a sharp rise in net profit last year after absorbing the costs of a cleanup that hit earnings the year before as part of a wide-ranging drive to tighten financial governance and eliminate abuse, a statement said yesterday. The bank, formally known as the Institute for Religious Works, has tightened regulatory standards and closed thousands of accounts, which were either inactive or deemed not to meet new standards required of clients. Reforming the bank has been one of the most sensitive issues facing Pope Francis as he seeks to overhaul the complex Vatican administration after years of scandal, ranging from allegations of financial malpractice to cover-ups of child sexual abuse by priests. After 2013 results that were hit by heavy write-downs on investments and a jump in operating costs to meet new standards against money laundering, net profit last year rebounded to 69.3 million euros (US$76.1 million) from 2.9 million euros the year before.
UNITED KINGDOM
Minister pay still frozen
British government ministers will have their pay frozen for another five years as the government tries to reduce the budget deficit, Prime Minister David Cameron said on Sunday. Ministers receive £134,565 (US$208,384) per year, including their parliamentary salary. Their pay has been frozen since 2010, when it was cut by 5 percent as part of the then-coalition government’s austerity efforts. Cameron’s Conservatives have pledged to find £25 billion of spending cuts over the next two years as they seek to turn a 5 percent budget deficit into a surplus by 2018-2019. An independent body that oversees lawmakers’ pay and expenses had recommended all 650 members of parliament, including ministers, get a 10 percent pay raise this year, which would take their parliamentary salary to £74,000.
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],”