PHARMACEUTICALS
Biopharm to seek restitution
Drugmaker TTY Biopharm Co (台灣東洋藥品) yesterday said the company would seek NT$3 billion (US$95.95 million) or more in compensation from former chairman Lin Rong-jin (林榮錦) after the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office charged Lin with breaching the Securities and Exchange Act (證交法). Lin is suspected of embezzling NT$400 million from 2009 to last year through dubious patent transactions with Switzerland’s Inopha AG and other companies, creating losses for TTY Biopharm, the Chinese-language Apple Daily reported.
AIRLINES
EVA Air forecasts upturn
EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) chairman Chang Kuo-wei (張國煒) yesterday said commercial aviation is a high-risk industry, but forecasts of a decline in oil prices would have a positive effect on the company’s business this year. The company posted a net loss of NT$1.31 billion, or NT$0.4 per share, last year after booking an US$80 million fine to settle a US probe into its role in a global price-fixing conspiracy. Excluding the charges, EVA Air would have earned NT$1.6 billion, Chang said at the company’s annual general meeting in Taipei. The company recognized another US$19 million charge this year, he said.
APPAREL
Daiwa raises Makalot target
Daiwa Capital Markets Inc yesterday raised its share price target on apparel maker Makalot Industrial Co (聚陽) from NT$268 to NT$294, citing the company’s improved product mix, increased earnings contribution of functional sportswear and potential orders from Japan’s Fast Retailing Co amid a promising industry outlook. The brokerage in a client note forecast Makalot would see net profit grow 26.1 year-on-year in the second half and revenue increases of 14.3 percent over the same period. Makalot chairman Frank Chou (周理平) told shareholders that the company expects sales to expand by a double-digit percentage this year from last year, with solid earnings growth from NT$1.71 billion last year, or NT$9.62 per share.
ENERGY
TSMC to buy ‘green’ power
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it planned to buy 100 million kilowatt hours of “green” power to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The purchase is to constitute about 13 percent of state-run Taiwan Power Co’s (Taipower, 台電) total green power available for purchase this year. Through the purchase, TSMC expects to reduce its carbon footprint by 52 million kilograms, equivalent to the carbon absorbed by 5.2 million trees in one year, the company said in a statement. Taipower aims to sell as many as 784 million kilowatt hours of green energy this year, compared with 4.345 million kilowatt hours last year.
REAL ESTATE
Huaku expects price decline
Huaku Development Co (華固建設) general manager Carson Hung (洪嘉昇) yesterday said housing prices are expected to decline by between 6 and 10 percent this year from last year, following a spate of government measures to rein in housing costs. At the company’s annual general meeting, Hung said mid-to-low-priced houses, small to medium-sized homes and those situated along MRT lines would continue to be mainstream products this year. While transaction volume might increase later in the year after the legislature approves an integrated house and land sales tax bill, deals might take longer to negotiate than before as a market correction continues, he said.
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
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],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained