MINING
Glencore raises US$2.5bn
Swiss mining giant Glencore PLC, hit by collapsing commodities prices, yesterday raised US$2.5 billion via a share sale as part of its vast debt-slashing plan. London-listed Glencore said in a statement that it had sold about £1.6 billion (US$2.46 billion) in new shares to pay down debt. The company, which has lost 57 percent of its market value this year, sold the new stock at £1.25 per share, a 2.4 percent discount to its closing price on Tuesday. Glencore offloaded 1.3 billion shares worth up to 9.99 percent of the group.
INTEREST RATES
Thai bank maintains rates
Thailand’s central bank yesterday kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged for a third straight meeting, putting the onus on government spending to support the economic recovery. The Bank of Thailand held its one-day bond repurchase rate at 1.5 percent in a unanimous decision, it said. GDP is forecast to expand less than 3 percent this year, Bank of Thailand Assistant Governor Mathee Supapongse said at a media briefing yesterday.While negative factors still outweigh the positive for Thailand’s economy, the deflation risk is limited because core inflation is still positive, he said, predicting that headline inflation would turn positive in the first quarter.
FASHION
Zara owner profit rises 26%
The Spanish owner of the Zara clothing store chain yesterday said that profit for the first half of the year rose 26 percent, boosted by growth in all markets around the world where the company sells clothes. Inditex Group said in a statement that profit for the January-June period was 1.2 billion euros (US$1.4 billion). Revenue for the period was 9.4 billion euros, up 17 percent compared with the same period last year. The company opened new stores in 35 markets during the first six months of the year, lifting its total store count to 6,777 in 85 markets. More than 10,000 jobs were added and about a quarter of them were in Spain, it said.
HOTELS
Marriott invests in S Africa
Marriott International Inc plans to develop a Johannesburg hotel and executive apartments at a cost of about 1 billion rand (US$74 million), the US hotelier’s first own-branded properties in South Africa. The accommodation is to open in February 2018, Bethesda, Maryland-based Marriott said in an e-mailed statement on Tuesday. Amdec Property Group, Marriott’s local partner, said in a separate e-mailed statement that Marriott’s 150-room hotel and 200-unit apartment complex would cost a combined 1 billion rand. Marriott agreed to buy Cape Town-based Protea Hospitality Holdings last year for about US$200 million. The company expects the two brands to expand into 18 African countries from 10 over the next five years, Marriott said.
AUTOMOBILES
Tentative deal for FCA, UAW
A tentative labor contract covering 40,000 US workers at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCA) could eventually end a controversial two-tier pay system and could offer a new approach to curbing medical costs, chief executive officer Sergio Marchionne said on Tuesday. The two-tier pay system “will go away over time,” Marchionne said. Under the old contract recently hired United Auto Workers Union (UAW) members are paid a top wage of US$19.28 an hour, while veterans earn US$28 an hour. Analysts expect raises for UAW members at both levels, but the new pay rates were not disclosed.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in