FINANCIAL SERVICES
Credit Suisse to offer shares
Credit Suisse Group AG plans to sell 58 million shares to buyers who are not existing shareholders for 22.75 Swiss francs a share, the company said in a statement yesterday. The bank expects the sale to generate gross proceeds of SF1.32 billion (US$1.35 billion). The shares will be offered to investors who do not have pre-emptive rights, Credit Suisse said. The Swiss lender also said it has expanded the banking syndicate that is underwriting a SF4.7 billion rights offering.
ADVERTISING
WPP’s Q3 revenue up 5.9%
WPP PLC, the world’s largest ad agency, said third-quarter revenue increased 5.9 percent as business from clients in North America and fast-growing markets in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East drove growth. Sales rose to £2.93 billion (US$4.5 billion) from £2.76 billion a year earlier, London-based WPP said in a statement yesterday. Chief executive officer Martin Sorrell, the best-paid head of a FTSE-100 company, is working to overcome brands’ concerns about economic uncertainty in emerging markets, and what Sorrell said in August was a “tsunami” of clients reviewing their accounts. French rival Publicis Groupe SA said last week that it had no growth last month as clients canceled and postponed campaigns leading to a smaller organic revenue increase for the quarter. WPP shares rose 4.3 percent to £14.80 in London trading on Friday. The stock has gained 10 percent so far this year.
AGRIBUSINESS
S. Kidman & Co for sale
An Australian company that owns cattle ranches and other land greater in area than South Korea is up for sale. Don Manifold, a director of Ernst and Young, who is managing the sale, said on Monday that he expects between six and 12 bidders will lodge their offers for Australia’s largest private landowner by today’s deadline. The company, S. Kidman & Co Ltd, owns 10 cattle ranches, a bull breeding stud and a feed lot covering 101,411km2 in four states. That is an area bigger than South Korea and almost as big as the US state of Virginia. Media speculation about the price has ranged from A$300 million to A$650 million (US$217.6 million to US$471.5 million).
AVIATION
Libyan Wings seeks profit
Libyan Wings, the private start-up airline which began operations last month, is aiming to become profitable within a year and wants to add routes to the Levant and north Africa, its chief executive officer said. The airline, which already flies from Tripoli’s Mitiga International Airport to Tunis, is looking at destinations including Amman, Beirut, Algeria and other points in north Africa, chief executive officer Edgardo Badiali said in Dubai on Sunday. Flights to Khartoum are scheduled to begin in two weeks. Its flights to Istanbul, scrapped after the Turkish government imposed visa restrictions, are set to resume on Nov. 4. “The demand is there, we know there is a market,” said Badiali. “Where there is high risk, there’s an opportunity.” Libyan Wings was supposed to begin operations last year, but was delayed due to fighting between militia groups over control of Tripoli International Airport. The Tunis route operates at 70 percent capacity with a single Airbus A319, and the company is expecting the delivery of a second A319 in 10 days, Badiali said. The airline is still planning to take delivery of the A350 long-haul planes and A320neo narrow-bodies it ordered at the Dubai Airshow in 2013, Badiali said.
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
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six