CANADA
Existing home sales rise
Existing home sales reached the second-highest in almost six years last month on gains in Toronto and Vancouver. The number of transactions rose by 1.8 percent, the fastest since May, to 42,964, the Real Estate Association said from Ottawa on Monday. The average price rose 2.9 percent to C$452,552 (US$338,762) on the month for a 12-month gain of 8.3 percent. Vancouver sales rose by 7.7 percent last month to 3,785, for a gain of 19.3 percent from a year earlier. In Toronto, sales gained 3 percent to 8,588. Prices in those two cities averaged C$940,745 and C$625,010, respectively.
JAPAN
Softbank to sell bonds
Softbank Group Corp plans to sell a ¥370 billion bond (US$3 billion) later this month in what would be the biggest issuance by any borrower in Japan’s corporate bond market since March as it struggles to make US unit Sprint Corp profitable. Softbank is marketing seven-year notes with a coupon of 1.75 percent to 2.35 percent to individual investors, according to a regulatory filing yesterday. The Japanese wireless carrier plans to price the securities on Nov. 26. The company said it plans to use the yen bond’s proceeds to refinance debt and for investments, without elaborating.
AVIATION
Qantas out of junk status
Australian carrier Qantas Airways Ltd yesterday got out of its “junk” status when credit-rating agency Standard & Poor’s lifted its rating from “BB+” to the prized investment grade “BBB-” as the airline bounces back from a tough few years. The upgrade of Qantas’ long-term corporate credit and issue rating comes after the airline completed a profit turnaround this year, supported by lower fuel prices, and adopted a more conservative financial framework. Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said the assessment was “a welcome endorsement of the hard work we’ve been doing. Our focus has been getting the business to an optimal capital position and to keep it there throughout the cycle.”
INVESTMENT
Icahn sheds eBay stakes
Activist investor Carl Icahn shed his stake in online marketplace eBay Inc, opting to put his money instead into recently spun-off PayPal, according to a regulatory filing made public on Monday. As of the end of September, Icahn held no stock in eBay but retained his entire position in PayPal, a quarterly filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission showed. Icahn successfully lobbied a reluctant eBay to spin the online payment service PayPal off into a separate company, which began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in July.
AVIATION
EasyJet posts record profit
EasyJet PLC posted a record full-year profit after a boost in summer ticket sales more than made up for disruptions earlier this year that included labor unrest, airport fires and terrorism incidents in two of its markets. Pretax profit in the 12 months ended Sept. 30 rose 18 percent to £686 million (US$1.04 billion) from £581 million a year earlier, Luton-based EasyJet, Europe’s second-biggest low-cost airline, said yesterday. Earnings were at about the midpoint of a forecast range outlined in early September and missed the £689 million average of 21 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
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
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
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