INVESTMENT
Square IPO disappoints
Square Inc raised about a third less than it sought in its initial public offering as investors balked at a higher valuation for the mobile-payments service. The company and an existing shareholder raised US$243 million, selling 27 million shares for US$9 each, according to a statement issued yesterday, after offering them for US$11 to US$13 apiece. That not only falls short of the proposed range, but also of the US$15.46 a share Square sold stock for in its last private funding round. The IPO price puts the company’s market valuation at about US$2.9 billion, excluding options. The company fetched a US$6 billion valuation in its latest financing.
UNITED KINGDOM
Car manufacturing falters
The number of cars built in the UK fell slightly last month as an increase in exports failed to outweigh a drop in demand at home, industry data showed yesterday. Overall output fell 0.7 percent from a year earlier to 148,976 cars, with the number of models built for the domestic market dropping 8.3 percent, according to data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). New car registrations fell by 1.1 percent last month, the first year-on-year decline after 43 months of growth. However, exports rose by 1.5 percent last month, the SMMT said.
FAST FOOD
Domino’s CFO resigns
Britain’s biggest pizza delivery firm, Domino’s Pizza Group PLC, said chief financial officer Paul Doughty has resigned and chief executive David Wild would assume the finance responsibility while the company looks for a replacement. The company said Doughty is to step down from the board at the end of the calendar year.
STEELMAKERS
Thyssenkrupp to lift dividend
Thyssenkrupp AG proposed to increase its full-year dividend by 36 percent as the German steelmaker said profit rose. The management and supervisory boards recommended paying a dividend of 0.15 euros (US$0.16) a share from 11 cents a year earlier, the company said yesterday. Adjusted earnings before interest and taxes rose 26 percent to 1.68 billion euros in the 12 months through September, meeting the company’s forecast of 1.6 billion euros to 1.7 billion euros. The company said the profit figure this fiscal year would be 1.6 billion euros to 1.9 billion euros.
RETAIL
US giants suffer online
Target Corp and Wal-Mart Stores Inc both saw a big slowdown in online sales growth last quarter, fueling concern that the brick-and-mortar chains are not transitioning fast enough to e-commerce. Target’s Internet sales grew 20 percent in the third quarter, missing the 30 percent gain it expected, the retailer said on Wednesday. The previous day, Wal-Mart posted quarterly e-commerce growth of 10 percent, compared with 16 percent in the second quarter and 21 percent a year earlier. Total e-commerce sales increased 15 percent in the US last quarter, according to the US Census Bureau.
UKRAINE
‘Default’ rating lifted
Ratings agency Fitch removed its “partial default” rating on Wednesday after the country completed its bond restructuring deal and resumed servicing its debts. Fitch upgraded its rating to a still basement-level “CCC,” noting that the restructuring had allowed Kiev to issue new bonds against those defaulted last month.
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],”