HOMEWARES
Kitchen retailer dies at 100
Chuck Williams, the founder of the Williams-Sonoma empire, who ushered in an era of aspirational culinary retailing, has died. He was 100. The home goods retailer said Williams died peacefully of natural causes on Saturday. A two-week trip to Paris in 1953 inspired him to open his first Williams-Sonoma store in Sonoma, California, three years later. He filled the shop off Sonoma’s town square with pots and pans, white porcelain ovenware, country earthenware and other French cooking tools. Williams’ first store was such an enormous success that in 1958, he relocated to a 278m2 store in San Francisco, next to the city’s bustling Union Square shopping district.
JAPAN
Tax exemption mulled
The goverment is considering a property tax exemption for small and medium-sized businesses that increase capital expenditure, Economy Minister Akira Amari said in an NHK broadcast yesterday. “I want to achieve something that has never been attempted before,” he said. The plan is to be incorporated into broader tax reforms in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2017, Amari said on NHK. GDP in the quarter ended Sept. 30 probably remained flat, compared with an earlier prediction of a 0.8 percent decline, Amari said. GDP is expected to increase in the following quarters, the minister said.
AUSTRALIA
Victoria expects 700 jobs
Victoria state expects 700 new jobs, including cybersecurity positions, to be created through the roll-out of the national broadband network. An operations center is being established in Melbourne to be “the first line of defense” against cyber threats to the network, the government announced yesterday in an e-mailed statement. Other jobs would be in technical support and administration, engineering and customer support, according to the statement.
AUSTRALIA
Luye to buy Healthe Care
Luye Group Ltd agreed to buy Healthe Care Australia Pty, the nation’s third-largest private hospital operator for A$938 million (US$688 million) in a deal that is expected to be completed in the first quarter of next year, as the Chinese company hunts for expansion opportunities in the Asia-Pacific. Luye is acquiring Healthe Care from private equity firm Archer Capital Pty and gaining a company that operates 17 hospitals with more than 1,800 beds across Australia, the companies said in a joint statement yesterday. Luye has a significant stake in Hong Kong-listed drugmaker Luye Pharma Group Ltd, according to the statement. The deal puts Luye in a position to take advantage of opportunities resulting from the recently signed free-trade agreement with China.
RUSSIA
Fund eyes Egypt, Cuba
Direct Investment Fund, which partners with global investors on equity deals at home, said it is interested in investing in countries where it sees strong potential for growth such as Egypt and Cuba. Such deals would mark a shift in strategy for the fund, which was set up in 2011 to secure co-investment in Russian transactions to stimulate inflows into the country. The fund has started to invest US$10 billion pledged by Saudi Arabia this year, while Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund last month said it would double the amount it’s pledged to the fund to US$1 billion. The fund has about 25 investments and recently sold stakes in companies including telecommunications provider Rostelecom PJSC.
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