TECHNOLOGY
Xerox announces split
Xerox Corp is separating into two independent publicly traded companies amid pressure from activist investor Carl Icahn. The company on Friday said that the document technology company would handle document management and document outsourcing. The other is a business process outsourcer that is to help companies with automating and simplifying business processes. The names of the two companies have yet to be determined.
ELECTRICITY
Iraq, US firm ink deal
Iraq has signed a US$328 million deal with US company General Electric Co that is to boost power output during peak summer months, officials said on Friday. However, the deal is to make only a small dent in the nation’s major summer production shortfall. Iraqi Ministry of Electricity spokesman Musaab al-Mudarris said the deal, which involves maintenance and improvements on more than 10 power stations in multiple provinces, would add between 700 megawatts and 1,000 megawatts to production capacity.
ENERGY
Chevron reports losses
Chevron Corp on Friday reported a loss of US$588 million for the fourth quarter of last year, as it vowed further spending cuts in response to plunging oil prices. The results reflected a terrible quarter for Chevron’s exploration and production business, which booked a loss of US$1.95 billion after garnering US$35 a barrel for oil sold in the US, compared with US$66 a barrel a year ago.
FINANCE
Puerto Rico eyes debt cuts
Puerto Rico on Friday presented a plan to creditors that asks them to take a deep discount on their debt — an aggregate of about 45 percent, two sources familiar with the situation said. The plan would see four tranches of bonds exchanged into two new bonds with different structures. Haircuts on the debt would differ according to which bonds are being exchanged and would reflect the current trading of those bonds, the sources said, with general obligation bonds getting the best treatment.
ECONOMY
EU inflation speeds up
Eurozone inflation accelerated this month, providing a breather for European Central Bank (ECB) officials that might prove temporary as commodity prices continue their descent and emerging markets slow. Consumer prices rose an annual 0.4 percent, after 0.2 percent last month, the EU’s statistical office said on Friday. However, ECB officials’ medium-term inflation goal of a little less than 2 percent remains far off, as professional forecasters surveyed by the ECB have cut their inflation outlook for this year and next year to 0.7 percent and 1.4 percent respectively.
AUTOMAKERS
Defender production ceases
The last-ever Land Rover Defender, a vehicle beloved by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and featured in Hollywood blockbusters, rolled off the production line on Friday after 68 years of being made in Britain. Indian-owned carmaker Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) had already announced in late 2013 that the group would stop making the legendary Defender at its car plant in Solihull, England.
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
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
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last