MEDIA
CBS boss resigns
Sumner Redstone has resigned as executive chairman of CBS Corp, the television and radio company said on Wednesday, amid heightened questions about the 92-year-old billionaire’s physical and mental health. Shares of CBS were up 4.6 percent in after-hours market trading, while those of Viacom Inc, where Redstone is also chairman, rose 7.9 percent. Viacom’s board was scheduled to meet yesterday, a company spokesman said, most likely to decide a successor to Redstone. CBS said Redstone would be replaced by Leslie Moonves, its president and chief executive since 2006.
ELECTRONICS
GoPro sinks into red
GoPro Inc swung to a loss in last year’s fourth quarter and forecast sales in the first three months of this year that were below analysts’ projections after its latest cube-shaped action camera failed to take off. The company also said chief financial officer Jack Lazar is stepping down. For the current quarter, GoPro is forecasting revenue of US$160 million to US$180 million, compared with analysts’ average estimate of US$287.3 million. The maker of wearable video cameras posted a loss of US$0.08 per share, excluding certain costs, in the fourth quarter, after a profit of US$0.99 per share a year earlier.
RETAIL
Lowe’s to buy Rona
Almost four years after being rebuffed, home improvement retailer Lowe’s Co on Wednesday said that it had reached a friendly deal to acquire Rona, a Canadian chain, for C$3.2 billion (US$2.3 billion) in cash. The acquisition is to make Lowe’s the dominant home improvement company in Canada. The agreement with Rona is also a marked contrast to the reception Lowe’s hostile US$1.8 billion offer received in 2012. At that time, both major political parties in Quebec, where Rona is based, stridently opposed the company’s coming under US control. Under the terms of the deal, Lowe’s, based in Mooresville, North Carolina, would pay C$24 per share in cash for each share of Rona’s common stock and C$20 per share for each preferred share of Rona.
FINANCE
Credit Suisse incurs losses
Credit Suisse Group AG slipped into a loss in the fourth quarter last year as it wrote off goodwill and set aside provisions for litigation, while trading losses also contributed to a slump at the investment-banking divisions. The bank had a shortfall of 5.8 billion Swiss francs (US$5.8 billion) after a profit of SF691 million in the year-earlier period, hurt by a goodwill impairment of SF3.8 billion, it said in a statement yesterday.
FOODMAKERS
Nestle to buy Israel’s Osem
Nestle SA agreed to buy out Osem Investments Ltd for about 3.3 billion shekels (US$840 million) in a deal that takes Israel’s largest publicly traded foodmaker private. Osem investors are to receive 82.50 shekels per share, the Swiss company said yesterday on its Web site. That is 26 percent higher than Wednesday’s closing price in Tel Aviv. Nestle, which first acquired a stake in 1998, is buying the 36.3 percent it does not already own. The offer values all of Osem at 9.13 billion shekels and would be presented to the Israeli company’s shareholders at an an extraordinary meeting on March 17. Osem, which was established in 1942, has been seeking to boost international operations as regulation and government efforts to lower food prices have curbed growth at home.
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