RETAIL
Tesco reports net profit
British supermarket giant Tesco PLC yesterday said that it has rebounded into slender annual net profits, after a vast property writedown and challenging home trade sparked a record loss the previous year. Earnings after tax stood at £138 million (US$197 million) in the 52 weeks to the end of February, Tesco said in a statement. That contrasted with a loss of £5.7 billion in the group’s previous financial year. Pre-tax profits stood at £162 million after a loss of £6.3 billion a year earlier. Last year’s record loss was prompted by £7 billion of one-off charges, mostly linked to a writedown on the value of Tesco’s property.
ECONOMY
France forecasts growth
France yesterday said it is on track for modest growth this year, at the same rate as earlier projections, and also left its public deficit forecast untouched. GDP growth in the eurozone’s second-biggest economy is expected to be 1.5 percent this year and the same next year, the French Ministry of Finance said. That is slightly more optimistic than forecasts by both the European Commission and the IMF. France’s public deficit is still expected to be 3.3 percent of GDP this year, dropping to 2.7 percent next year.
AUTOMAKERS
S Africa eyes assembly plant
South Africa is in talks with five vehicle manufacturers about a proposed new assembly plant in the port city of East London, a potential boost for an industry that is using government incentives to attract investment from companies, including Ford Motor Co and BMW AG. East London IDZ SOC Ltd, which operates an industrial park, is seeking to sign three producers within a year to assemble vehicles in a shared facility, Tembela Zweni, the state company’s executive manager for zone development, said in an interview. South Africa last year announced it would extend its automotive-incentive program, which encourages vehicle production in the nation through tax breaks.
INVESTMENT
IPO changes proposed in UK
The regulator that helps oversee UK banks and brokerages proposed changing the process for initial public offerings (IPO) to reduce favoritism and ensure that investors are better informed. Analysts at firms not underwriting an IPO should have more access to the company’s management, and the timing of publication of an approved prospectus should be changed to provide investors with more information, the UK watchdog said yesterday. Investment banks handling the deals often allocate shares to favored customers from their other businesses, which might not be in the issuer’s best interests and might shut out other investors, the Financial Conduct Authority said.
OIL
Kuwait to guard facilities
Kuwait is deploying national guard units to run and protect some oil facilities after workers announced a major strike for this weekend, a newspaper reported yesterday. Citing unnamed sources, daily Al-Rai said that units from the national guard would start deploying from yesterday at some facilities in the Gulf state’s oil-rich southern region. The units would provide protection and run operations at the facilities, the independent daily said. Kuwait’s oil workers’ union decided to begin an open-ended strike from Sunday, following a dispute with the oil ministry over proposed pay cuts.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
Clambering hand-over-hand, sweat dripping into his eyes, a durian laborer expertly slices a cumbersome fruit from a tree before tossing it down to land with a soft thump in his colleague’s waiting arms about 15m below. Among Thailand’s most famous and lucrative exports, the pungent “king of fruits” is as distinctive in its smell as its spiky green-brown carapace, and has been farmed in the kingdom for hundreds of years. However, a vicious heat wave engulfing Southeast Asia has resulted in smaller yields and spiraling costs, with growers and sellers increasingly panicked as global warming damages the industry. “This year is a crisis,”
HIGH-TECH: As leading-edge process technologies become more complicated, only a handful of players are able to provide design services, the company’s CEO said Artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) yesterday said that revenue would grow significantly again in 2026 after adding a major AI chip customer, reversing moderation amid a product transition next year. The Taipei-based application-specific IC (ASIC) designer reiterated its strong revenue growth forecast for this year and 2026 after its stock plummeted about 23 percent to NT$3,145 from a peak of NT$4,085 on March 6 amid growing competition. Alchip said it has built strong partnerships with cloud service providers (CSP), denying that it had lost orders to smaller competitors such as Faraday Technology Corp (智原). Faraday said it has secured