AIRLINES
Air France-KLM picks CEO
Air France-KLM’s board of directors on Sunday appointed Jean-Marc Janaillac, the current head of French transport group Transdev, as the group’s new chief executive following the surprise resignation of Alexandre de Juniac. “The board has decided that Mr Janaillac will be co-opted as a group director when Mr de Juniac leaves office on July 31 at the latest. He will then be appointed chairman and chief executive officer of Air France-KLM,” the board said in a statement. The appointment of 63-year-old Janaillac was widely anticipated, but French media had expected the announcement to come today at the earliest.
BANKING
Qatar bank confirms leak
Qatar’s largest bank on Sunday confirmed that some personal customer data that was leaked online might be authentic, adding that it had hired an outside expert to review potential vulnerabilities to its computer systems. Files dumped online last week appeared to contain sensitive information involving thousands of Qatar National Bank customers, including bank logins, passwords, security questions and answers, credit card numbers, national identification numbers, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses. The bank previously said only that it was investigating an alleged breach.
AIRLINES
Virgin Australia cuts seats
Virgin Australia Holdings Ltd joined rival Qantas Airways Ltd in slashing seating capacity, warning firms like mining companies are delaying business travel during a 10-week election campaign that will fuel doubts on economic policy. As it focuses on a return to profit after years of losses in a damaging price war, Virgin Australia yesterday said it plans to cut seats on its April-June flights by 5.1 percent to ensure fuller flights. Last month, Qantas also trimmed capacity plans citing the run-up to a likely July 2 vote. “This environment has been impacted by weak consumer demand and sentiment, uncertainty around the federal election and the resources sector downturn,” Virgin Australia chief executive John Borghetti said in a statement.
INTERNET
Amazon adds Bronx service
Amazon.com Inc will bring free same-day delivery to the Bronx — the only New York City borough now excluded — following criticism from elected representatives that the company’s data-driven service boundaries unfairly left out minority communities. The Bronx is at least the second area the online retailer pledged to serve following an analysis of Amazon same-day delivery areas by Bloomberg Businessweek that highlighted racial disparities in where the service was available in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, New York and Washington. Amazon pledged to serve the predominantly black Boston neighborhood of Roxbury starting today following criticism of its exclusion.
BANKING
Intesa sells payment units
Intesa Sanpaolo SpA agreed to sell its Setefi and Intesa Sanpaolo Card payment units to a group that includes Bain Capital and Advent International in a deal valued at 1.04 billion euros (US$1.2 billion). The Italian lender is to record a gain of 895 million euros from the transaction, Turin-based Intesa Sanpaolo said in a statement yesterday. The transaction is expected to be completed by the end of this year. As part of the deal, the bank has agreed to continue using the card and payment processing services for 10 years.
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
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by