INDUSTRY
GE beats profit expectations
General Electric Co (GE) on Friday reported second-quarter profit that beat analysts’ estimates, as surging sales in energy units helped the industrial giant counter the impact of a sluggish economy. Adjusted earnings rose to US$0.51 a share, boosted by higher profits in the power and renewable energy divisions, GE said in a statement. That exceeded the US$0.46 average of analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Sales of US$33.3 billion compared with US$31.9 billion expected by analysts. CEO Jeffrey Immelt said in a statement that the company expects “strong organic growth” in the second half of the year.
BANKING
HSBC to sell loans: sources
HSBC Holdings PLC is selling US$2.7 billion of loans as part of a plan to cut risk-weighted assets by US$290 billion over the next three years, according to two people with knowledge of the sale. The credits to about 69 different parties include investment-grade loans, project finance and both performing and nonperforming leveraged loans, the people said. The loans are to companies in Europe, Asia and the US, they said. Bank spokeswoman Sarah Marquer declined to comment on the details of the sale.
AUTOMAKERS
FCA announces global recall
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCA) on Friday said it is recalling nearly 410,000 vehicles worldwide because of a defect that can lead to a loss of propulsion. The automaker said it would update software and replace wire harnesses to address the issue that appears in a small number of vehicles. The recall includes 2015 model year Chrysler 200 midsize sedans, Ram ProMaster City small vans, Jeep Renegade and Cherokee sport utility vehicles and some 2014 Cherokees. The recall includes about 323,000 vehicles in the US, 35,500 in Canada and about 51,000 elsewhere.
RETAIL
Court rejects investor appeal
A US federal appeals court has rejected a shareholder lawsuit filed against key directors at Wal-Mart Stores Inc that claimed they allowed and concealed alleged bribery in the company’s Mexico division. Chief Judge William Riley wrote for the 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals that shareholders, including the Louisiana Municipal Police Employees’ Retirement System, did “not give rise to a reasonable reference” that the board of directors learned of the suspected bribery while it was being covered up and the internal investigation squashed. It upheld an Arkansas district court’s dismissal.
PETROLEUM
Ecuador pays Chevron
Ecuador has paid a US$112 million arbitration award to Chevron Corp stemming from a 1990s oil contract dispute. The payment, confirmed on Friday by a company spokesman, was ordered in 2011 by a Dutch-based international arbitration panel and later confirmed by US courts and upheld on appeal by the US Supreme Court. Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa had threatened to withhold payment and accused the oil giant of seeking revenge for losing an unrelated drilling contamination case, in which an oil consortium headed by Texaco Inc was ordered by Ecuadoran courts to pay a US$9.5 billion award. Chevron bought Texaco in 2001.
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
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts