BANKING
New loans surge in China
New loans extended by Chinese banks jumped to 948.7 billion yuan (US$141.8 billion) last month, up from the 463.6 billion yuan in July, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said on Wednesday. The figure was below June’s 1.38 trillion, but beat a median forecast of 750 billion yuan in a survey by Bloomberg News. In a separate statement, the PBOC said that total social financing — an alternative measure of credit in the real economy — also leaped, tripling to 1.47 trillion yuan last month from 487.9 billion yuan in July. The figure also beat Bloomberg’s median forecast of 900 billion yuan.
EUROZONE
Industrial production down
Official figures show that industrial production across the 19-country eurozone fell 1.1 percent in July, a development that could seriously weigh on the region’s third-quarter growth. The decline reported on Wednesday by Eurostat, the union’s statistics agency, more than offset the previous month’s 0.8 percent gain. Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, was the chief reason behind the fall, as it recorded a 1.9 percent monthly decline.
LIGHTING
Tech Pro boss’ assets frozen
The chairman of Tech Pro Technology Development Ltd (德普科技), an LED lighting product maker deemed worthless by short-seller Glaucus Research Group, has had some of his assets frozen by a Hong Kong court and also faces a bankruptcy claim. The High Court on Aug. 30 granted a Mareva injunction covering up to HK$11.2 million (US$1.4 million) of Li Wing Sang’s (李永生) assets in the territory, Tech Pro said on Wednesday evening. Citic Securities Brokerage (HK) Ltd (中信證券) on Monday filed a claim for bankruptcy proceedings against Li, a court document showed. The legal issues are Li’s personal matters and not related to the firm’s business, Tech Pro said. The chairman has not provided any financial assistance or guarantee to the company, it said.
PROPERTY
Singapore home sales drop
Home sales fell last month in Singapore, as developers marketed fewer projects in a month considered inauspicious by Chinese homebuyers. Developers sold 473 units last month, compared with 1,091 in July, according to data released yesterday by the Urban Redevelopment Authority. That is the lowest sales since February. The seventh month of the lunar calendar year, known as the Ghost Month, is a time homebuyers avoid property purchases. Meanwhile, an index tracking private residential prices fell 0.4 percent in the three months ended June 30 from the previous quarter, capping the longest series of quarterly losses since 1975, when prices were first published, according to data from the urban authority in July.
RESTAURANTS
McDonald’s gets final bids
Fast-food giant McDonald’s Corp has received final bids from at least three groups for its China and Hong Kong outlets, with global private equity firms Carlyle Group and TPG Capital separately teaming up with Chinese partners for the business worth up to US$3 billion, sources said. Carlyle has joined with Chinese state conglomerate CITIC Group (中國中信集團), while TPG has teamed up with mini-market operator Wumart Stores Inc (物美商業集團) on their separate bids for the 20-year franchise, said the sources, who declined to be named. Real-estate firm Sanpower Group (三胞集團) also made an offer for the assets, one of the sources said.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the