UNITED KINGDOM
House costs, retail sales fall
UK house prices fell for a second month this month, adding to signs of consumer weakness, the Nationwide Building Society said. The 0.4 percent decline, the biggest since 2012, followed a 0.3 percent fall last month. It reduced annual growth to 2.6 percent, the weakest since June 2013, the lender said in a report yesterday. Meanwhile, UK retail sales fell the most since 2010 in the first quarter and a report from YouGov and the Centre for Economics & Business Research published yesterday said household sentiment fell this month to the lowest since July last year. A separate survey from GfK also showed a decline in optimism, though it said confidence is “surprisingly stable” given accelerating inflation and stagnating wages.
BANKING
UBS Q1 profit rises 80%
UBS Group AG fees from wealth management helped drive an 80 percent rise in first-quarter profit, with clients also adding billions of Swiss franc in new money. Net income rose to 1.27 billion Swiss franc (US$1.28 billion) from SF707 million a year earlier, the Zurich-based lender said in a statement yesterday. Analysts were expecting SF953 million, the average of eight estimates compiled by Bloomberg. The wealth management division contributed SF727 million in adjusted pretax profit. The unit saw SF18.6 billion in net inflows during the quarter, mainly from Europe, but “with positive contributions from all other regions,” unit president Juerg Zeltner said.
INSURANCE
Old Mutual to end venture
Britain’s Old Mutual PLC said it would sell its 26 percent stake in Kotak Mahindra Old Mutual Life Insurance Ltd to Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd for about 12.93 billion rupees (US$201.4 million). The sale would end Old Mutual’s joint venture with Kotak Mahindra Bank, the company said on Thursday. The net consideration after tax is 11.7 billion rupees, Old Mutual said. The deal, which is subject to regulatory approval, is expected to be completed in the second half of the year.
DAIRY
No approval for Yili buy
Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Co (伊利集團) terminated a planned 4.6 billion yuan (US$666.9 million) purchase of a stake in China Shengmu Organic Milk Ltd (聖牧有機奶業) because it did not win regulatory approval from Chinese authorities. Shengmu shares dropped by the most since 2015. The termination also cancels Yili’s offer to buy outstanding shares of Shengmu, according to a statement from the companies to the Hong Kong exchange yesterday. Hong Kong-listed Shengmu fell as much as 14 percent, its biggest intraday drop since August 2015, while Yili declined 3.4 percent in Shanghai. Yili in October last year announced it would purchase a 37 percent stake of Shengmu, China’s largest producer of hormone-free dairy.
AIRLINES
United reaches settlement
United Airlines and David Dao, the passenger who was dragged from a Chicago flight earlier this month, on Thursday announced they have reached a settlement for an undisclosed sum in the carrier’s latest step to contain damage from an incident that sparked international outrage. United earlier on Thursday said it would offer passengers who give up their seats up to US$10,000, reduce overbooking of flights and no longer call on law enforcement officers to deny ticketed passengers their seats. Southwest Airlines also said that it would end overbooking of flights.
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
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
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last