FOOD
Arcor seeks partner in Asia
The world’s biggest maker of hard candies is seeking a strategic partner to help it expand outside Latin America. Arcor SAIC, the closely held Argentine food conglomerate, is willing to do a stock swap with a partner to get access to more overseas markets, especially in Asia. Luis Pagani, the chairman and a majority owner with family members, said that while talks have not yet begun, Arcor’s family ownership might appeal to other global candy makers that value similar structures. Ferrero International SA and Mars Inc are among those kind of family owned confectionery companies, he said.
LUMBER
Mill fire may extend rally
Lumber prices that have soared amid a Canada-US trade dispute could rise even higher after a fire at a British Columbia sawmill cuts supplies. Futures are trading at a 23-year high amid rising demand for housing and after the US imposed tariffs on softwood imports from Canada. The rally could extend after a major fire at Tolko Industries’ Lakeview mill, which accounts for about 2 percent of production in British Columbia’s interior, CIBC analyst Hamir Patel said on Monday in a note. Canada is the world’s largest softwood lumber exporter and the US is its biggest market. Lumber futures have gained as much as 40 percent this year to US$459.60 per 1,000 board feet, the second-best performing commodity, according to data tracked by Bloomberg.
EMPLOYMENT
Tight supply boosts UK pay
A marked decline in the availability of workers across the UK helped push up pay last month, according to IHS Markit and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation. Recruiters’ struggle to meet rising demand for staff in both temporary and permanent roles is boosting wages, especially starting salaries, the groups said in a report published yesterday. They added that it shows the need to clarify the rights of overseas workers as part of Brexit negotiations. Full-time workers in the accounting and financial industries were most in demand, followed by information technology and computing, and engineering, while employers were seeking nursing, medical and care workers for part-time roles.
RETAIL
M&S to step up closures
Marks & Spencer Group PLC (M&S) plans to accelerate store closures and chief financial officer Helen Weir is to leave as the UK retailer steps up efforts to turn around its clothing business. M&S is to speed up plans to close 30 stores and relocate or shrink 45 others over five years, reflecting a shift to more online apparel spending. In food, where the company has recently stumbled after relying on its grocery business for profits, it is also scaling back intentions to open 250 new stores over the next two-and-a-half years.
THAILAND
Central bank keeps rates
The Bank of Thailand kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged near a record low to boost an economic recovery while inflation pressure remains low. The one-day bond repurchase rate was left at 1.5 percent, with monetary policy committee members voting unanimously in favor, the central bank said in Bangkok yesterday. After years of sluggish growth, the nation’s economy is showing signs of recovery on the back of an export boom and rising tourism. The Ministry of Finance last month raised its economic growth forecast for this year to 3.8 percent, which would be the fastest pace in five 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