TOBACCO
P&H enters administration
Britain’s biggest cigarette wholesaler, Palmer & Harvey (P&H), on Tuesday collapsed into administration, with about 2,500 staff facing redundancy, its administrator PwC announced. The 90-year-old company, which also provides alcohol, groceries and frozen food to 90,000 retail accounts failed in attempts to secure a buyer. The firm, which employs about 3,400 people, last month held exclusive takeover talks with Carlyle Group, but the US private equity fund’s offer of a significant capital investment in exchange for a controlling stake did not progress. PwC confirmed P&H would immediately shed 2,500 jobs at the firm’s head office in Hove, England, and branch network, with the 900 remaining staff still at risk.
MEXICO
Bank deputy gets top job
President Enrique Pena Nieto on Tuesday named Bank of Mexico Deputy Governor Alejandro Diaz de Leon to head the bank. Analysts said the US-trained policymaker would likely continue the hawkish policies of Agustin Carstens, who is leaving tomorrow to head the Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland. Diaz de Leon, 47, has a master’s degree in public policy from Yale University and joined the central bank in 1991. He has also worked at the Secretariat of Finance and Public Credit and the nation’s Development Bank for International Trade, the presidential office said in a statement.
AUTOMAKERS
Hyundai production resumes
Hyundai Motor’s workers at a plant in Ulsan, South Korea, have resumed production after a walkout on two assembly lines, the company and the union said yesterday. Workers late on Tuesday returned to the plant after nearly 2,000 workers, or 4 percent of the company’s 51,000 union members, stopped work on Monday after talks collapsed over the terms for producing the Kona compact sports utility vehicle. The talks have resumed, Hyundai said. The walkout delayed production of about 1,200 vehicles, it added. The Kona is due to launch in the US early next year. The union is concerned that workers might lose jobs because the assembly process for the Kona is more automated than for the Accent, a sedan also manufactured at the Ulsan plant.
CHIPMAKERS
Marvell posts strong results
Chipmaker Marvell Technology Group Ltd forecast strong results for the current quarter while delivering higher-than-expected earnings and revenue for the third quarter, boosted by robust demand for its networking and connectivity chips. Shares of Bermuda-domiciled Marvell rose 2 percent in after-market trading to US$23.75. The results come days after Marvell said it would buy Cavium Inc for about US$6 billion, seeking to expand its wireless connectivity chip business. Marvell expects adjusted earnings of US$0.29 to US$0.33 per share and revenue of US$595 million to US$625 million in the quarter ending in January.
TECHNOLOGY
Microsoft to revamp HQ
Microsoft Corp is planning a multibillion-US dollar overhaul of its main campus in Redmond, Washington, adding space for 8,000 workers and creating areas for collaboration and recreation as it tries to keep up with growth in hiring and trends toward more open office spaces. The five to seven-year plan is to knock down 12 low-rise buildings and replace them with 18 new buildings, many of them double the height, president Brad Smith said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the