SOCIAL ENTERPRISES
Oxford to offer support
After decades of incubating science and engineering companies, the University of Oxford yesterday announced it is branching out to support businesses that put people before profit, seeking to maximize the effects of its academic research on the world. The university is launching a program to support social enterprises, which aim to benefit society or the environment, as well as turn a profit, through its Oxford University Innovation arm. Britain is seen as a world leader in the social enterprise sector, with 100,000 companies employing 2 million workers — as many people as its creative industries — according to Social Enterprise UK.
RETAIL
Web community to up hype
Debenhams PLC is leveraging an online community of beauty-product enthusiasts to drum up foot traffic, the latest effort by the struggling UK retailer to improve business and fend off threats from Amazon.com Inc and other digital-first competitors. Debenhams launched an online social platform called the Beauty Club Community, where shoppers can talk and get advice from other members. As they post on the platform, users earn points that can be used to get discounts on beauty products online or in stores. Products that get a lot of buzz online would also be featured in the physical store.
FINANCE
Nomura hires fintech head
Nomura Holdings Inc this month hired investment banker Sean Minnihan to focus on its financial technology advisory business. Minnihan joined the Tokyo-based company’s US investment banking unit, Nomura Securities International Inc, as a managing director based in New York, a bank representative said. He was a managing director and head of financial technology with GCA Advisors LLC, a US brokerage and advisory division of the Japanese investment bank GCA Corp. Minnihan previously worked at UBS Group AG, Bank of America Corp and Goldman Sachs Group Inc, US Financial Industry Regulatory Authority data showed.
TOBACCO
British American taps CEO
British American Tobacco PLC picked Jack Bowles to become its new chief executive officer when Nicandro Durante steps down next year. Bowles, currently chief operating officer, is to become CEO-designate on Nov. 1 and join the board on Jan. 1, the company said yesterday. He is to replace Durante on April 1. The departure comes after Durante, who took over as CEO in 2011, sought to shift the company’s strategy amid a slowdown in global cigarette demand. Durante last year sealed a US$55 billion acquisition of Reynolds American, which brought brands like Camel and Natural American Spirit under the same umbrella as Dunhill and Lucky Strike. The company has also made a bet on heated tobacco and other alternative devices viewed as having lower health risks.
TRADE
War is winless: WTO head
A full-blown global trade war would have serious effects on global growth and there would be no winners of such a scenario, WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo said yesterday. “The warning lights are flashing. A continued escalation of tensions would pose an increased threat to stability, to jobs and to the kind of growth that we are seeing today,” Azevedo said at a Berlin industry event.
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