BREXIT
Banks want UK tax breaks
British, European and US banks plan to ask the British government for as much as £4 billion (US$5.2 billion) annually in tax breaks post-Brexit after paying billions in extra levies to the Treasury since the financial crisis, The Telegraph reported. Bank chiefs, who say they have received offers from EU countries for their business, hope to convince Chancellor Sajid Javid, the British newspaper reported, citing an unidentified official familiar with the request. The banks will request a review of the bank levy and bank surcharge, according to the report in which the UK Treasury declined to comment.
ELECTRONICS
Apple ordered to pay WiLan
Apple Inc must pay Quarterhill Inc’s WiLan US$85 million for infringing patents related to wireless communications, a jury in San Diego ruled. WiLan’s two patents cover ways to make phone calls and download data at the same time. A different jury in 2018 said Apple infringed the patents and awarded US$145 million, but a new trial was ordered to reconsider the damages. WiLan, which has been in a mostly unsuccessful fight with Apple over royalties for the past decade, got the amount it asked for based on iPhones sales.
AIRLINES
LOT to take over Condor
LOT Polish Airlines said on Friday it would take over German carrier Condor, a former subsidiary of bankrupt travel operator Thomas Cook that has been kept aloft with government loans. “Maybe there was uncertainty about Condor’s future. I would like to say very firmly today, there is no more uncertainty,” LOT chief executive Rafal Milczarski told reporters in Frankfurt. Milczarski would not be drawn on how much LOT had offered for Condor, but “we are going to pay a fair price, a price that will enable us to pay off the KfW loan in its entirety,” he said.
INTERNET
US pressures Prague on tax
The Czech Republic could face US countermeasures if it introduces a planned 7 percent digital tax aimed at global Internet giants, the US embassy in Prague said on Friday, after the Czech parliament gave initial support to the new tax. The Czech lower house approved the first reading of the digital tax bill on Wednesday. The bill must pass two more readings and clear the upper house Senate — or a new vote in the lower house in case of a veto — before it becomes law. “The US government has been clear on the issue of digital services taxes, or DSTs,” the US embassy said in a statement, referring to past comments by the ambassador as well as US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in Davos this week.
BANKS
FINMA sanctions ex-CEO
A Swiss bank’s former chief executive officer has been sanctioned by the country’s financial regulator, the Financial Markets Authority (FINMA), for insider trading in his wife’s name and other “serious breaches of supervisory law.” The man executed the trades of shares of a separately listed company using his wife’s account at other lenders for several years, violating his bank’s internal directives, FINMA said on Friday in a statement. The identities of the bank and its ex-CEO were not disclosed, as is often the case in Switzerland. Illicit profits of 730,000 Swiss francs (US$752,000) were confiscated and he also faces a four-year ban from management roles and a six-year ban from securities dealing, the regulator said.
LEBANON
MF official pays a visit
The new finance minister of debt-saddled Lebanon said he would meet with a senior official from the IMF yesterday for a “courtesy visit” and not bailout talks. Ghazi Wazni’s meeting with IMF Alternative Executive Director Sami Geadah came as Lebanon grapples with its worst economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war. It follows a meeting on Friday between Wazni and a World Bank delegation led by its regional director Saroj Kumar Jha. “It is a courtesy visit which aims to get to know the IMF team,” Wazni said. “The discussions will not focus on an economic rescue plan, which is being prepared [separately] inside government.”
CREDIT RATINGS
Greece a positive Fitch ‘BB’
Fitch on Friday raised Greece’s credit rating by one notch to “BB” with a positive outlook, implying a further upgrade could come in the future. “Debt sustainability continues to improve, underpinned by a stable political backdrop, sustained GDP growth and a continuing track record of fiscal outperformance against targets,” Fitch said in a statement. It said Greek government debt is set to decline steadily from the peak of 181.2 percent of GDP in 2018 to 161 percent by 2021, and forecast real GDP growth of 2.5 percent this year and next year, from 2.2 percent last year.
TELECOMS
Softbank plans bond sale
The Japanese telecom business of Masayoshi Son’s technology conglomerate mandated banks for its first domestic bond sale since listing in 2018, sources said. Softbank Corp is to seek to price yen-denominated bonds before March 31, Japan’s fiscal year-end, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter is private. The company registered on Friday to sell as much as ¥1 trillion (US$9.1 billion) of debt. A Softbank spokesperson said the company is considering issuing bonds, but has not yet decided details.
RETAIL
Simon eyes Forever 21
Mall owner Simon Property Group is considering a bid to buy Forever 21 Inc, a bankrupt teen retailer that is running out of money and time, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Simon would pair with Authentic Brands Group LLC to buy and operate the stores and the brand, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. Forever 21 was talking about selling a stake to Simon and its other largest landlord, Brookfield Property Partners LP, before it filed for bankruptcy in September. Talks broke down and the company had to seek court protection without a reorganization plan in place. Forever 21 expects to provide information on the potential buyer in the coming weeks, the people said.
REAL ESTATE
Golf graft claim retracted
Researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School, who released a study earlier this month that claimed insider trading among some developers during games of golf led to cheaper land prices, have retracted the assertion. The study’s authors now say they could not find evidence such activity took place and have removed the term from their paper. “With this study, we thought we could establish insider trading. This turned out not to be the case, and hence the content on insider trading was removed in subsequent versions. The version online has since been updated,” said professor Sumit Agarwal, a real-estate and economics academic at NUS and one of the paper’s four authors.
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