■ Brewing
SABMiller makes bid
British-based SABMiller, the world's second largest brewer, is to launch an unprecedented hostile bid for China's fourth largest beer maker, Harbin Brewery, London's Financial Times said yesterday. The offer of more than US$3.7 billion could spark a bidding war for the Chinese group, the FT added. The newspaper speculated that any offer -- the first hostile bid by a foreign company for a large Chinese group -- could lead to a counter-offer from SABMiller's US rival, Anheuser-Busch International Inc -- the world's largest brewer. "This is a real first: ownership of a Chinese company will be determined by its shareholders and not the management or the government," the paper quoted a Hong Kong banker as saying.
■ DaimlerChrysler
Hyundai stake converted
DaimlerChrysler AG has converted its entire 10.4-percent stake in South Korea's Hyundai Motor Co into global depositary receipts (GDR), a Hyundai official said Tuesday. The official said DaimlerChrysler changed all of its 22.9 million Hyundai Motor shares into GDRs through Citibank. He didn't give further details. The conversion comes amid rampant speculation that the German carmaker is about to sell its entire stake in Hyundai Motor, South Korea's No. 1 auto-builder. Converting the shares into GDRs makes it easier for DaimlerChrysler to sell its Hyundai shares, South Korean news media reported. National news agency Yonhap said DaimlerChrysler was expected to sell the GDRs to overseas investors within a month.
■ Airlines
EasyJet posts expected loss
The British no-frills airline easyJet posted Wednesday a first-half loss in line with market expectations but adjusted its guidance for the full year from "cautiously optimistic" to "cautious" because of an increasingly tough environment. The carrier made a loss before tax and goodwill of ?18.5 million (US$33 million), in the first half of its 2003-2004 financial year which ended March 31. Analysts had forecast a result of between breakeven and a loss of ?25 million, with a consensus of minus ?18 million. Historically, however, most of easyJet's profits come in the last quarter, and the airline still forecast "continued and sustainable progress." It nonetheless added in a statement: "We are currently seeing unprofitable and unrealistic pricing by airlines, across all sectors of the European industry, seeking to grow or maintain their market share."
■ Online music
Sony opens Internet store
Sony Corp the world's second-biggest consumer electronics maker, began selling music on the Internet in the US through its Sony Connect Inc unit, taking on rivals including Apple Computer Inc's iTunes service. Connect, which features a library of 500,000 tracks, allows music to be played on any personal computer running recent versions of Microsoft's Windows operating system. Songs from artists such as rock singer Sheryl Crow cost US$0.99, while albums cost as little as US$9.99, according to the Connect Web site. Sony, which agreed to merge its music unit with Bertelsmann AG's BMG in December, is launching the service to win paying music downloaders as online piracy contributed to a fourth annual revenue decline for the global music industry to US$32 billion last year.
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
STUMPED: KMT and TPP lawmakers approved a resolution to suspend the rate hike, which the government said was unavoidable in view of rising global energy costs The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has a mandate to raise electricity prices as planned after the legislature passed a non-binding resolution along partisan lines to freeze rates. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers proposed the resolution to suspend the price hike, which passed by a 59-50 vote. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) voted with the KMT. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT said the resolution is a mandate for the “immediate suspension of electricity price hikes” and for the Executive Yuan to review its energy policy and propose supplementary measures. A government-organized electricity price evaluation board in March
FAST RELEASE: The council lauded the developer for completing model testing in only four days and releasing a commercial version for use by academia and industry The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) yesterday released the latest artificial intelligence (AI) language model in traditional Chinese embedded with Taiwanese cultural values. The council launched the Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine (TAIDE) program in April last year to develop and train traditional Chinese-language models based on LLaMA, the open-source AI language model released by Meta. The program aims to tackle the information bias that is often present in international large-scale language models and take Taiwanese culture and values into consideration, it said. Llama 3-TAIDE-LX-8B-Chat-Alpha1, released yesterday, is the latest large language model in traditional Chinese. It was trained based on Meta’s Llama-3-8B
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has