■BANKING
Citigroup defends conduct
Citigroup said yesterday it would defend itself against a lawsuit filed by a Singapore tycoon who alleged he lost S$1 billion (US$687 million) on trading deals due to the bank’s negligence. Oei Hong Leong (黃鴻年), one of Singapore’s wealthiest individuals, is suing Citigroup’s private banking arm for allegedly failing to give him an accurate picture of his trading exposure, leading to the losses. “We fully intend to defend our position vigorously,” a Citigroup spokesman said in a statement. It would not be appropriate to comment further as the matter is now before the courts, Citigroup said in a statement. The hearing for the lawsuit is scheduled for June 23, a court official said but gave no further details.
■AUTOMOBILES
Fiat optimistic on Opel bid
Fiat boss Sergio Marchionne believes the Italian auto giant stands a more than 50 percent chance of pulling off its takeover bid for struggling General Motors’ unit Opel, La Stampa newspaper reported yesterday. “Fiat has a more than 50 percent chance of winning the battle for Opel because, at the end of the day, our offer is the only one based on industrial merit,” the paper quoted Marchionne as saying. Other suitors — Canada’s Magna and the founder of US investment fund Ripplewood — “do not have that industrial base or are really financiers,” he said. “We have seen how weak that can be with Chrysler, which was controlled by investment fund Cerebus.”
■COMPUTERS
Lenovo posts loss
Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想), China’s biggest maker of personal computers, posted a full-year loss as the global recession reduced overseas sales and prompted the company to cut jobs. The net loss was US$226.4 million in the year ended March 31, compared with net income of US$484.3 million, a year earlier, Lenovo said yesterday in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange. Sales from continuing operations fell 8.9 percent to US$14.9 billion. The maker of Thinkpad laptops booked US$146 million in costs for the year to cut jobs as the global recession led customers to slash orders and prompted Lenovo to scale back expansion plans in the US and Europe.
■BANKING
Temasek ups stake in CCB
Singapore’s state-linked investment firm Temasek Holdings has paid US$600 million to raise its stake in China Construction Bank (CCB, 中國建設銀行), the Straits Times said yesterday. The move will take Temasek’s investment in the Chinese bank to 6.5 percent, or 14.3 billion shares, from 6 percent, the newspaper said, quoting unnamed sources. Bank of America said last week it had sold a third of its stake in CCB for US$7.3 billion to a consortium that includes Temasek Holdings, China’s Hopu Investment Management (厚樸投資管理) and China Life Insurance (中國人壽保險).
■UNITED KINGDOM
S&P downgrades economy
Standard and Poor’s Ratings Services (S&P) yesterday downgraded its outlook on Britain’s economy from “stable” to “negative” because of the country’s “deteriorating public finances.” “The outlook revision is based on our view that, even factoring in further fiscal tightening, the UK’s net general government debt burden may approach 100 percent of GDP and remain near that level in the medium term,” S&P said in a statement. Britain’s public deficit ballooned to a record £8.5 billion (US$13.22 billion) last month, official data published yesterday showed.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary