■FINANCING
CIT reaches loan deal
US business lending giant CIT Group reached an emergency loan agreement worth US$3 billion with a group of its main bondholders to avoid bankruptcy, the firm said in a statement on Monday. The private loan, sought after the US government declined last week to offer the company another bailout, is “intended to provide CIT with liquidity necessary to ensure that its important base of small and middle market customers continues to have access to credit,” CIT said. The money is meant to give the company several weeks to set up an exchange of bondholders’ debt for equity.
■AUTOMOBILES
Volvo posts Q2 sales loss
The world’s second-biggest truck maker Volvo Group said yesterday that its net sales fell by a third in the second quarter compared with the same period a year earlier. The Swedish group’s net sales fell by 32.7 percent to 53.9 million kronor (US$7 million) in the April to June period. Adjusted for currency changes and other factors, the decline was 45 percent. It made an operating loss of 6.8 million kronor compared to an operating profit of 7.2 million in the second quarter of last year.
■CHINA
State firms report losses
Profit at top state-owned companies fell 26.2 percent in the first half of the year but the decline is easing amid massive government stimulus spending, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday. The 136 banks, airlines, oil producers and other companies controlled by the central government reported total profit of 316 billion yuan (US$46 billion) from January to last month, Xinhua said, citing the director of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission. The profit decline was an improvement over the first quarter’s more severe 41.8 percent contraction, Xinhua said.
■MEDIA
‘Globe’ staff take cuts
Staff at the teetering Boston Globe said they have agreed to a package of wage and benefit cuts, as the newspaper gropes for multimillion-dollar savings to stay afloat. The Globe’s owners, the New York Times Co, had asked workers to accept concessions in pay, benefits and job security as it looks to limit losses and find a buyer for the New England daily. The New York Times reported the deal could spell savings of up to US$10 million a year.
■FINANCING
Venturers cut investments
Venture capitalists cut their US investments in half during the spring, the second-consecutive quarter to mark a more than 50 percent decline, leaving the money flowing to startups at the slowest trickle in 12 years. Nearly US$3.7 billion poured into 612 venture-capital deals in the three months ending in last month, statistics from PricewaterhouseCoopers, Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association showed yesterday.
■SAUDI ARABIA
Kingdom Holding profits fall
Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s Kingdom Holding said yesterday that its latest quarterly profits fell more than 80 percent from the same period of last year but showed signs of recovery. Kingdom showed profits of 92.1 million riyals (US$24.6 million) for the three months to June 30, compared with 534.7 million riyals for the same quarter last year, the company said. But the figure still represented an increase from the first quarter of this year, when Kingdom, tightly controlled by Alwaleed, reported a 50.1 million riyal profit.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique