GREECE
Athens on credit watch list
Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s on Thursday placed Greece on a credit watch as it warned proposed changes to EU rules could hurt bondholders. “We believe that assigning ‘preferred creditor’ status to future official lending ... could be detrimental to the ability of non-official holders of sovereign debt to be repaid,” the firm said. The EU plan could see governments repaid first in the event of a default or debt restructuring.
GOLD
Chinese imports soar
Gold imports into China, the world’s top bullion consumer, have soared this year as investors flock to the metal to safeguard their cash amid rising inflation, a report said yesterday. The country imported 209.7 tonnes of gold in the first 10 months of the year, up 480 percent from the same period last year, the China Business News said, citing Shen Xiangrong (沈祥榮), Shanghai Gold Exchange chairman. Individual Chinese investors purchased 973.8 tonnes of gold in the period, up 247.3 percent from a year ago and accounting for nearly 20 percent of total transactions, the report said.
TECHNOLOGY
Google to pay US$1 fine
Google has agreed to pay a Pennsylvania couple US$1 for trespassing on their property while taking photographs for its “Street View” online mapping service. Aaron and Christine Boring sued the Internet giant in 2008, seeking damages and an acknowledgment that a Google Street View car ignored a “Private Road No Trespassing” sign to take pictures of their Franklin Park home. Google admitted to trespassing and agreed to pay nominal damages of US$1 to the Borings.
TECHNOLOGY
RIM to acquire TAT
Research In Motion Ltd, maker of BlackBerry smartphones, said on its blog on Thursday that it will buy Swedish software developer The Astonishing Tribe, which specializes in making phone software more attractive and easy to use. The Astonishing Tribe, dubbed TAT for short, designs software that runs on smartphones and that lets people personalize the way the devices look. TAT said its software resides on 15 percent of all phones. It was founded in 2002 and has about 150 employees. RIM did not say how much it paid for TAT, nor when the purchase is expected to close.
INTERNET
EBay buys Milo.com
EBay Inc, owner of the second-most visited US e-commerce site, said it bought shopping engine Milo.com to help it reach more consumers looking for products in nearby stores and browsing for bargains with mobile phones. Milo.com helps consumers find items in stock at local stores and EBay will weave the technology into its existing marketplace and mobile applications, the San Jose-based company said today in a statement.
FOOD
PepsiCo expands into Russia
PepsiCo Inc is buying a majority stake in Wimm-Bill-Dann Foods for US$3.8 billion, a deal that will make it the biggest food and beverage company in Russia. The deal is Pepsi’s largest international acquisition ever. It gives the company dominant position in the fast-growing Russian market and furthers its plan to build its global nutrition business. Combined, the companies will hold six of Russia’s 20 largest food and beverage brands and will be about twice the size of its nearest competitor in the country. PepsiCo said the deal will make Russia its second-largest market behind the US.
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated
An Indian factory producing iPhone components resumed work yesterday after a fire that halted production — the third blaze to disrupt Apple Inc’s local supply chain since the start of last year. Local industrial behemoth Tata Group’s plant in Tamil Nadu, which was shut down by the unexplained fire on Saturday, is a key linchpin of Apple’s nascent supply chain in the country. A spokesperson for subsidiary Tata Electronics Pvt yesterday said that the company would restart work in “many areas of the facility today.” “We’ve been working diligently since Saturday to support our team and to identify the cause of the fire,”
China’s economic planning agency yesterday outlined details of measures aimed at boosting the economy, but refrained from major spending initiatives. The piecemeal nature of the plans announced yesterday appeared to disappoint investors who were hoping for bolder moves, and the Shanghai Composite Index gave up a 10 percent initial gain as markets reopened after a weeklong holiday to end 4.59 percent higher, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dived 9.41 percent. Chinese National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Zheng Shanjie (鄭珊潔) said the government would frontload 100 billion yuan (US$14.2 billion) in spending from the government’s budget for next year in addition
Sales RecORD: Hon Hai’s consolidated sales rose by about 20 percent last quarter, while Largan, another Apple supplier, saw quarterly sales increase by 17 percent IPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday reported its highest-ever quarterly sales for the third quarter on the back of solid global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said it posted NT$1.85 trillion (US$57.93 billion) in consolidated sales in the July-to-September quarter, up 19.46 percent from the previous quarter and up 20.15 percent from a year earlier. The figure beat the previous third-quarter high of NT$1.74 trillion recorded in 2022, company data showed. Due to rising demand for AI, Hon Hai said its cloud and networking division enjoyed strong sales
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