Moody’s Investors Service warned yesterday it might downgrade its credit rating for Toyota Motor Corp because of the financial fallout from suspended car production following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
The ratings agency said Toyota’s financial and operating performance would worsen as a result of the disasters, which are causing major disruptions in auto parts supply and have forced Toyota and other automakers to halt production.
Toyota, the world’s No. 1 carmaker, suspended production at all 18 of its factories in Japan from March 14 to 26 because of parts shortages. Since March 28, Toyota has been running just two plants at limited capacity to make Prius and Lexus cars.
The disasters resulted in a production loss of 200,000 cars from March 14 to April 1, Toyota spokeswoman Shiori Hashimoto said. She declined to comment on Moody’s warning.
Mamoru Kato, an analyst at Tokai-Tokyo Securities, said Toyota’s production at the two plants accounts for 3 to 4 percent of the its normal capacity.
“There is no question that a plunge in domestic production will really hurt Toyota’s earnings,” Kato said. “We don’t know how long the shortage crisis will last.”
Toyota has not said when its domestic factories can return to full operations. Moody’s said it would take “many months” for Toyota to return to normal production. Toyota’s long-term uncollateralized debt rating is currently set at “Aa2” by Moody’s. The ratings agency said its review for possible -downgrade would focus on Toyota’s ability to restore production in Japan.
“Moody’s will also consider how quickly the company can improve its profitability despite the negative impact of the disasters,” it said.
Japan’s top business daily Nikkei Shimbun said yesterday that Toyota would resume auto production at most of its domestic plants as early as next week. The Asahi Shimbun said Toyota would reopen the remaining plants under limited capacity. Hashimoto denied the reports.
Car sales in Japan dived nearly 40 percent last month following the tsunami.
Toyota said on Monday it was inevitable that it would be forced to suspend production at all of its North American factories because of parts shortages following the quake.
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
Artificial intelligence (AI) agents would supplant smartphones as the center of people’s digital lives, fundamentally reshaping personal devices and driving a major computing upgrade cycle, Qualcomm Inc CEO Cristiano Amon said yesterday. In his keynote speech for this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei, Amon said that the rise of "agentic AI" — AI systems capable of reasoning, planning and carrying out tasks autonomously — would transform how people interact with technology across phones, PCs, vehicles and wearable devices. Describing the technology as the next major evolution in computing, Amon said that "2026 is the year of agents.” For decades, smartphones have sat
RSS