SOUTH KOREA
‘Bad loan’ bank to be set up
A bank will be established next month to purchase bad loans owed by builders and developers, the Financial Services Commission said. The bank will take over as much as 1 trillion won (US$933 million) of non-performing debt arising from real estate development projects, the commission said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. It will operate under the private debt clearer United Asset Management Corp with lenders in Asia’s fourth-largest economy contributing funds. The government announced policy measures today to aid troubled builders and the property market, including tax incentives for real estate investment trusts that buy unsold housing. Since late last year, 29 of the nation’s 100 largest builders have applied for financial support because of a prolonged slump in construction and real estate, the statement said.
SOFTWARE
Infosys appoints new CEO
Infosys Technologies Ltd, India’s second-largest software exporter, promoted S.D. Shibulal to the post of chief executive officer, picking the company veteran to boost earnings amid rising competition for outsourcing deals. The board also named current chief executive S. Gopalakrishnan co-chairman, and former ICICI Bank Ltd head K.V. Kamath as chairman, the Bangalore-based company said in a statement on Saturday. Current chairman and billionaire founder N.R. Narayana Murthy will become chairman emeritus. As chief executive Shibulal, 56, has the task to win more outsourcing deals as Tata Consultancy Services Ltd and International Business Machines Corp expand in India. The management changes come after Infosys’s earnings missed estimates for the third time in four quarters and the company forecast its lowest profit margin since at least 2003.
GREECE
Public supports privatization
Most people favor the sale of government stakes in state-controlled companies as a way of reducing debt, and they support ending guarantees of lifetime jobs for civil servants, an opinion poll showed. -Seventy-four percent of the 514 people surveyed by Public Issue for Kathimerini newspaper said government asset sales were imperative, compared with 21 percent who said they weren’t. Prime Minister George Papandreou’s government has announced a 50 billion euro (US$74 billion) target of revenue from asset sales. Of those surveyed, 58 percent said Hellenic Telecom, now controlled by Deutsche Telekom AG, operated better under private control than under the state.
TRADE
ITC finds for Apple
Apple Inc won an International Trade Commission (ITC) ruling that said the maker of iPhones and iPads did not infringe a patent owned by Taiwan’s Elan Microelectronics Corp (義隆) for touch-control screens. ITC Judge Paul Luckern in Washington said Apple was not infringing the Elan patent, according to a posting on Friday on the agency’s Web site. The judge’s findings are subject to review by the six-member commission, which has the power to block imports of products found to violate US patent rights. Elan, a Hsinchu-based designer of integrated circuits, claimed Apple’s iPhone 3G and 3Gs, iPod touch, iPad, Mac computers and Magic Mouse wireless mouse violate its US patent. The invention involves the use of two fingers to perform operations on a computer screen, replacing the traditional computer mouse or trackball.
FALLING BEHIND: Samsung shares have declined more than 20 percent this year, as the world’s largest chipmaker struggles in key markets and plays catch-up to rival SK Hynix Samsung Electronics Co is laying off workers in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand as part of a plan to reduce its global headcount by thousands of jobs, sources familiar with the situation said. The layoffs could affect about 10 percent of its workforces in those markets, although the numbers for each subsidiary might vary, said one of the sources, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. Job cuts are planned for other overseas subsidiaries and could reach 10 percent in certain markets, the source said. The South Korean company has about 147,000 in staff overseas, more than half
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,”
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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