MINING
Resourcehouse may cut IPO
Australian miner Resourcehouse may cut the size of a Hong Kong share sale originally slated to raise US$3.6 billion, after the company postponed the deal several times in the past two years. The unprofitable Australian mining company, controlled by billionaire Clive Palmer, is considering shrinking the initial public offering (IPO) to US$2.54 billion, Dow Jones Newswires reported yesterday, citing a company term sheet. The miner still planned to sell about 5.71 billion shares, but was considering an IPO share price of HK$3.45, well below its previous range of HK$4.48 and HK$4.93 per share, Dow Jones said. The company was originally scheduled to price its shares yesterday and to list the stock on Hong Kong’s bourse on Friday.
AVIATION
Qantas seeks redundancies
Australian airline Qantas yesterday confirmed it was seeking up to 350 voluntary redundancies among its 7,000 crew members as it seeks to mitigate fluctuating fuel prices and the cost of natural disasters. In March, the carrier said it would slash capacity and management staff because of a series of calamities, including floods in Australia and earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand, which coincided with a spike in oil and jet fuel prices. The airline said it hoped that about 350 employees or 5 percent of its cabin crew would take up the offer of voluntary redundancy once staff had finalized their expressions of interest in the offer.
SECURITIES
Nomura slashes execs’ pay
Nomura Holdings Inc cut pay for CEO Kenichi Watanabe and top executives by 38 percent last year after Japan’s biggest brokerage posted a profit drop, according to documents sent to shareholders. The securities firm reduced total compensation for its top 10 executives to ￥899 million (US$11 million) for the year ended March 31, from ￥1.45 billion a year earlier, the documents showed. Watanabe and chief operating officer Takumi Shibata oversaw a 58 percent profit decline to ￥28.7 billion for the year.
MINING
Rio signs profit-sharing deal
Mining giant Rio Tinto has signed a profit-sharing deal with the five indigenous groups that will allow the company to mine iron ore on lands the groups own in Western Australia. The agreements gives the Anglo-Australian company access to 71,000km2 in Pilbara. The remote region is rich in iron ore and other minerals. Rio Tinto said in a statement on Friday that the agreements set up trusts to be funded by mining revenue that will pay for health, education and anti-poverty projects. They will also set aside money for future generations.
TECHNOLOGY
Apple signs music deal
Apple Inc reached an agreement with Universal Music Group, the largest record label, setting the stage for its new service to let users access song libraries on multiple devices, two people with knowledge of the talks said. The new music service, enabling customers to store their music on Apple’s servers, will be previewed on Monday by CEO Steve Jobs at Apple’s annual developers conference in San Francisco, said the people, who declined to be identified because the deals aren’t public. Apple’s deal with Universal Music follows agreements with Sony Corp’s music unit, Warner Music Group Corp and EMI Group Ltd.
EXTRATERRITORIAL REACH: China extended its legal jurisdiction to ban some dual-use goods of Chinese origin from being sold to the US, even by third countries Beijing has set out to extend its domestic laws across international borders with a ban on selling some goods to the US that applies to companies both inside and outside China. The new export control rules are China’s first attempt to replicate the extraterritorial reach of US and European sanctions by covering Chinese products or goods with Chinese parts in them. In an announcement this week, China declared it is banning the sale of dual-use items to the US military and also the export to the US of materials such as gallium and germanium. Companies and people overseas would be subject to
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) yesterday said that Intel Corp would find itself in the same predicament as it did four years ago if its board does not come up with a core business strategy. Chang made the remarks in response to reporters’ questions about the ailing US chipmaker, once an archrival of TSMC, during a news conference in Taipei for the launch of the second volume of his autobiography. Intel unexpectedly announced the immediate retirement of former chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger last week, ending his nearly four-year tenure and ending his attempts to revive the
WORLD DOMINATION: TSMC’s lead over second-placed Samsung has grown as the latter faces increased Chinese competition and the end of clients’ product life cycles Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) retained the No. 1 title in the global pure-play wafer foundry business in the third quarter of this year, seeing its market share growing to 64.9 percent to leave South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co, the No. 2 supplier, further behind, Taipei-based TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a report. TSMC posted US$23.53 billion in sales in the July-September period, up 13.0 percent from a quarter earlier, which boosted its market share to 64.9 percent, up from 62.3 percent in the second quarter, the report issued on Monday last week showed. TSMC benefited from the debut of flagship
TENSE TIMES: Formosa Plastics sees uncertainty surrounding the incoming Trump administration in the US, geopolitical tensions and China’s faltering economy Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), Taiwan’s largest industrial conglomerate, yesterday posted overall revenue of NT$118.61 billion (US$3.66 billion) for last month, marking a 7.2 percent rise from October, but a 2.5 percent fall from one year earlier. The group has mixed views about its business outlook for the current quarter and beyond, as uncertainty builds over the US power transition and geopolitical tensions. Formosa Plastics Corp (台灣塑膠), a vertically integrated supplier of plastic resins and petrochemicals, reported a monthly uptick of 15.3 percent in its revenue to NT$18.15 billion, as Typhoon Kong-rey postponed partial shipments slated for October and last month, it said. The
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