CAMERAS
Olympus reports net loss
Scandal-hit Olympus yesterday reported a net loss of ￥33.08 billion (US$426 million) for the nine months to December amid a massive accounting cover-up that has tarnished the image of corporate Japan. For the full-year to March, the camera maker said it expected a net loss of ￥32.0 billion, owing to one-off costs unrelated to the loss scandal. The forecast is the first since the scandal broke last year, with the company previously saying it could not make a full-year projection because it did not know the full ramifications of the scandal. For the nine months to December, Olympus reported that operating profit fell 19.0 percent on-year to ￥25.9 billion on sales of ￥624.6 billion, which were up 0.1 percent.
THAILAND
Banks to help repay debt
Thailand’s banks will pay a fee equivalent to 0.47 percent of their total deposits to the Bank of Thailand starting in July as part of a plan to repay state debt, Thai Finance Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong said. Publicly listed banks will pay 0.01 percent of their total deposits into the national deposit-protection fund and 0.46 percent will be used to help pay long-term debt, Kittiratt told reporters yesterday in Bangkok. The government approved a plan last month to shift responsibility for repaying 1.1 trillion baht (US$35.7 billion) of state debt to the Bank of Thailand. Kittiratt said the move could save the government as much as 64 billion baht a year in interest payments and provide scope to finance flood defenses.
COSMETICS
Avon execs in bribery probe
US prosecutors investigating whether US executives at beauty products company Avon broke foreign-bribery laws have presented evidence in the probe to a grand jury, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. Citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, the newspaper said that authorities are focused on a 2005 internal audit report by the company that concluded Avon employees in China may have been bribing officials in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Avon had earlier said it first learned of bribery allegations in 2008, the report said. The audit found several hundred thousand dollars in questionable payments to Chinese officials and third-party consultants in 2005, the paper said.
MUSIC
Quake boosts piano sales
Sales of pianos in Japan jumped 11 percent last year, the first rise in 17 years, as people replaced instruments damaged in the country’s devastating earthquake, a trade body said yesterday. Takahiro Ito of the Shizuoka Instrument Manufacturing Association said more than 18,100 pianos were sold last year, up from about 16,300 the year before. “Last year, especially in the Tohoku region, pianos broke down after the quake and some customers wanted to buy new ones,” he said. Tohoku was badly hit by the magnitude 9 earthquake and resulting tsunami of March 11, with huge swathes of the coastline destroyed.
TELECOMS
SingTel profit falls 9.6%
Singapore Telecommunications Ltd (SingTel) said its quarterly profit dropped 9.6 percent due to losses at its Pakistan unit and an African telecoms company owned by its Indian affiliate. SingTel yesterday said that profit for the October-to-December quarter fell to S$902 million (US$717 million) from S$998 million a year earlier. Operating revenue rose 2.7 percent to S$4.8 billion from S$4.7 billion a year earlier. The company said a stronger Singaporean dollar also crimped profits from its regional units.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors
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