PHILIPPINES
Moody’s upgrades rating
Moody’s yesterday became the third and final ratings agency to grant the country investment-grade status. The decision to give Manila a “Baa3” rating with a “positive outlook” follows similar moves by Standard & Poor’s and Fitch earlier this year.
A “Baa3” rating is the lowest in the outfit’s investment ranks, but represents an important milestone for the country, which saw its economy expanded 6.8 percent last year and 7.6 percent in the first half this year, among the highest levels in the Asia-Pacific region.
UNITED KINGDOM
House prices rise again
House prices rose for an eighth month last month as official aid programs boosted demand, according to a report by Halifax. Home values increased 0.3 percent from the previous month to an average ￡170,733 (US$276,900), the mortgage unit of Lloyds Banking Group PLC said in a statement yesterday. The property market has strengthened in recent months, prompting concerns that the government’s Help to Buy housing plan may fuel a bubble.
INVESTMENT
Empire State Building public
The Empire State Building went public on Wednesday as part of a real-estate trust traded for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange. The Empire State Realty Trust, which owns the landmark skyscraper and 17 other buildings in the New York area, closed US$0.10 higher (0.8 percent) at US$13.10 after being introduced to the markets at an IPO price of US$13 a share. Shares traded as high as US$13.49 earlier in the day. The company sold 71.5 million shares, raising US$929.5 million. It said it may offer an additional 10.7 million shares in the next 30 days.
AUTOMAKERS
Hyundai drops lighters
Hyundai Motor yesterday said it would stop putting cigarette lighter sockets in cars made for the domestic market in favor of a USB power point. The South Korean auto giant said its decision would affect all passenger cars and SUVs sold at home from this month. A company spokesman said the automaker was “the first auto company in the world” to make the change. Hyundai’s decision followed a domestic survey that showed many drivers used the lighter jack to charge mobile phones or tablet computers rather than for lighting cigarettes.
INSURANCE
Athene sells for US$2.6bn
British insurance group Aviva PLC on Tuesday said the sale of its US life and annuities business to Athene Holding Ltd had fetched US$2.6 billion, above the US$1.8 billion price announced in December last year. The additional US$800 million represented estimated earnings and other improvements in statutory surplus from June 30 last year to Monday, the company said. Cash proceeds to Aviva totaled US$2.3 billion, following the repayment of an external loan of Aviva USA Corp.
MINING
Glencore shutting Falcondo
Glencore Xstrata PLC says it will temporarily close the Falcondo nickel mine in the Dominican Republic that it had been seeking to expand amid environmental opposition. Falcondo mine spokesman Alain Astacio says the mine will close for an estimated two to three years because of falling nickel prices. The company is laying off 900 of 1,000 employees and about 700 contractors.
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
Taiwanese manufacturers have a chance to play a key role in the humanoid robot supply chain, Tongtai Machine and Tool Co (東台精機) chairman Yen Jui-hsiung (嚴瑞雄) said yesterday. That is because Taiwanese companies are capable of making key parts needed for humanoid robots to move, such as harmonic drives and planetary gearboxes, Yen said. This ability to produce these key elements could help Taiwanese manufacturers “become part of the US supply chain,” he added. Yen made the remarks a day after Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) are jointly
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) expects its addressable market to grow by a low single-digit percentage this year, lower than the overall foundry industry’s 15 percent expansion and the global semiconductor industry’s 10 percent growth, the contract chipmaker said yesterday after reporting the worst profit in four-and-a-half years in the fourth quarter of last year. Growth would be fueled by demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers, a moderate recovery in consumer electronics and an increase in semiconductor content, UMC said. “UMC’s goal is to outgrow our addressable market while maintaining our structural profitability,” UMC copresident Jason Wang (王石) told an online earnings
MARKET SHIFTS: Exports to the US soared more than 120 percent to almost one quarter, while ASEAN has steadily increased to 18.5 percent on rising tech sales The proportion of Taiwan’s exports directed to China, including Hong Kong, declined by more than 12 percentage points last year compared with its peak in 2020, the Ministry of Finance said on Thursday last week. The decrease reflects the ongoing restructuring of global supply chains, driven by escalating trade tensions between Beijing and Washington. Data compiled by the ministry showed China and Hong Kong accounted for 31.7 percent of Taiwan’s total outbound sales last year, a drop of 12.2 percentage points from a high of 43.9 percent in 2020. In addition to increasing trade conflicts between China and the US, the ministry said
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