SHIPPING
Hyundai to sell assets
Hyundai Group, owner of South Korea’s second-biggest shipping company, plans to raise at least 3.3 trillion won (US$3.1 billion) by selling assets to boost cash. Hyundai Group will sell Hyundai Securities Co and two other financial units to raise as much as 1 trillion won, it said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. Hyundai Merchant Marine Co, the biggest shareholder of Hyundai Securities, plans to sell stakes in its terminal business and restructure bulk-carrier operations for about 1.5 trillion won. The group also expects to reap 340 billion won by selling the Banyan Tree Hotel in Seoul, it said in the statement.
INVESTMENT
Cuba to approve new law
Cuba will approve a new foreign investment law in March, Cuban President Raul Castro said on Saturday, without elaborating on specific changes. Cuba’s National Assembly will be convened “in March for a special session to handle this issue and others,” the president, 82, said at the closing session of the legislature. Foreign direct investment “is of unparalleled importance to energize the country’s social and economic development,” Castro said.
RETAIL
Fraud incidents few: Target
US retailer Target, which revealed this week that 40 million customers’ credit and debit cards may have been compromised, said on Saturday that few incidents of fraud had occurred. The popular chain store announced on Thursday that hackers broke into its payment system between Nov. 27 and Dec. 15, stealing debit and credit card data during the height of Christmas shopping. Among the information potentially pilfered was the name, card number, expiration date and three-digit security code on the back of the cards.
OUTSOURCING
Eighth Infosys exec quits
A top executive of Infosys, tipped as a future chief executive of the outsourcing giant, has resigned, the latest in a string of departures since co-founder Narayana Murthy returned to lead the company. Infosys said in a statement posted on its Web site on Saturday that V. Balakrishnan, who headed the business process outsourcing division, had quit and would leave the firm at the end of the year. It marked the eighth high-profile exit the company has seen in the past six months as Infosys undergoes an organizational restructuring, the reports said.
NUCLEAR
Urenco sale stalled
Efforts to sell Urenco Ltd have stalled as Dutch politicians argue over the future of the multinational nuclear-fuel processor, according to three people familiar with the situation. A sale of Urenco, which is owned by the governments of the UK, the Netherlands, and German utilities EON SE and RWE AG, will probably not occur until at least the second half of next year and may be delayed to 2015, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing private deliberations.
SERVERS
Sales grew 1.9 percent
Worldwide server shipments grew 1.9 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of the year, but revenues declined 2.1 percent from the same quarter last year, according to Gartner Inc. “The worldwide server market remains in a relatively weak performance mode as we move through the second half of the year,” Gartner research vice president Jeffrey Hewitt said. Only Canada, the Middle East and Africa, and the US exhibited positive vendor revenue growth, Hewitt said.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
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