MANUFACTURING
Shoemaker resumes work
Yue Yuen Industrial Holdings Ltd (裕元), a Taiwanese-owned maker of shoes for clients including Adidas AG and Nike Inc, said production at its Dongguan factory in China has resumed fully after being disrupted by a strike that began on April 14. “All operations have returned to normal,” George Liu (劉鴻志), a Hong Kong-based spokesman for the manufacturer, said yesterday by telephone. All of the workers at the factory, which has about 45,000 employees, have returned to work, he said. Employees in Dongguan struck over benefits and pay for about 10 days. The stoppage cost Yue Yuen about US$27 million, including lost profit and additional air-freight costs, the Hong Kong-based company said on Friday last week. The settlement for the dispute will raise employee costs by about US$31 million this year, it said.
ENERGY
Alstom halts trading
French engineering group Alstom SA said on Sunday that it has suspended trading in its shares as expectations grew for a possible bidding war between industrial giants General Electric Co and Siemens AG. The announcement came after French President Francois Hollande held a special meeting with senior ministers to discuss the future of the beleaguered firm, once considered a jewel of French industry that has fallen on hard times. Germany’s Siemens earlier in the day said it wanted to discuss strategic opportunities with Alstom, which it pursued without success a decade ago, after reports that US giant GE was seeking to buy the company’s power generation arm.
ELECTRONICS
Philips, Gibson ink deal
Dutch technology company Royal Philips Electronics NV says it has struck a deal with music company Gibson Brands of the US to sell its audiovisual equipment business for US$135 million.
The companies said the deal makes sense as Gibson is big in Japan and the US, while Philips is strong in Europe, China and Latin America. The audiovisual equipment business employs about 1,900 people and makes home audio systems, headphones, speakers, portable audio and video players, media players, telephones and more. It turned a marginal US$4.1 million profit last year, on sales of US$1.3 billion.
REAL ESTATE
UK market uptick widens
Britain’s housing market recovery spread further beyond London this month as prices rose in more parts of England and Wales outside the capital than at any time over the last decade, a survey showed yesterday. Asking prices for houses in England and Wales rose 0.6 percent this month, the same pace as last month, according to the survey of estate agents and surveyors from Hometrack. The report showed 48 percent of postcode districts outside London reported rising house prices, the highest level since June 2004 and three times as high as a year ago.
ENERGY
BG Group CEO resigns
BG Group’s chief executive Chris Finlayson resigned yesterday as the British oil and gas major said production would be at the lower end of its target range this year due to problems in Egypt. The board said it accepted Finlayson’s resignation for personal reasons after just 16 months on the job. Non-executive chairman Andrew Gould would take over at the FTSE 100 firm with immediate effect until a new chief executive was appointed, BG Group said.
It was late morning and steam was rising from water tanks atop the colorful, but opaque-windowed, “soapland” sex parlors in a historic Tokyo red-light district. Walking through the narrow streets, camera in hand, was Beniko — a former sex worker who is trying to capture the spirit of the area once known as Yoshiwara through photography. “People often talk about this neighborhood having a ‘bad history,’” said Beniko, who goes by her nickname. “But the truth is that through the years people have lived here, made a life here, sometimes struggled to survive. I want to share that reality.” In its mid-17th to
‘MAKE OR BREAK’: Nvidia shares remain down more than 9 percent, but investors are hoping CEO Jensen Huang’s speech can stave off fears that the sales boom is peaking Shares in Nvidia Corp’s Taiwanese suppliers mostly closed higher yesterday on hopes that the US artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer would showcase next-generation technologies at its annual AI conference slated to open later in the day. The GPU Technology Conference (GTC) in California is to feature developers, engineers, researchers, inventors and information technology professionals, and would focus on AI, computer graphics, data science, machine learning and autonomous machines. The event comes at a make-or-break moment for the firm, as it heads into the next few quarters, with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s (黃仁勳) keynote speech today seen as having the ability to
NEXT GENERATION: The company also showcased automated machines, including a nursing robot called Nurabot, which is to enter service at a Taichung hospital this year Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) expects server revenue to exceed its iPhone revenue within two years, with the possibility of achieving this goal as early as this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) said on Tuesday at Nvidia Corp’s annual technology conference in San Jose, California. AI would be the primary focus this year for the company, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), as rapidly advancing AI applications are driving up demand for AI servers, Liu said. The production and shipment of Nvidia’s GB200 chips and the anticipated launch of GB300 chips in the second half of the year would propel
The battle for artificial intelligence supremacy hinges on microchips, but the semiconductor sector that produces them has a dirty secret: It is a major source of chemicals linked to cancer and other health problems. Global chip sales surged more than 19 percent to about US$628 billion last year, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association, which forecasts double-digit growth again this year. That is adding urgency to reducing the effects of “forever chemicals” — which are also used to make firefighting foam, nonstick pans, raincoats and other everyday items — as are regulators in the US and Europe who are beginning to
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