AUTOMAKERS
Nissan profit jumps 14%
Japanese auto giant Nissan yesterday said its full-year net profit jumped 14 percent, boosted by a weaker yen, cost-cutting efforts and brisk sales. Japan’s second-biggest automaker said it earned ￥389 billion (US$3.8 billion) for the fiscal year to March, after sales rose 20 percent on the previous year to ￥10.48 trillion. The figures come after rival Toyota last week posted a record annual net profit of ￥1.82 trillion over the fiscal year to March, nearly doubling from a year earlier. For the current fiscal year, Nissan forecast slight gains in both profit and sales, projecting ￥405 billion in net profit and sales of ￥10.79 trillion in the year to March next year.
MANUFACTURING
Hitachi dims forecast
Hitachi Ltd unexpectedly forecast a drop in profit this year as the Japanese manufacturer projected declining revenue from its power and industrial systems businesses following a unit merger with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. Net income in the year ending in March may be ￥230 billion, the company said yesterday in a statement to the Tokyo Stock Exchange. That lagged behind the ￥310 billion average of 21 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Hitachi reported net income of ￥265 billion for the year ended in March, beating the ￥246.2 billion average estimate. Operating profit may increase 5.1 percent to ￥560 billion in the current fiscal year while sales may drop to ￥9.4 trillion from ￥9.6 trillion, the company said.
AIRLINES
Emirates snubs Qantas
Emirates is not planning to buy a stake in Australian airline Qantas, a report said yesterday, despite Australia moving to loosen foreign ownership restrictions on the struggling carrier. Canberra wants to alter ownership rules to allow greater foreign investment in the national airline, to help Qantas raise much-needed capital and put it on a more even footing with domestic competitors. However, Emirates chairman Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum said his company, the Middle East’s largest airline whose profits surged 43 percent last year, had no plans to buy a stake.
MERGERS
Group eyes packager Mauser
US private equity group Clayton, Dubilier and Rice (CD&R) yesterday said that it plans to acquire German packaging specialist Mauser for about 1.2 billion euros (US$1.7 billion). CD&R said in a statement that it expects to complete the transaction in the third quarter. With revenues last year of 1.2 billion euros, Mauser manufactures and supplies plastic and steel drums and intermediate bulk containers for the chemical, industrial and food and beverage industries, among others. It employs a workforce of 4,400 at 57 production facilities in 18 countries.
COFFEE
Vietnamese reserves plunge
Coffee sales by growers in Vietnam, the biggest producer of robusta beans used by Nestle SA, may slow after stockpiles slumped 54 percent from an all-time high. Unsold reserves shrank to 390,000 tonnes at the end of last month, or about 23 percent of the record 1.7 million tonne crop, according to the median of 10 trader and shipper estimates compiled by Bloomberg. That is less than 27 percent at the same time last year and the 25 percent average in the past five years, the survey shows. Inventories were 850,000 tonnes in the week ended March 7, a record for that time of year.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure
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