CLOTHING
Makalot profits surge
Makalot Industrial Co (聚陽), a diversified garment manufacturer that counts global brands and major clothing retailers among its customers, on Friday said that its pretax profits for the first five months of the year totaled NT$884 million (US$29.28 million). The figure represents a 25.47 percent increase from the profits Makalot reported in the same period last year. With 170 million outstanding shares, the company’s pretax profit for the first five months translated into earnings per share of NT$5.2, marking a rise from the NT$4.18 per share that it earned a year earlier. The clothing manufacturer’s cumulative revenue from January through last month totaled NT$8.08 billion, representing a 16.62 percent year-on-year rise, Makalot said.
PHARMACEUTICALS
OBI cancer trials nearly done
OBI Pharma Inc (台灣浩鼎) is expected to soon completed data collection for phase-three clinical trials of a new breast cancer drug, OBI-822, the drug manufacturer told shareholders on Friday. OBI Pharma is likely to publish the results of the trials in the next six to nine months, chairman Michael Chang (張念慈) said at an annual general meeting. In February, the company said it plans to file for a permit to sell OBI-822 locally in 2016 and in the US in 2018, with plans to launch the cancer drug in the US, Taiwan and China on its own, but with a partner in Europe and Japan. General manager Amy Huang (黃秀美) also reiterated the pharmaceutical firm’s plans to shift its listing to the GRETAI Securities Market from the Emerging Stock Market by the end of this year. The company has not yet filed an application with regulators to get approval for the change.
US SANCTIONS: The Taiwan tech giant has ended all shipments to China-based Sophgo Technologies after one of their chips was discovered in a Huawei phone Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) suspended shipments to China-based chip designer Sophgo Technologies Ltd (算能科技) after a chip it made was found on a Huawei Technologies Co (華為) artificial intelligence (AI) processor, according to two people familiar with the matter. Sophgo had ordered chips from TSMC that matched the one found on Huawei’s Ascend 910B, the people said. Huawei is restricted from buying the technology to protect US national security. Reuters could not determine how the chip ended up on the Huawei product. Sophgo said in a statement on its Web site yesterday that it was in compliance with all laws
SPEED OF LIGHT: US lawmakers urged the commerce department to examine the national security threats from China’s development of silicon photonics technology US President Joe Biden’s administration on Monday said it is finalizing rules that would limit US investments in artificial intelligence (AI) and other technology sectors in China that could threaten US national security. The rules, which were proposed in June by the US Department of the Treasury, were directed by an executive order signed by Biden in August last year covering three key sectors: semiconductors and microelectronics, quantum information technologies and certain AI systems. The rules are to take effect on Jan. 2 next year and would be overseen by the Treasury’s newly created Office of Global Transactions. The Treasury said the “narrow
TECH TITANS: Nvidia briefly overtook Apple again on Friday after becoming the world’s largest company for a short period in June, as Microsoft fell to third place Nvidia Corp dethroned Apple Inc as the world’s most valuable company on Friday following a record-setting rally in the stock, powered by insatiable demand for its specialized artificial intelligence (AI) chips. Nvidia’s stock market value briefly touched US$3.53 trillion, slightly above Apple’s US$3.52 trillion, London Stock Exchange Group data showed. Nvidia ended the day up 0.8 percent, with a market value of US$3.47 trillion, while Apple’s shares rose 0.4 percent, valuing the iPhone maker at US$3.52 trillion. In June, Nvidia briefly became the world’s most valuable company before it was overtaken by Microsoft Corp and Apple. The tech trio’s market capitalizations have been
Two scoops of pistachio, one of corruption. For years holidaymakers have guzzled Sicilian gelato at famous parlors in Palermo, unaware that the booming businesses were controlled by organized crime. The fraud was a textbook case for detectives trained to sniff out dirty money, but even with three mobster classics — a suspicious bankruptcy, a front man and a scheming “Godfather” — it took years for investigators to shut the operation down. The Brioscia brand, made up of two ice cream parlors, was thriving at the end of the 2010s, attracting locals and foreign visitors alike with its glittering gold stars on travel