CHINA
Japanese firm fined
China’s antitrust regulator fined bearing maker NSK Ltd ￥2.9 billion (US$28 million) for violating rules, the first Japanese company to be punished amid an industry-wide probe into pricing practices. NSK said it is cooperating fully with the investigation by China’s National Development and Reform Commission into its transactions and would make a further disclosure if the fine has any impact on its full-year forecasts, the Tokyo-based company said yesterday in a statement to the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The commission said this month that it had completed an investigation into 12 Japanese companies and will punish violators.
INSURANCE
Fosun eyes Swiss Re unit
Hong Kong-listed Fosun International Ltd (復星國際) is in talks to buy a Swiss Re AG US life insurance arm in a possible US$400 million to US$500 million deal, Bloomberg reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. However, a deal to buy the company, Aurora National Life Assurance Co, had not yet been reached and could still fall through, the news agency said, citing sources. Fosun International is the parent company of Fosun Group, backed by Chinese billionaire Guo Guangchang (郭廣昌).
SHIPPING
Maersk upgrades outlook
A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S raised its full-year profit forecast after the company’s container-shipping line, the world’s largest, said earnings are rising because of higher freight volumes and lower costs. Earnings excluding discontinued operations, impairment losses and divestment gains are expected to total US$4.5 billion, compared with a previous forecast of US$4 billion, Copenhagen-based Maersk said yesterday in a statement. Maersk Line said this year’s profits would be significantly above last year’s result of US$1.5 billion.
AVIATION
Skymark soars on rumor
Skymark Airlines shares soared yesterday after a report said Malaysia’s AirAsia was eyeing the struggling Japanese carrier, but both firms dismissed the story, with AirAsia’s chief executive Tony Fernandes saying he had “never seen such rubbish.” The Tokyo-listed stock jumped 27.77 percent to finish at ￥230, its maximum allowable single-day gain, on the report in Japan’s leading Nikkei business daily. The report said AirAsia was in talks with its lenders over a possible bid for Skymark.
ECONOMY
UK pay gap widens: report
The heads of Britain’s largest companies earned 143 times as much as their average employee last year, a study said on Monday, exposing the growing pay gap between bosses and workers. The wage divide has nearly tripled since 1998, when the average chief executive of firms in the FTSE 100 earned 47 times as much as staff, the report found. The largest pay gap was at mining group Randgold Resources, where boss Mark Bristow was paid ￡4.4 million (US$7.36 million) last year — 1,500 as much as his average employee.
INTERNET
Google buys Jetpac startup
Google Inc confirmed on Monday it has bought the startup behind Jetpac, an app that creates travel guides by analyzing pictures from social networks such as Instagram. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Jetpac said that its application would be removed from Apple’s online App Store in the days ahead. The company was founded about three years ago and is based in San Francisco.
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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