RAILWAYS
Eurostar stake to be sold
The UK government on Monday officially launched an attempt to sell its 40 percent stake in Eurostar, the high-speed rail service connecting London with Paris and Brussels. It forms part of the state’s plan to recoup ￡20 billion (US$32.2 billion) from asset sales by 2020 to help bring down the nation’s debt pile. The Treasury said it “would expect to reach definitive agreements in the first quarter of 2015” over the sale, ahead of a general election that is due soon after. Eurostar is also 55 percent owned by French rail operator SNCF and 5 percent by Belgium’s SNCB. The train service has carried more than 145 million passengers in its 20 years of existence, and 10 million alone last year, the Treasury said. There are concerns also that the government could offload the stake at a price deemed too cheap, in a repetition of last year’s part-privatisation of Britain’s Royal Mail postal service.
AVIATION
Garuda orders 50 planes
Indonesian flag carrier Garuda has placed an order for 50 planes worth almost US$5 billion, as competition heats up for passengers in Asia’s increasingly crowded skies, US plane giant Boeing said. Garuda ordered 46 of Boeing’s new 737 MAX 8 jets and is converting existing orders for four 737-800s to 737 MAX 8s, the plane manufacturer said. The purchase is worth US$4.9 billion at current list prices, although airlines typically receive large discounts for big orders. The announcement marks the latest phase in an impressive turnaround for the airline.
AUTOMAKERS
China sales rise 6.4 percent
Passenger-vehicle sales in China rose 6.4 percent last month as the government resumed subsidizing purchases of fuel-efficient vehicles. Wholesale deliveries of cars, multipurpose and sports utility vehicles climbed to 1.69 million units last month, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said yesterday. For the first nine months of this year, sales rose 10 percent to 14.2 million. China’s government restarted subsidies last month for purchases of fuel-efficient cars, or vehicles that consume less than 5.9 liters of gasoline per 100km, after local automakers lost market share to overseas-based brands for 12 consecutive months. Of the brands approved for the 3,000 yuan (US$489) subsidy, about 60 percent are local, according to the government. General Motors Co, which counts China as its largest market, earlier this month said that its sales in the nation rose 15 percent last month. Toyota Motor Corp, the world’s largest carmaker, increased sales by 26 percent to 91,100 vehicles, while Nissan Motor Co and Honda Motor Co deliveries slumped 20 percent and 23 percent respectively during the month.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Steris offers to buy Synergy
Medical Technology provider Steris Corp said it was offered to buy British sterilisation services provider Synergy Health for about US$1.9 billion in cash and stock to expand its footprint in Europe. Steris said it would set up a new company to undertake the acquisition. It offered to pay Synergy Health shareholders ￡4.39 per share in cash and 0.43 shares in the new company. Synergy shareholders are expected to hold a 30 percent stake in the new company, while Steris stockholders plan to hold the remaining 70 percent. The new company is expected to have a combined revenue of about US$2.6 billion and employ about 14,000 people in 60 countries, the two companies said.
NEW IDENTITY: Known for its software, India has expanded into hardware, with its semiconductor industry growing from US$38bn in 2023 to US$45bn to US$50bn India on Saturday inaugurated its first semiconductor assembly and test facility, a milestone in the government’s push to reduce dependence on foreign chipmakers and stake a claim in a sector dominated by China. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened US firm Micron Technology Inc’s semiconductor assembly, test and packaging unit in his home state of Gujarat, hailing the “dawn of a new era” for India’s technology ambitions. “When young Indians look back in the future, they will see this decade as the turning point in our tech future,” Modi told the event, which was broadcast on his YouTube channel. The plant would convert
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Property transactions in the nation’s six special municipalities plunged last month, as a lengthy Lunar New Year holiday combined with ongoing credit tightening dampened housing market activity, data compiled by local land administration offices released on Monday showed. The six cities recorded a total of 10,480 property transfers last month, down 42.5 percent from January and marking the second-lowest monthly level on record, the data showed. “The sharp drop largely reflected seasonal factors and tighter credit conditions,” Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) deputy research manager Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday fell in February this year, reducing
New vehicle sales in Taiwan plunged about 37 percent sequentially last month as the long Lunar New Year holiday and 228 Peace Memorial Day holiday cut short the number of working days, along with the lingering uncertainty over import tax cuts on US vehicles, market researcher U-Car said in a report yesterday. New car sales last month totaled 22,043, slumping from 35,073 units in January and down 19.89 percent from 37,515 in February last year, U-Car data showed. Sales of imported luxury cars, led by Mercedes-Benz, plummeted about 45 percent to 3,109 units last month from 5,663 units in the previous month,
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