BANKING
Credit Suisse’s income falls
Credit Suisse Group AG reported third-quarter profit that missed analyst estimates because of a loss in the investment bank and a bigger-than-expected drop in private banking and wealth management. Net income decreased 24 percent to 779 million Swiss francs (US$815 million) from 1.03 billion francs a year earlier, the Zurich-based company said in a statement yesterday. The investment bank posted a pretax loss of 125 million Swiss francs, contributing to a year-on-year decline in return-on-equity to 7.1 percent from 9.7 percent in the third quarter.
MONETARY POLICY
Spain eases austerity
Spain’s lower house on Tuesday approved a budget for next year designed to ease some spending restrictions after years of austerity, ahead of legislative elections due on Dec. 20. The budget provides for increases of 9.3 percent for education, 3.6 percent for health and 7.6 percent for culture, as well as a rise of 0.25 percent in state pensions and a 1 percent boost in pay for civil servants, who will also receive bonuses for the first time since 2010. The conservative government of Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy described the budget as a reward for five years of belt-tightening after growth resumed last year.
AUTOMAKERS
Honda touts self-driving car
Honda Motor Co said it would put a commercialized self-driving car on the road by 2020, challenging rivals Toyota Motor Corp and Nissan Motor Co. The car, a modified Lexus GS, uses sophisticated sensors to navigate roads, merge lanes and overtake other vehicles. It can also scan for available parking spaces, alert drivers when one is spotted and then parallel park on command. Honda and General Motors Co are considering expanding the scope of cooperation in research and development to include self-driving technologies and other areas, a Honda spokesman said yesterday.
RESTAURANTS
Yum plans China spin-off
Yum Brands Inc, the owner of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, plans to spin off its China business into a separate, publicly traded company, after cutting its profit outlook for the year earlier this month. The Louisville, Kentucky-based company said on Tuesday that it believes the China business, which will be called Yum China after the separation and headquartered in Shanghai, could grow from its current 6,900 restaurants to more than 20,000 restaurants in the future. The remaining Yum Brands business will concentrate part of its efforts on becoming more of a franchisor. The separation of the businesses is expected to be complete by the end of next year.
MOTORCYCLES
Harley hit by US sales slump
A slowdown in US sales of Harley-Davidson’s iconic motorcycles hit third-quarter earnings and sent its shares skidding to a nearly three-year low on Tuesday. The company said it would lay off a part of its 6,500 workforce as its tries to strengthen marketing both domestically and internationally. In the third quarter, Harley sold 72,178 new motorcycles, more than 1,000 fewer than a year ago, with all of the decline in US sales. For the first nine months of the year, bike sales were down more than 3,000 units to 217,770. That turned into a 6.5 percent fall in net income, to US$140 million, for the third quarter and a 7.8 percent decline to US$710 million for the first nine months.
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).
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
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