PETROLEUM
Shell reports profit slide
Royal Dutch Shell PLC yesterday reported a sharp drop in third-quarter profits on the back of low oil prices and a hefty US$8.2 billion charge, which included write-offs in Alaska and Canada. Third-quarter net income came in at US$1.8 billion, below analysts’ expectations of US$2.74 billion and 70 percent lower than the previous year. Shell’s oil and gas production division, known as upstream, swung to a loss for the first time in years. However, its downstream division benefited from weak prices to run refineries more profitably, with its net income reaching US$2.6 billion.
AVIATION
Air France triples Q3 profit
Air France-KLM Group yesterday said its third-quarter profit tripled to the highest level in at least a decade, spurred by strong summer sales, lower fuel prices and a lull in industrial action that hurt its figures in the previous year. Earnings before interest and tax rose to 898 million euros (US$980 million) from 247 million euros in the previous year, when a weeks-long pilot strike wiped 330 million euros from earnings, Europe’s biggest carrier said. Analysts had predicted a figure of 808 million euros, on average.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Sanofi cuts sales forecast
Sanofi, France’s biggest company by market value, cut its sales forecast for diabetes therapies in the next three years after demand for its best-selling Lantus insulin slumped. Diabetes sales are expected to drop by between 4 percent and 8 percent through 2018 at an average annualized rate and at constant exchange rates, the Paris-based company said yesterday. Net income rose to 2.1 billion euros, or 1.61 euros a share, from 1.94 billion euros, or 1.47 euros a share, a year earlier, the drugmaker said.
BANKING
Barclays cuts profit target
Barclays PLC cut its profitability target for next year after third-quarter profit dropped 10 percent, missing analysts’ estimates, hurt by a £290 million (US$443 million) compensation charge to customers related to foreign exchange. Pretax profit, including restructuring costs, fell to £1.43 billion from £1.59 billion in the same period in the previous year, the London-based bank said yesterday. The bank cut the target for its “core” return on equity, a measure of profitability, to 11 percent from 12 percent for next year because of restructuring costs.
CHEMICALS
Bayer beats profit estimates
Bayer AG, Germany’s biggest company by market value, posted third-quarter profit that beat analysts’ estimates as sales of the blood thinner Xarelto and eye treatment Eylea climbed. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, and excluding some costs, climbed 28 percent to 2.5 billion euros, the Leverkusen-based company said yesterday. That surpassed the 2.26 billion euro average estimate of 14 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
REAL ESTATE
British growth accelerates
British house price growth accelerated this month, according to a survey yesterday, another sign of renewed momentum in the housing market. Mortgage lender Nationwide said house prices rose 0.6 percent this month compared with a 0.5 percent increase last month. Economists polled by Reuters had expected 0.5 percent growth this month as well. House prices rose 3.9 percent year-on-year, up from the 3.8 percent annual increase last month.
CHIP WAR: Tariffs on Taiwanese chips would prompt companies to move their factories, but not necessarily to the US, unleashing a ‘global cross-sector tariff war’ US President Donald Trump would “shoot himself in the foot” if he follows through on his recent pledge to impose higher tariffs on Taiwanese and other foreign semiconductors entering the US, analysts said. Trump’s plans to raise tariffs on chips manufactured in Taiwan to as high as 100 percent would backfire, macroeconomist Henry Wu (吳嘉隆) said. He would “shoot himself in the foot,” Wu said on Saturday, as such economic measures would lead Taiwanese chip suppliers to pass on additional costs to their US clients and consumers, and ultimately cause another wave of inflation. Trump has claimed that Taiwan took up to
A start-up in Mexico is trying to help get a handle on one coastal city’s plastic waste problem by converting it into gasoline, diesel and other fuels. With less than 10 percent of the world’s plastics being recycled, Petgas’ idea is that rather than letting discarded plastic become waste, it can become productive again as fuel. Petgas developed a machine in the port city of Boca del Rio that uses pyrolysis, a thermodynamic process that heats plastics in the absence of oxygen, breaking it down to produce gasoline, diesel, kerosene, paraffin and coke. Petgas chief technology officer Carlos Parraguirre Diaz said that in
SUPPORT: The government said it would help firms deal with supply disruptions, after Trump signed orders imposing tariffs of 25 percent on imports from Canada and Mexico The government pledged to help companies with operations in Mexico, such as iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), shift production lines and investment if needed to deal with higher US tariffs. The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday announced measures to help local firms cope with the US tariff increases on Canada, Mexico, China and other potential areas. The ministry said that it would establish an investment and trade service center in the US to help Taiwanese firms assess the investment environment in different US states, plan supply chain relocation strategies and
WASHINGTON POLICY: Tariffs of 10 percent or more and other new costs are tipped to hit shipments of small parcels, cutting export growth by 1.3 percentage points The decision by US President Donald Trump to ban Chinese companies from using a US tariff loophole would hit tens of billions of dollars of trade and reduce China’s economic growth this year, according to new estimates by economists at Nomura Holdings Inc. According to Nomura’s estimates, last year companies such as Shein (希音) and PDD Holdings Inc’s (拼多多控股) Temu shipped US$46 billion of small parcels to the US to take advantage of the rule that allows items with a declared value under US$800 to enter the US tariff-free. Tariffs of 10 percent or more and other new costs would slash such