ACQUISITIONS
Expedia to buy HomeAway
Travel booking Web site Expedia Inc on Wednesday said it is buying short-term rental marketplace HomeAway Inc for US$3.9 billion to boost its presence in the vacation rental market. The company said it is to pay about US$38.31 in cash and stock for each HomeAway share. Both companies’ boards have approved the deal, which they expect to close next year. HomeAway has more than 1 million paid listings of vacation rental homes in 190 natons. Expedia’s portfolio also includes Hotels.com, Orbitz and Travelocity.
MACROECONOMICS
Yellen signals US rate hike
US Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen on Wednesday said an interest rate hike next month is a “live possibility” if the US economy stays on track. Yellen described the economy as “performing well” right now, with solid growth in domestic spending. At their meeting last week, policymakers believed that the threat of global headwinds had ebbed, Yellen said. Meanwhile, US Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William Dudley said at a separate appearance on Wednesday that he was in full agreement that December was a “live possibility and we will see what the data shows.”
REAL ESTATE
UK house prices rise 1.1%
British house prices rose last month, according to Halifax, which said a shortage of properties for sale might put further upward pressure on values in the coming months. The average cost of a home gained 1.1 percent from the previous month to ￡205,240 (US$315,793), the mortgage lender said yesterday. Prices rose 10 percent year-on-year, while they advanced 2.8 percent in the quarter through last month.
MACROECONOMICS
German factory orders slide
German factory orders unexpectedly extended a series of declines in September amid a slump in demand for investment goods in the eurozone, highlighting increasing risks for Europe’s largest economy. Orders, adjusted for seasonal swings and inflation, fell 1.7 percent from August, when they dropped 1.8 percent, Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy data showed yesterday. That is the third consecutive decrease and compares with a median estimate of a 1 percent gain in a Bloomberg survey. Orders declined 1 percent from a year earlier.
RETAIL
Adidas raises sales target
Adidas AG raised its full-year sales and profit targets yesterday as strong demand for its Adidas and Reebok brands powered a strong third-quarter performance. In the July-to-September period, net profit rose by 10.4 percent to 311 million euros (US$338 million). Underlying or operating profit was up 26.5 percent at 505 million euros on a 17.7-percent increase in sales to 4.758 billion euros. The group now expects sales to increase at a high-single-digit rate this year, or between 6 and 9 percent, Adidas said
CREDIT RATINGS
Moody’s cuts VW to ‘A3’
Volkswagen’s credit rating was cut by Moody’s by one notch to “A3” on Wednesday as the toll on the German automaker grew over its cheating on emissions. While Moody’s said Volkswagen had the financial strength to survive what could cost the company many billions of dollars in fines and compensation, it said the company’s reputation and earnings were at risk.
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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