CHINA
Shadow banks targeted
Underground banks did more than 1 trillion yuan (US$152 billion) in transactions last year and the government will step up efforts to combat the problem this year, state media said yesterday citing the foreign exchange regulator. Zhang Shenghui (張生會), head of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange’s inspection division, told Xinhua news agency his department last year had participated in breaking up more than 60 underground banks suspected of doing more than 1 trillion yuan in transactions. The regulator will also demand that above-board banks increase their oversight of any suspicious activities, and will also look more closely at securities, insurance and third-party payments providers, Zhang added.
MINING
Rio Tinto mulls partner
Rio Tinto Group chief executive officer Sam Walsh said finding a Chinese partner to help fund the company’s US$1.9 billion bauxite project in Australia is one of many options under consideration, the Australian reported yesterday. Rio would retain a majority interest in the project, Walsh told the newspaper in an interview. Other options under consideration include third-party leasing of “some parts of equipment,” Walsh said. The company first highlighted interest from China in the project, near Weipa in the state of Queensland, in November last year.
SMARTPHONES
New iPhone due next month
Apple Inc is on target to introduce its next iPhone and iPad models on March 15, and aims to start selling the devices in the same week, technology blog 9to5Mac reported, citing sources. Apple, which is to introduce a new 4-inch iPhone, dubbed the “iPhone 5se,” and a new iPad Air at a launch event, is unlikely to take pre-orders for the new devices, the blog reported. The new 4-inch iPhone 5se is designed to spur iPhone hardware upgrades for customer seeking faster devices without upgrading to the far larger iPhone 6S and 6S Plus screen sizes. Apple could not be immediately reached for comment.
STEELMAKERS
Thyssenkrupp suffers loss
Thyssenkrupp AG, Germany’s largest steelmaker, swung to a net loss in the fiscal first quarter as the industry reeled from a slide in prices wrought by record Chinese exports. The net loss was 23 million euros (US$26 million) in the three months through Dec. 31, last year, compared with net income of 50 million euros a year earlier, the company said on Friday. Adjusted earnings before interest and taxes declined 26 percent to 234 million euros, just missing the 239.6 million-euro average of 11 estimates compiled by Bloomberg. The company reiterated a full-year profit target of 1.6 billion to 1.9 billion euros.
FRANCE
Court to try Facebook
A French court ruled on Friday that a case against Facebook Inc over a painting of a nude woman can be tried in France, rejecting Facebook’s argument that it is governed by Californian law. Facebook blocked the account of a French professor and art lover after he uploaded a picture of Gustave Courbet’s 1866 canvas The Origin of the World, which shows a close-up view of female genitals. The Paris Appeal Court’s decision upheld a lower court ruling in March last year that a clause in Facebook’s terms of agreement signed by users was “abusive” in reserving exclusive rights to a California court to hear disputes.
BANKING
Moynihan given US$16m
Bank of America Corp awarded chief executive officer Brian Moynihan US$16 million for his work last year, raising his potential compensation 23 percent. Moynihan received US$14.5 million in stock grants for last year and left his salary unchanged at US$1.5 million, according to a regulatory filing on Friday. A year earlier, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank gave the CEO of the second-biggest US bank a US$13 million pay package. Half of what the bank granted Moynihan for last year is in the form of stock linked to performance over a three-year period through 2018, according to the filing.
FINANCE
Grupo plans job cuts
Grupo BTG Pactual SA, the Brazilian investment bank that sought rescue financing after the arrest of its founder, is planning to announce more job cuts, this time in London and some Latin America countries excluding Brazil, said people familiar with the matter. The Sao Paulo-based bank, which fired 305 of its 1,653-person workforce in Brazil and made cuts at the New York office on Jan. 28, will reduce bonuses to executives this year and pay them in two tranches: 30 percent in February and 70 percent in November, the people said. The announcements of the job cuts and change on the bonus payments may happen on Feb. 22, some of the people said.
ANGOLA
S&P downgrades rating
Standard & Poor’s (S&P) on Friday cut Angola’s credit rating one notch to “B” due to the impact of low crude prices on the oil-exporting African nation, as well as the slump in its currency. The credit ratings agency said the prospect of low oil prices continuing for the next couple of years would impair “Angola’s external flows and stocks, government debt stocks and the pace of economic growth given the country’s dependence on the oil sector.” S&P said the outlook is stable on the “B” rating, a speculative grade considered as an undesirable investment with little assurance of payment over any long period of time.
EUROZONE
Lose 500-euro note: ministers
Europe’s 500-euro note is so tainted by its association with money laundering, the black market and terrorist financing it should be withdrawn from circulation, EU finance ministers said on Friday. The colorful violet 500-euro note is the largest eurozone unit, but Europol, the EU’s police agency, has long suspected that criminals find it a useful way of moving large sums of money around without the authorities knowing. The 500-euro note accounts for 3 percent of the total euro notes in circulation, but represents 28 percent by value, according to European Central Bank data.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Glaxo fined US$54.3 million
GlaxoSmithKline PLC was fined ￡37.6 million (US$54.3 million) by the UK’s antitrust watchdog over pay-for-delay deals that held back sales of cheaper, generic versions of its anti-depressant Seroxat. The London-based drugmaker colluded with other companies from 2001 to 2004 by agreeing to make payments “and other value transfers totaling more than ￡50 million to suppliers of generic versions of paroxetine,” the Competition and Markets Authority said on Friday. Glaxo said in a statement that the company is considering its grounds for appeal. Mylan NV and German drugmaker Merck KGaA were also fined a total of ￡5.8 million as part of the probe.
The Eurovision Song Contest has seen a surge in punter interest at the bookmakers, becoming a major betting event, experts said ahead of last night’s giant glamfest in Basel. “Eurovision has quietly become one of the biggest betting events of the year,” said Tomi Huttunen, senior manager of the Online Computer Finland (OCS) betting and casino platform. Betting sites have long been used to gauge which way voters might be leaning ahead of the world’s biggest televised live music event. However, bookmakers highlight a huge increase in engagement in recent years — and this year in particular. “We’ve already passed 2023’s total activity and
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) today announced that his company has selected "Beitou Shilin" in Taipei for its new Taiwan office, called Nvidia Constellation, putting an end to months of speculation. Industry sources have said that the tech giant has been eyeing the Beitou Shilin Science Park as the site of its new overseas headquarters, and speculated that the new headquarters would be built on two plots of land designated as "T17" and "T18," which span 3.89 hectares in the park. "I think it's time for us to reveal one of the largest products we've ever built," Huang said near the
China yesterday announced anti-dumping duties as high as 74.9 percent on imports of polyoxymethylene (POM) copolymers, a type of engineering plastic, from Taiwan, the US, the EU and Japan. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce’s findings conclude a probe launched in May last year, shortly after the US sharply increased tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, computer chips and other imports. POM copolymers can partially replace metals such as copper and zinc, and have various applications, including in auto parts, electronics and medical equipment, the Chinese ministry has said. In January, it said initial investigations had determined that dumping was taking place, and implemented preliminary
Intel Corp yesterday reinforced its determination to strengthen its partnerships with Taiwan’s ecosystem partners including original-electronic-manufacturing (OEM) companies such as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and chipmaker United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電). “Tonight marks a new beginning. We renew our new partnership with Taiwan ecosystem,” Intel new chief executive officer Tan Lip-bu (陳立武) said at a dinner with representatives from the company’s local partners, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the US chip giant’s presence in Taiwan. Tan took the reins at Intel six weeks ago aiming to reform the chipmaker and revive its past glory. This is the first time Tan
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