RETAIL
Beitou Costco to open
US company Costco Wholesale Co will open a new store in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投) on Saturday next week, its second outlet in Taipei and the 12th in Taiwan. Richard Chang (張嗣漢), senior vice president of Costco Wholesale in Asia, said the new Beitou store, with NT$1 billion (US$31 million) in investment, is aimed at reducing the client overload at the company’s Neihu outlet, while targeting consumers living in the Tamsui (淡水), Zhuwei (竹圍) and Guandu (關渡) areas. Costco opened its first outlet in Taiwan in 1997.
EMPLOYMENT
Tech, medicine lead
Technology, medicine and consumer-related businesses will dominate the job market this year, while younger and female employees are increasingly filling middle and high-ranking executive positions for the past two years, an online recruitment agency 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) said yesterday. Consumer-oriented establishments supply 27 percent of jobs, followed by technology firms at 25 percent and medicine and health at 18 percent, 104 vice president Jason Chin (晉麗明) told a media briefing. People aged between 30 and 39 filled 47.4 percent of executive positions last year, from 34.5 percent in 2013, the job bank said.
CEMENT
Asia Cement plans dividend
Asia Cement Corp (亞洲水泥) yesterday said its board plans to distribute a cash dividend of NT$1.1 per share based on last year’s earnings per share of NT$1.55, equivalent to a payout ratio of 70.97 percent. The Far Eastern Group (遠東集團) subsidiary reported net profit of NT$4.93 billion for last year, down 54.75 percent from NT$10.91 billion in 2014. Affected by weak downstream demand and persistent oversupply in China, Asia Cement’s consolidated revenue fell to NT$66.29 billion last year from NT$77.68 billion a year ago.
FOODSTUFFS
Wei Chuan loses NT$1.92bn
Wei Chuan Foods Corp (味全食品) yesterday said net loss increased from NT$304 million in 2014 to NT$1.91 billion last year, with losses per share expanding from NT$0.24 to NT$3.78, the worst since 2000. Total revenue last year fell almost 20 percent to NT$20.05 billion, as major products encountered a serious boycott by customers due to the cooking oil scandal at its former biggest shareholder, Ting Hsin International Group (頂新集團). The company said it would not pay a dividend.
HOSPITALITY
FX Hotels loses NT$149m
FX Hotels Group Inc (富驛酒店集團), which manages more than 40 directly operated and franchise hotels in Taiwan and China, incurred losses of NT$149 million, or losses of NT$3.91 per share, for last year because the hotelier shut down unprofitable outlets and recognized bad debts from operation losses in China. In 2014, FX Hotels posted a record profit of NT$59.02 million, or NT$1.55 per share. The hotelier, which faced overdue accounts receivables at some Chinese corporate customers, closed two hotels in Tianjin and Beijing.
CONSTRUCTION
Shining net income plunges
Taichung-based Shining Building Business Co (鄉林建設) on Wednesday reported NT$225 million in net income for last year, or earnings of NT$0.25 per share. That was a significant slowdown from net profit of NT$1.1 billion in 2014, or NT$1.37 per share, a year earlier. The builder attributed the retreat to accounting rule changes under which developers cannot recognize income from projects until they are completed.
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
Popular vape brands such as Geek Bar might get more expensive in the US — if you can find them at all. Shipments of vapes from China to the US ground to a near halt last month from a year ago, official data showed, hit by US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and a crackdown on unauthorized e-cigarettes in the world’s biggest market for smoking alternatives. That includes Geek Bar, a brand of flavored vapes that is not authorized to sell in the US, but which had been widely available due to porous import controls. One retailer, who asked not to be named, because
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce
STILL LOADED: Last year’s richest person, Quanta Computer Inc chairman Barry Lam, dropped to second place despite an 8 percent increase in his wealth to US$12.6 billion Staff writer, with CNA Daniel Tsai (蔡明忠) and Richard Tsai (蔡明興), the brothers who run Fubon Group (富邦集團), topped the Forbes list of Taiwan’s 50 richest people this year, released on Wednesday in New York. The magazine said that a stronger New Taiwan dollar pushed the combined wealth of Taiwan’s 50 richest people up 13 percent, from US$174 billion to US$197 billion, with 36 of the people on the list seeing their wealth increase. That came as Taiwan’s economy grew 4.6 percent last year, its fastest pace in three years, driven by the strong performance of the semiconductor industry, the magazine said. The Tsai
RSS