ADVERTISING
Dentsu president resigns
The president of Dentsu Inc, Japan’s largest advertising agency, is to step down over the “death by overwork” of a young employee, a suicide that has prompted official probes and fresh hand-wringing over Japan’s overtime culture. Matsuri Takahashi, a promising graduate of Japan’s top university, leapt to her death in December last year, leaving behind a trail of grievances over relentless days. She clocked 105 hours of overtime in October last year, before becoming depressed. “It is extremely regrettable that we could not prevent overwork by a new recruit,” Dentsu president Tadashi Ishii told a news conference. “In order to take full responsibility, I would like to resign as president at a board meeting in January.”
ELECTRONICS
Toshiba falls on writedown
Toshiba Corp’s impending multibillion-dollar writedown has triggered one of the worst-ever share declines for a major Japanese company, with ratings downgrades and investor pessimism erasing almost all of its 87 percent rally this year. Shares in the electronics and industrial conglomerate fell 17 percent to ￥259 at the close yesterday. Toshiba said it may write down billions of US dollars of an acquisition made by US unit Westinghouse Electric, fueling a share decline this week that has wiped out about ￥800 billion (US$6.8 billion) in market value. Moody’s Investors Service, Rating and Investment Information Inc and S&P Global Ratings all responded by cutting Toshiba’s credit ratings.
TECHNOLOGY
Oculus acquires Eye Tribe
Facebook Inc’s Oculus has acquired The Eye Tribe, a company that tracks eye movement in virtual reality to improve the experience. Oculus confirmed the acquisition of the Copenhagen-based startup, without stating a price. Eye Tribe is the latest in a series of tech acquisitions this year for Oculus. Facebook is especially interested in eye tracking because the company wants to take the lead in social interactions in VR. The ability to follow eye movement makes it easier to understand people’s expressions and let them communicate effectively with each other in a virtual world.
AIRLINES
Qatar buys LATAM
Qatar Airways Co on Wednesday bought a 10 percent stake in LATAM Airlines Group, the largest airline in Latin America, the Chilean-Brazilian company said. The investment, first announced in July, amounts to 60.8 million shares at a price of US$10 each, LATAM said in a statement. The airline — the product of a 2012 merger between Chile’s LAN and Brazil’s TAM — said Qatar’s arrival as a stakeholder “represents a unique opportunity to develop a long-term relationship and explore new opportunities to connect with Asia and the Middle East.”
IVORY COAST
Two power stations planned
Ivory Coast is to build two 350 megawatt (MW) charcoal power stations in the western cocoa town of San Pedro by 2021 to address growing national demand for electricity, the government said on Wednesday. Government spokesman Bruno Kone told reporters in Abidjan that one plant was scheduled for completion in 2020 and the second in 2021. He did not say how much they would cost, but did say that the Ivorian firm S.Energies would have to raise money for the project. With rising electricity demand, the Ivorian government is pushing for investments to double output to 4,000 MW by 2020.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS