TOBACCO
P&H enters administration
Britain’s biggest cigarette wholesaler, Palmer & Harvey (P&H), on Tuesday collapsed into administration, with about 2,500 staff facing redundancy, its administrator PwC announced. The 90-year-old company, which also provides alcohol, groceries and frozen food to 90,000 retail accounts failed in attempts to secure a buyer. The firm, which employs about 3,400 people, last month held exclusive takeover talks with Carlyle Group, but the US private equity fund’s offer of a significant capital investment in exchange for a controlling stake did not progress. PwC confirmed P&H would immediately shed 2,500 jobs at the firm’s head office in Hove, England, and branch network, with the 900 remaining staff still at risk.
MEXICO
Bank deputy gets top job
President Enrique Pena Nieto on Tuesday named Bank of Mexico Deputy Governor Alejandro Diaz de Leon to head the bank. Analysts said the US-trained policymaker would likely continue the hawkish policies of Agustin Carstens, who is leaving tomorrow to head the Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland. Diaz de Leon, 47, has a master’s degree in public policy from Yale University and joined the central bank in 1991. He has also worked at the Secretariat of Finance and Public Credit and the nation’s Development Bank for International Trade, the presidential office said in a statement.
AUTOMAKERS
Hyundai production resumes
Hyundai Motor’s workers at a plant in Ulsan, South Korea, have resumed production after a walkout on two assembly lines, the company and the union said yesterday. Workers late on Tuesday returned to the plant after nearly 2,000 workers, or 4 percent of the company’s 51,000 union members, stopped work on Monday after talks collapsed over the terms for producing the Kona compact sports utility vehicle. The talks have resumed, Hyundai said. The walkout delayed production of about 1,200 vehicles, it added. The Kona is due to launch in the US early next year. The union is concerned that workers might lose jobs because the assembly process for the Kona is more automated than for the Accent, a sedan also manufactured at the Ulsan plant.
CHIPMAKERS
Marvell posts strong results
Chipmaker Marvell Technology Group Ltd forecast strong results for the current quarter while delivering higher-than-expected earnings and revenue for the third quarter, boosted by robust demand for its networking and connectivity chips. Shares of Bermuda-domiciled Marvell rose 2 percent in after-market trading to US$23.75. The results come days after Marvell said it would buy Cavium Inc for about US$6 billion, seeking to expand its wireless connectivity chip business. Marvell expects adjusted earnings of US$0.29 to US$0.33 per share and revenue of US$595 million to US$625 million in the quarter ending in January.
TECHNOLOGY
Microsoft to revamp HQ
Microsoft Corp is planning a multibillion-US dollar overhaul of its main campus in Redmond, Washington, adding space for 8,000 workers and creating areas for collaboration and recreation as it tries to keep up with growth in hiring and trends toward more open office spaces. The five to seven-year plan is to knock down 12 low-rise buildings and replace them with 18 new buildings, many of them double the height, president Brad Smith said.
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).
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