SOCIAL ENTERPRISES
Oxford to offer support
After decades of incubating science and engineering companies, the University of Oxford yesterday announced it is branching out to support businesses that put people before profit, seeking to maximize the effects of its academic research on the world. The university is launching a program to support social enterprises, which aim to benefit society or the environment, as well as turn a profit, through its Oxford University Innovation arm. Britain is seen as a world leader in the social enterprise sector, with 100,000 companies employing 2 million workers — as many people as its creative industries — according to Social Enterprise UK.
RETAIL
Web community to up hype
Debenhams PLC is leveraging an online community of beauty-product enthusiasts to drum up foot traffic, the latest effort by the struggling UK retailer to improve business and fend off threats from Amazon.com Inc and other digital-first competitors. Debenhams launched an online social platform called the Beauty Club Community, where shoppers can talk and get advice from other members. As they post on the platform, users earn points that can be used to get discounts on beauty products online or in stores. Products that get a lot of buzz online would also be featured in the physical store.
FINANCE
Nomura hires fintech head
Nomura Holdings Inc this month hired investment banker Sean Minnihan to focus on its financial technology advisory business. Minnihan joined the Tokyo-based company’s US investment banking unit, Nomura Securities International Inc, as a managing director based in New York, a bank representative said. He was a managing director and head of financial technology with GCA Advisors LLC, a US brokerage and advisory division of the Japanese investment bank GCA Corp. Minnihan previously worked at UBS Group AG, Bank of America Corp and Goldman Sachs Group Inc, US Financial Industry Regulatory Authority data showed.
TOBACCO
British American taps CEO
British American Tobacco PLC picked Jack Bowles to become its new chief executive officer when Nicandro Durante steps down next year. Bowles, currently chief operating officer, is to become CEO-designate on Nov. 1 and join the board on Jan. 1, the company said yesterday. He is to replace Durante on April 1. The departure comes after Durante, who took over as CEO in 2011, sought to shift the company’s strategy amid a slowdown in global cigarette demand. Durante last year sealed a US$55 billion acquisition of Reynolds American, which brought brands like Camel and Natural American Spirit under the same umbrella as Dunhill and Lucky Strike. The company has also made a bet on heated tobacco and other alternative devices viewed as having lower health risks.
TRADE
War is winless: WTO head
A full-blown global trade war would have serious effects on global growth and there would be no winners of such a scenario, WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo said yesterday. “The warning lights are flashing. A continued escalation of tensions would pose an increased threat to stability, to jobs and to the kind of growth that we are seeing today,” Azevedo said at a Berlin industry event.
Gudeng Precision Industrial Co (家登精密), the sole extreme ultraviolet pod supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), yesterday said it has trimmed its revenue growth target for this year as US tariffs are likely to depress customer demand and weigh on the whole supply chain. Gudeng’s remarks came after the US on Monday notified 14 countries, including Japan and South Korea, of new tariff rates that are set to take effect on Aug. 1. Taiwan is still negotiating for a rate lower than the 32 percent “reciprocal” tariffs announced by the US in April, which it later postponed to today. The
ELECTRONICS: Strong growth in cloud services and smart consumer electronics offset computing declines, helping the company to maintain sales momentum, Hon Hai said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday announced that its sales for last month rose 10 percent year-on-year, driven by strong growth in cloud and networking products amid the ongoing artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company, also known internationally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), reported consolidated sales of NT$540.24 billion (US$18.67 billion) for the month, the highest ever for the period, and a 10.09 percent increase from a year earlier, although it was down 12.26 percent from the previous month. Hon Hai, which is Apple Inc’s primary iPhone assembler and makes servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, said its cloud
Video streaming giant Netflix is launching a talent cultivation program in Taiwan aimed at producing high-quality Mandarin content, the company announced in a press release on Thursday. Netflix Chinese language content head Maya Huang (黃怡玫) said that Netflix has long invested in the Taiwanese market, citing the Netflix Fund for Creative Equity launched last year as an example. The fund would continue to dedicate resources to discovering content with the potential to be developed into Chinese-language projects, she added. The financing for the new talent projects seeks to create an ecosystem for content creators and professional development programs, she said. The talent projects
APPRECIATION: The central bank stepped in to stabilize the NT dollar after a surge in foreign institutional investment, triggered by optimism about tariffs and US Fed policy Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves hit a record high at the end of last month, as the central bank intervened in the currency market to curb the New Taiwan dollar’s appreciation against the US dollar. Foreign exchange reserves increased by US$5.48 billion from May, reaching an all-time high of US$598.43 billion, the central bank said on Friday. While the central bank did not disclose the scale of its intervention, Department of Foreign Exchange Director-General Eugene Tsai (蔡炯民) said that the currency market remained relatively stable until the middle of last month. However, a shift occurred following the US Federal Reserve’s signal of a
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