CHINA
Factory inflation slows
Factory inflation eased last month owing to slackening demand and a trade war with the US, while consumer price inflation held steady, official data showed yesterday. The producer price index decelerated to a 3.3 percent year-on-year rise. It ticked downward for the fourth consecutive month, from a high of 4.7 percent in June, while remaining in line with the forecast in a Bloomberg News survey. Meanwhile, the consumer price index rose 2.5 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics said.
BANKING
1MDB papers name ex-CEO
Former Goldman Sachs Group Inc chief executive officer Lloyd Blankfein is the senior executive mentioned in US court papers as having met a man at the center of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) corruption scandal in Malaysia, the Financial Times reported on Thursday, quoting two people familiar with the situation. A Goldman Sachs spokesman declined an AFP request for comment. Blankfein stepped down as CEO last month after 12 years.
ENTERTAINMENT
Disney sees earnings jump
Walt Disney Co’s earnings for the latest quarter sailed passed expectations, boosted by a strong slate of movies such as Incredibles 2. Studio entertainment revenue, which includes theater box office and streaming, jumped 50 percent to US$2.15 billion on the strength of films such as Avengers: Infinity War and the latest Ant-Man movie. Net income for the quarter ended Sept. 29 rose 33 percent to US$2.32 billion, or US$1.55 per share, from a year earlier. Revenue rose 12 percent to US$14.31 billion from US$12.78 billion last year.
APPAREL
Sock maker plans record IPO
Interloop Ltd, which makes socks for Nike Inc and Adidas AG, is planning Pakistan’s biggest initial public offering by a private firm. The company plans to raise as much as 6.8 billion rupees (US$50.9 million) to expand its sock manufacturing capacity by about 20 percent and enter the denim business, chairman and cofounder Musadaq Zulqarnain said. It is to offer 12.5 percent of the business in the sale, which is likely to take place in January, he said.
APPAREL
Ferragamo profits drop
The Salvatore Ferragamo fashion house said earnings in the first nine months of the year were down 17.5 percent, as sales of the trademark footwear slumped. The leather goods and apparel maker on Thursday reported net profit of 65 million euros (US$73.7 million) in the period, compared with 79 million euros in the first nine months of last year. Revenue was down 3.3 percent to 972 million euros from a year ago, with decreases in every region. Asia-Pacific remained the brand’s biggest market, even with a 2 percent drop in sales.
CHINA
Regulator sets loan targets
Chinese banks dragged down the region’s stock indexes yesterday after the regulator’s unprecedented move to set lending targets for private companies, its latest attempt to support economic growth at the risk of swelling bad debt. The country aims to boost large banks’ loans to private firms to at least one-third of new corporate lending, China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission chairman Guo Shuqing (郭樹清) told the Financial News in an interview published late on Thursday. The target for small and medium-sized banks is higher at two-thirds.
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated
An Indian factory producing iPhone components resumed work yesterday after a fire that halted production — the third blaze to disrupt Apple Inc’s local supply chain since the start of last year. Local industrial behemoth Tata Group’s plant in Tamil Nadu, which was shut down by the unexplained fire on Saturday, is a key linchpin of Apple’s nascent supply chain in the country. A spokesperson for subsidiary Tata Electronics Pvt yesterday said that the company would restart work in “many areas of the facility today.” “We’ve been working diligently since Saturday to support our team and to identify the cause of the fire,”
China’s economic planning agency yesterday outlined details of measures aimed at boosting the economy, but refrained from major spending initiatives. The piecemeal nature of the plans announced yesterday appeared to disappoint investors who were hoping for bolder moves, and the Shanghai Composite Index gave up a 10 percent initial gain as markets reopened after a weeklong holiday to end 4.59 percent higher, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dived 9.41 percent. Chinese National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Zheng Shanjie (鄭珊潔) said the government would frontload 100 billion yuan (US$14.2 billion) in spending from the government’s budget for next year in addition
Sales RecORD: Hon Hai’s consolidated sales rose by about 20 percent last quarter, while Largan, another Apple supplier, saw quarterly sales increase by 17 percent IPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday reported its highest-ever quarterly sales for the third quarter on the back of solid global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said it posted NT$1.85 trillion (US$57.93 billion) in consolidated sales in the July-to-September quarter, up 19.46 percent from the previous quarter and up 20.15 percent from a year earlier. The figure beat the previous third-quarter high of NT$1.74 trillion recorded in 2022, company data showed. Due to rising demand for AI, Hon Hai said its cloud and networking division enjoyed strong sales
RSS