BANKING
Deutsche loses 3.1bn euros
Deutsche Bank AG said it lost 3.1 billion euros (US$3.45 billion) in the second quarter as it booked heavy charges for its sweeping restructuring that is to drop 18,000 jobs. The bank in a news release yesterday said that without the charges it would have made net profit of 231 million euros and that a “substantial portion” of the deductions to earnings for the restructuring were now behind it. The charges included revaluing deferred tax matters, a lowered outlook for its business plans, and losses on software and service contracts.
INTERNET
Alibaba to allow US firms
China’s e-commerce juggernaut Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) is to allow small and medium-sized US businesses to sell on Alibaba.com. US businesses, until Tuesday, were only able to buy merchandise on the platform. Sellers would have to pay an annual registration fee of about US$2,000, but it would not charge commission for each sale, unlike Amazon.com, said John Caplan, president of North America B2B and globalization at Alibaba Group.
RESTAURANTS
Jollibee to buy Coffee Bean
Jollibee Foods Corp is to spend US$350 million to purchase loss-making Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, the largest acquisition for the Philippines’ biggest restaurant company. Jollibee is to invest US$100 million for an 80 percent stake in a Singapore venture set up with Vietnamese partners to acquire Coffee Bean. The rest of the amount would be in the form of advances. Los Angeles-based Coffee Bean would add 14 percent to Jollibee’s global sales and expand its store network by more than one-quarter, Jollibee chairman Tony Tan Caktiong said.
AUTOMAKERS
Aston Martin shares decline
Aston Martin Lagonda Ltd shares fell the most since listing after reducing its full-year sales forecast because of intensifying weakness in key markets. The luxury sports-car manufacturer now expects wholesale deliveries to decline as much as 14 percent to as low as 6,300, the Gaydon, England-based company said yesterday. That compares with a plan for 7,100 to 7,300 vehicle sales the automaker anticipated in May.
TRADE
Brussels threatens tariffs
The European Union is ready to hit the US with extra tariffs on goods worth 35 billion euros if Washington slaps duties on its vehicles, European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmstrom said on Tuesday. The warning came as Malmstrom said a plan to reach a limited trade deal with the US was at a standstill. Malmstrom’s stark statement to newly elected members of the European Parliament in Brussels was a reminder that transatlantic tensions remained high, despite Washington’s trade spat with China dominating attention.
TECHNOLOGY
Texas Instruments optimistic
Texas Instruments Inc on Tuesday gave stronger-than-predicted sales and profit forecasts for this quarter, indicating that demand for chips might be starting to improve. Third-quarter earnings would be US$1.31 a share to US$1.53 a share on revenue of US$3.65 billion to US$3.95 billion, the Dallas-based company said. A better-than-feared outlook from Texas Instruments signals that a slump in orders for electronic components might end soon and helps counter concern that the China-US trade dispute will hurt the overall economy.
FALLING BEHIND: Samsung shares have declined more than 20 percent this year, as the world’s largest chipmaker struggles in key markets and plays catch-up to rival SK Hynix Samsung Electronics Co is laying off workers in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand as part of a plan to reduce its global headcount by thousands of jobs, sources familiar with the situation said. The layoffs could affect about 10 percent of its workforces in those markets, although the numbers for each subsidiary might vary, said one of the sources, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. Job cuts are planned for other overseas subsidiaries and could reach 10 percent in certain markets, the source said. The South Korean company has about 147,000 in staff overseas, more than half
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,”
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
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