RETAIL
Protests hit Best Mart sales
Snacks chain Best Mart 360 Holdings Ltd (優品360) has seen revenue drop by double digits as its stores came under attack by pro-democracy protests that have gripped Hong Kong. More than 70 of its 102 stores have been vandalized in more than 180 instances, chairman Lin Tsz-fung (林子峰) said in an interview on Monday with Bloomberg TV. The company has been targeted because some protesters believe Lin has ties to pro-Beijing gangs from Fujian Province, which he denies.
BONDS
Japan mulls 50-year bonds
Japanese policymakers are considering a 50-year government bond issue as a long-term means of putting a floor under super-long interest rates, sources said. Selling such bonds would allow the government to lock in cheap long-term funding and give yield-starved investors higher returns. It could also offer the Bank of Japan a new tool for its “yield-curve control” policy by helping prevent excessive declines in super-long bond yields. There are no immediate plans to issue such bonds in Japan, a Ministry of Finance official said.
AVIATION
EasyJet adds A320neos
British budget carrier EasyJet PLC is to buy 12 more A320neos it previously had options to purchase, Airbus SE said yesterday, the third day of the biennial Dubai Airshow. That would push EasyJet’s total order for the single-aisle plane to 159, Airbus said. The list price of the A320neo was US$110.6 million last year, making the order for 12 worth about US$1.3 billion, but airlines typically negotiate better prices.
BANKING
Julius Baer unveils buyback
Julius Baer Group Ltd announced its first share buyback in eight years even as inflows slowed as clients pulled money from a struggling Italian subsidiary. The Swiss private bank presented investors with a mixed bag for the first 10 months of the year, announcing a 400 million Swiss franc (US$404 million) buyback, while also saying it would book a writedown on Italy-based wealth manager Kairos. Outflows at Kairos would lead to a charge of 90 million euros (US$100 million), the bank said.
VIETNAM
Central bank cuts rates
Effective yesterday, the State Bank of Vietnam cut its interest-rate cap for dong deposits and ordered lenders to lower interest rates to support key business sectors. The limit on interest rates was cut to 5 percent from 5.5 percent for dong deposits with maturities of one month to less than six months, the central bank said in a statement on Monday. The regulator also ordered banks to lower the maximum dong lending rate for short-term loans to 6 percent from 6.5 percent, the statement said.
BATTERIES
Tesla to boost capacity
The world’s biggest lithium-ion battery is about to get even bigger, with Tesla Inc set to beef up capacity at the Hornsdale site in South Australia. The system is to be expanded by 50 percent to 150 megawatts, according to an announcement from Neoen SA, the French company that operates the site. The storage site has already saved consumers more than A$50 million (US$34 million) in its first year of operation. Neoen has also outlined plans to build a giant renewables complex in South Australia.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
POWER BUILDUP: Powered by Nvidia’s B200 Blackwell chips, the data center would support MediaTek’s computing power demand and business growth, the company said Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday launched a new artificial intelligence (AI) data center with a maximum capacity of 45 megawatts to meet its rising demand for computing power required to develop new advanced chips for AI applications. The company has completed the first-phase computing power buildup at the data center in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), providing 15 megawatts of capacity to support its research and development (R&D) capabilities, despite an industrywide shortage of key components, MediaTek said. Supply constraints have plagued a wide range of key components, including memory chips, solid-state drives, power supply units and central
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
RSS