RETAILERS
M&S plans job cuts
Marks & Spencer Group PLC (M&S) yesterday said that it plans to eliminate about 7,000 jobs as it streamlines management and store operations after sales plunged amid the COVID-19 pandemic. London-based Marks & Spencer said that the job cuts would take place over the next three months in its central offices, regional management and UK stores. The reductions represent about 9 percent of the company’s workforce. Group revenue fell 13.2 percent in the quarter that ended on Aug. 8, driven by a 38 percent drop in in-store sales of clothing and housewares, while 68 percent of its orders were delivered online to customers’ homes during the quarter, compared with 29 percent in the previous year, it said.
COMMUNICATIONS
Zoom opens data center
Zoom Video Communications Inc has opened a data center in Singapore, diversifying its network and expanding into Southeast Asia for the first time. The San Jose, California-based company worked with Singapore’s Economic Development Board to set up the center, bringing the total to 18 sites globally. Zoom plans to hire an unspecified number of engineers and sales staff and offer new services such as Zoom Phone to scale the business in the region, Abe Smith, Zoom’s head of international, told a virtual briefing yesterday.
INVESTMENT
Norway fund posts loss
Norway’s US$1.15 trillion sovereign wealth fund posted a loss of 188 billion kroner (US$21.27 billion) in the first half of this year as stocks and real-estate holdings declined in value during the pandemic, it said yesterday. The world’s largest sovereign wealth fund holds stakes in about 9,200 companies globally, owning 1.5 percent of all listed stocks. It also invests in bonds and real estate. The overall portfolio had a negative return of 3.4 percent, with a decline of 6.8 percent for equities and minus-1.6 percent for unlisted real estate, while the value of fixed-income holdings rose 5.1 percent as interest rates plunged, it said.
FINANCE
Ant Group plans new firm
Jack Ma’s (馬雲) Ant Group (螞蟻集團) is planning to create a new consumer finance company to bolster its market share in China’s fast-growing online lending industry. Ant is working with other companies to build a consumer finance platform that will focus on doling out loans to individuals in China, people familiar with the situation said, asking not to be named because the matter is private. The Chongqing incorporated company would have registered capital of 8 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion). Ant is still in the process of seeking a consumer license for the company and could start operations in weeks, the people said.
BANKING
Westpac scraps dividend
Westpac Banking Corp has scrapped its first-half dividend, citing the desire to maintain a strong balance sheet in an uncertain operating environment. Westpac is the first of Australia’s four largest banks to cancel its dividend as the pandemic wreaks havoc on balance sheets. Commonwealth Bank of Australia and National Australia Bank Ltd cut their payouts. Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd might give an update on its decision to defer payouts when it releases quarterly results today. The moves are a blow to legions of retail shareholders, particularly retirees, who rely on the steady stream of payments.
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
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