BANKING
UBS profit nearly doubles
Swiss banking giant UBS Group AG yesterday said that it nearly doubled its net profit in its best third quarter in a decade, the latest in a string of global lenders to report better-than-expected results, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. The world’s largest wealth manager saw net profit jump 99 percent year-on-year to US$2.5 billion, it said in a statement, handily beating analyst expectations for US$1.5 billion. The rise came after net profit dropped by 11 percent in the second quarter as the firm stepped up provisions for bad loans with the global economy in a tailspin due to the pandemic. UBS’ profits received a one-off boost in the third quarter from the US$631 million sale of a majority stake in its fund platform Fondcenter AG to Clearstream Banking AG, a subsidiary of the Deutsche Borse group.
FOOD
Impossible enters Asia
Impossible Foods Inc’s faux beef burgers would be sold in grocery stores in Hong Kong and Singapore starting yesterday, the company said as it vies to bolster its presence in Asia and before entering the potentially lucrative mainland China market. Its Asian launch comes as the maker of plant-based meat said it was still awaiting approval from Chinese regulators. Its key ingredient, heme, made from genetically modified yeast, requires approval in the country. “We are optimistic it could happen in the next year or even in the next several months,” chief executive Pat Brown told an online news conference. Last month, rival Beyond Meat Inc said it had signed a deal to open a production facility near Shanghai, as the company ramps up its focus on the rapidly growing Chinese market. Brown said Impossible wanted to build a complete plant-based supply chain in the country and make it a domestic industry.
EUROPEAN UNION
Record demand for bonds
The bloc’s first offering of social bonds was said to receive orders of more than 150 billion euros (US$177 billion), a record for a dual-tranche issue in the eurozone. Investors are being drawn to the sale because of the scarcity of securities stamped with an “AAA” credit rating and with social bonds the fastest-growing part of sustainable finance. The offering, also the bloc’s first joint debt since it agreed a landmark COVID-19 pandemic recovery deal, is aimed at providing funding for a job support program. The bloc was yesterday selling 10-year debt via banks at 3 basis points over midswaps, a person familiar with the matter said. It is also issuing 20-year securities at 14 basis points over midswaps, as it seeks to build a liquid market.
EQUITIES
NYSE gives ultimatum
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) told New Jersey lawmakers that it is prepared to move operations out of state should they impose a new tax on electronic trades via data servers. The world’s largest exchange by market capitalization late last month conducted a test “for a wholesale transition out of New Jersey,” Hope Jarkowski, co-head of government affairs for NYSE parent Intercontinental Exchange Inc, told a state assembly financial institutions and insurance committee hearing conducted by video feed. Lawmakers in New Jersey, a state so fiscally damaged by the COVID-19 pandemic that it is borrowing US$4.5 billion to plug a budget gap, are considering charging a temporary tax of a 100th-cent per trade, down from an earlier proposal of a quarter-cent levy.
Elon Musk’s lieutenants have reached out to chip industry suppliers, including Applied Materials Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Lam Research Corp, for his envisioned Terafab, early steps in an audacious and likely arduous attempt to break into the production of cutting-edge chips. Staff working for the joint venture between Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) have sought price quotes and delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, people familiar with the matter said. In past weeks, they’ve contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and other tools, according to the people, who asked not to
Taichung reported the steepest fall in completed home prices among the six special municipalities in the first quarter of this year, data compiled by Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) showed yesterday. From January through last month, the average transaction price for completed homes in Taichung fell 8 percent from a year earlier to NT$299,000 (US$9,483) per ping (3.3m²), said Taiwan Realty, which compiled the data based on the government’s price registration platform. The decline could be attributed to many home buyers choosing relatively affordable used homes to live in themselves, instead of newly built homes in the city’s prime property market, Taiwan Realty
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
Taiwan is attracting a growing number of foreign jobseekers as companies increasingly recruit overseas talent to ease labor shortages and expand global reach, recruitment platform 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) said yesterday. More than 40,000 foreign nationals searched for jobs in Taiwan through the platform last year, a 28 percent increase from a year earlier, the company said. Malaysians accounted for the largest share of overseas jobseekers at 12.2 percent, followed by Indonesians at 11.9 percent and Vietnamese at 10.8 percent. Indonesian applicants surged more than 50 percent year-on-year, while Vietnamese jobseekers rose by more than 30 percent. Applicants from the
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