COSMETICS
Shiseido discusses sale
Shiseido Co is in advanced talks to sell its shampoo and affordable skincare business to CVC Capital Partners for ￥150 billion to ￥200 billion (US$1.45 billion to US$1.93 billion), as the Japanese cosmetics maker shifts its focus to premium beauty products, people with knowledge of the matter said. The board of Shiseido is preparing to vote on the divestment soon, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is not public. The operations targeted for sale includes the company’s Tsubaki haircare products. The unit is mainly active in Japan, China and other parts of Asia. The lifestyle and personal care business represented about a 10th of Shiseido’s revenue in 2019, with annual sales of about ￥100 billion.
UNITED KINGDOM
Retail misses expectations
Retail sales rose less than expected last month, adding to evidence that a succession of lockdowns amid the COVID-19 pandemic is dragging down the economy. Sales in shops and online edged up 0.3 percent after declining in November last year, the Office for National Statistics said yesterday. That is a percentage point less than economists had expected. Sales rose 2.9 percent from a year earlier. The report casts doubt about the resilience of the economy during a third round of restrictions that started this month. While the lockdowns might be distorting the seasonal adjustment of the figures, last month and the holiday shopping season are nevertheless crucial for retailers. Clothing sales rose sharply last month, while supermarkets and department stores declined. The drop in retail sales would knock 0.02 percentage point off overall output in the fourth quarter, the office said.
CRYPTOCURRENCIES
Cryptos won’t work: UBS
Cryptocurrencies might never be able to work as actual currencies, UBS Global Wealth Management (GWM) said. The “fundamental flaw” inherent in cryptocurrencies is that supply cannot be reduced when demand is slumping in most cases, UBS GWM chief economist Paul Donovan said in a video this week. That means they cannot be considered currencies, he said. A “proper currency,” as Donovan termed it, can be a stable store of value, providing certainty that it will be able to buy the same basket of goods tomorrow as it buys today. That confidence is derived from central banks’ ability to reduce supply when demand is falling. There is no such mechanism for switching off supply on most cryptocurrencies, and therefore their value can slide — leading to a collapse in spending power, he said.
AUTOMAKERS
Batteries give Nissan edge
Nissan Motor Co has emerged from Brexit with an edge over rivals that lack a UK battery supply chain, a big relief for the nation’s largest auto manufacturing plant. The maker of packs that power the Leaf electric vehicles built at Nissan’s massive factory in Sunderland, England, is to add production of a longer-range battery in the coming months, Nissan chief operating officer Ashwani Gupta said on Thursday. The supplier investment is the latest development for the Nissan facility, which employs about 6,000 people and faced existential risks without a Brexit trade agreement. However, CEO Carlos Tavares said that while good sense had prevailed with regard to Brexit, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s move to ban gasoline and diesel cars from 2030 could be problematic.
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce
STILL LOADED: Last year’s richest person, Quanta Computer Inc chairman Barry Lam, dropped to second place despite an 8 percent increase in his wealth to US$12.6 billion Staff writer, with CNA Daniel Tsai (蔡明忠) and Richard Tsai (蔡明興), the brothers who run Fubon Group (富邦集團), topped the Forbes list of Taiwan’s 50 richest people this year, released on Wednesday in New York. The magazine said that a stronger New Taiwan dollar pushed the combined wealth of Taiwan’s 50 richest people up 13 percent, from US$174 billion to US$197 billion, with 36 of the people on the list seeing their wealth increase. That came as Taiwan’s economy grew 4.6 percent last year, its fastest pace in three years, driven by the strong performance of the semiconductor industry, the magazine said. The Tsai
RSS