AUTOMAKERS
Hyundai Q4 profit spikes
South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor Co defied the COVID-19 pandemic by yesterday posting a surprise 78 percent surge in fourth-quarter profit, as robust domestic sales offset weak overseas demand. Net profit in the October-to-December period jumped to 1.38 trillion won (US$1.25 billion) from 772 billion won a year earlier, Hyundai said in a statement. Domestic sales in the final three months rose 5 percent, driven by its luxury Genesis line, while foreign sales dropped 6.6 percent, said the company, which along with its affiliate Kia Motors Corp is among the world’s top 10 automakers. Full-year profits came to 2.12 trillion won, down 33.5 percent from 2019.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Novartis net profit up 13%
Swiss pharmaceuticals giant Novartis AG yesterday said that its net profit for last year jumped 13 percent to US$8.1 billion after a restructuring saw it hive off its Alcon business. Sales edged up 3 percent to US$48.7 billion, the company said in a statement. Sales at its generic medicines unit Sandoz were down 1 percent on the year, while the main pharmaceuticals division posted a gain of 3 percent, helped by demand for its new cardiac treatments such as Entresto. Novartis said that it expects sales to rise this year in the bottom to the middle of a 1 to 5 percent range.
HOSPITALITY
Spanish stays plummet
Overnight stays at Spanish hotels plunged last year, even as room rates dropped due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced half of the country’s lodgings to close their doors, official data showed on Monday. Spain, the world’s second-most visited country after France before the pandemic, recorded 91.6 million overnight hotel stays, a 73 percent drop from 2019, the INE national statistics office said. About 55 percent of those stays were by Spanish residents. As of the end of last month, 48.2 percent of all hotels in Spain were open, and the average cost of hotel rooms had fallen by 6 percent, the INE said.
AVIATION
Rolls-Royce cuts forecast
Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC projected free-cash outflows of about £2 billion (US$2.73 billion) this year, saying that new curbs on travel would delay a recovery in long-distance flights. The UK jet-engine maker now expects flying hours for wide-body aircraft to reach 55 percent of 2019 levels, versus an earlier assumption of 70 percent, it said in a statement yesterday. Rolls-Royce generates service revenue based on the amount of time planes equipped with its engines are in the air. The forecast marks another sign that renewed curbs on travel are postponing a recovery in aviation, after planemaker Airbus SE last week slowed a ramp-up in production, including the twin-aisle jets that carry Rolls-Royce engines.
REAL ESTATE
EQT to acquire Exeter
Sweden’s EQT AB, one of Europe’s biggest private equity firms, has agreed to take over Exeter Property Group in a US$1.9 billion deal that gives it access to real-estate assets across the US and Europe. EQT is to pay about US$800 million in new shares and the rest in cash for closely held Exeter, the Stockholm-based firm said yesterday. EQT chief executive officer Christian Sinding said that the transaction feeds into his firm’s “strategy of building a globally scaled real-estate platform.” The takeover gives EQT control over a US-based property business with more than US$10 billion under management.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last