REAL ESTATE
HK deal breaks record
Wharf Holdings Ltd (九龍倉) teamed up with Hong Kong property tycoons to win a premium land site in the territory’s luxurious Victoria Peak area for a record-breaking price. The consortium includes a Wharf subsidiary, an entity owned by Sino Land Co (信和置業) chairman Robert Ng (黃志祥), CC Land Holdings Ltd (中渝置地) chairman Cheung Chung-kiu (張松橋), Chinese Estates Holdings Ltd (華人置業) executive director Chan Hoi Wan (陳凱韻) and her brother-in-law, Thomas Lau (劉鑾鴻). It won the 5,067m2 residential land for HK$7.25 billion (US$935 million), the Honk Kong government said yesterday. The sale marks the highest price per square meter on record for a residential site sold in government tenders.
BEVERAGES
Heineken cuts 8,000 jobs
Dutch brewing giant Heineken NV yesterday said that it would cut about 8,000 jobs worldwide as the COVID-19 pandemic kept much of the hospitality sector closed. Heineken, the world’s second-largest brewer, said this included cutting jobs at the head office in Amsterdam, while other layoffs would depend on local circumstances, it added. The company recorded a net loss of 204 million euros (US$247 million) last year. Sales fell by 17 percent to 23 billion euros with bars and cafes closed in many countries, the company said.
STEELMAKERS
Thyssenkrupp rises outlook
Thyssenkrupp AG has issued improved forecasts for sales, earnings and cash flow as the long-struggling German conglomerate benefits from improving demand for steel and vehicle components. Cash burn should ease to about 1 billion euros this financial year, less than the 1.5 billion euros expected previously, Thyssenkrupp said yesterday. That is a big stride from the 5.5 billion euro drain in the period that ended in September last year. Thyssenkrupp now sees sales growing in the high single-digit percentage range, up from the low to mid-single digits. Its net loss should be in the high three-digit million euro range, better than its earlier expectation for more than 1 billion euros.
BANKING
Societe Generale posts loss
French banking giant Societe Generale SA slumped into a net loss last year as the COVID-19 pandemic battered the global economy, despite a recovery in the second half, the bank said yesterday. The group reported a net loss of 258 million euros, compared with a profit of about 3.2 billion euros in 2019. The pandemic forced the bank to boost bad loan provisions and take various accounting charges. Net banking income — equivalent to turnover — fell by 10 percent last year. For this year, the group said it would “maintain strict discipline... against the backdrop of an improvement in the economic outlook with a slight increase in costs.”
SAUDI ARABIA
Economy shrinks 3.8%
The economy shrank by 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter last year from the same period a year earlier, but it grew 2.8 percent on a quarterly basis, preliminary government data showed yesterday. The “flash estimates” for quarterly GDP by the General Authority for Statistics did not have a breakdown on how the oil and non-oil sectors performed in the three-month period. The economy contracted by 4.1 percent last year, according to the preliminary estimates, hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, lower crude prices and output cuts.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in server chips, expects revenue to decline this year due to sagging demand for 5-nanometer artificial intelligence (AI) chips from a North America-based major customer, a company executive said yesterday. That would be the first contraction in revenue for Alchip as it has been enjoying strong revenue growth over the past few years, benefiting from cloud-service providers’ moves to reduce dependence on Nvidia Corp’s expensive AI chips by building their own AI accelerator by outsourcing chip design. The 5-nanometer chip was supposed to be a new growth engine as the lifecycle
RSS