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.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”