Fri, Feb 12, 2021 page6

• Business Quick Take

  • Agencies
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  PHARMACEUTICALS

  AstraZeneca upbeat on profit

  AstraZeneca PLC Thursday forecast revenue growth for this year after the COVID-19 vaccine developer beat analysts’ estimates for fourth-quarter product sales, as a wide range of therapies helped cushion the hit from the pandemic. It expects this year’s revenues to increase by a low teens percentage, with “faster growth” in core earnings to US$4.75 to US$5 per share. Quarterly product sales of US$7.01 billion surpassed a company-compiled consensus of US$6.81 billion. The London-listed company said its forecast did not include any impact from its COVID-19 vaccine.

  BANKING

  Commerzbank sees shrinkage

  Commerzbank AG said it will probably see revenue shrink “slightly” this year as it embarks on its third restructuring effort in five years under a new leadership. Revenue in the last three months of last year declined 6.6 percent, according to an earnings release yesterday. It recorded a quarterly loss of 2.7 billion euros (US$3.3 billion) after writing down asset values hit by the pandemic and booking costs for future job cuts. “We want to be sustainably profitable and shape our own destiny as an independent force in the German banking market,” chief executive Manfred Knof said.

  TRANSPORTATION

  Uber loss narrows slightly

  Uber Technologies Inc on Wednesday reported another hefty loss in the final three months of last year, though its food delivery operations partly offset a hit from a drop in ridesharing during the pandemic. The loss of US$968 million narrowed slightly from US$1.1 billion in the same period a year earlier, Uber said. Revenue in the quarter was US$3.2 billion, a 16 percent decrease from the same period a year earlier.

  CARBON EMISSIONS

  Shell aims to trim intensity

  Royal Dutch Shell PLC is to accelerate near-term and long-term plans aimed at reducing its net carbon emissions intensity to zero by 2050, it said yesterday, adding that its emissions peaked in 2018. Shell said it aims to reduce its net intensity by between 6 percent and 8 percent from 2016 levels by 2023. The target rises to 20 percent by 2030, 45 percent by 2035 and 100 percent by the middle of the century. Intensity levels represent emissions per unit of energy produced, technically allowing higher production.

  REAL ESTATE

  UK house prices rise

  UK house prices rose last month, despite weaker activity in the property market amid a third national coronavirus lockdown. In a survey published yesterday, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said values rose countrywide as house hunters found suitable properties in short supply, with London the only region to see prices fall. Real-estate agents reported continuing demand from people seeking to beat the March 31 expiry of a homebuying tax cut worth up to ￡15,000 (US$21,000).

  SHIPPING

  Shortage lifts Maersk profit

  Danish shipping giant AP Moller-Maersk A/S on Wednesday posted a near sixfold increase in net profit for last year, as demand during the pandemic rebounded strongly from an initial slump, sending freight rates soaring. A shortage of available containers in Asia has led to a surge in freight rates. Maersk recorded a net profit of US$2.9 billion in ongoing operations last year. Revenue grew 2.2 percent to US$39.7 billion, slightly more than analysts’ estimates, which ranged between US$39.56 and US$39.58 billion.

  PHILIPPINES

  Key rate stays at record low

  The Philippine central bank held its benchmark interest rate at a record low for a second straight meeting to boost an economy that remains in recession and with inflationary pressures beginning to mount. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas yesterday left the benchmark rate at 2 percent, as predicted by all 19 analysts in a Bloomberg survey. Governor Benjamin Diokno said early last month that interest rates will likely remain on hold at least through the first half of this year while the economy recovers. Policymakers are to next meet on rates on March 25.

  BANKING

  Rabobank to cut 5,000 jobs

  Rabobank Group plans to cut 5,000 positions, more than 10 percent of its total workforce, as the Dutch lender seeks to cut costs after the pandemic hit profit. Plans to improve the cost-to-income ratio are expected to reduce the workforce by the equivalent of 1,000 full-time jobs over the next five years, according to a statement from the Utrecht, Netherlands-based bank yesterday. Rabobank, which employs more than 40,000 people, said net profit plunged 50 percent to 1.1 billion euros (US$1.3 billion) last year, with the coronavirus pandemic “primarily visible” in a jump in impairment charges to 1.9 billion euros.

  AVIATION

  Heathrow boss calls for help

  The boss of Heathrow Airport said yesterday that more jobs could be lost in aviation if the government does not provide more support to the industry and begin to outline how it will lift COVID-19 restrictions. “Unless we see some recovery plan from the government and some support for the aviation sector financially then I’m afraid that more jobs are at risk,” Heathrow’s chief executive John Holland-Kaye told Sky News. He said between 15,000 and 25,000 jobs had been lost across the airport over the past 11 months.

  STEEL

  Young Mittal to replace dad

  Steel giant ArcelorMittal SA yesterday announced that Aditya Mittal, the son of company founder Lakshmi Mittal, will replace him as the group’s chairman and CEO. The elder Mittal will become executive chairman of the Luxembourg-based company while the younger, currently chief financial officer, will run the management team. The company said yesterday it had reduced its net loss last year by a factor of three to US$733 million, even though sales dropped by a quarter.

  INTERNET

  Baidu plans AI chip firm

  China’s search engine giant Baidu Inc (百度) is in talks to raise cash for an artificial intelligence semiconductor company, CNBC reported on Wednesday, citing a person familiar with the matter. Venture capital firms GGV and IDG Capital are in discussions with Baidu, which is looking to diversify, to invest in its new chip venture, CNBC said. The company would make chips targeted at various industries including automobile manufacturing and would be a unit of Baidu.

  SEMICONDUCTORS

  Majority Siltronic stake sold

  GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓) said on Tuesday that its bid for Germany’s Siltronic AG had been successful, after it secured control over the required majority of shares with its 4.35 billion euro (US$5.3 billion) offer. The Taiwanese company said it now controlled a 50.8 percent stake in Siltronic. Separately, the Federal Cartel Office, Germany’s antitrust watchdog, said it had no objections to the deal to create the world’s second-largest silicon wafer maker behind Japan’s Shin-Etsu Chemical Co.
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