RETAILERS
M&S posts 88% decline
British retailer Marks & Spencer Group PLC (M&S) yesterday reported an 88 percent slump in full-year profit, reflecting a collapse in clothing sales due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and told investors that they should not expect a dividend this year. M&S, which also sells upmarket food, made a pretax profit before one-off items of ￡50.3 million (US$71.26 million) in the year to April 3, down from the ￡403.1 million made in the 2019-2020 fiscal year. The 137-year-old group said that like-for-like clothing and homeware sales plummeted 31.5 percent, damaged by multiple COVID-19 lockdowns, which shuttered stores. On a statutory basis, M&S sank to a pretax loss of ￡209.4 million, versus a profit of ￡67.2 million in the 2019-2020 fiscal year.
CHINA
Goldman gets go-ahead
Goldman Sachs Group Inc on Tuesday said that it had won preliminary approval from Chinese regulators for a wealth management joint venture to serve customers in China. The venture, owned 51 percent by Goldman’s asset management division and 49 percent by a subsidiary of the state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd (中國工商銀行), aims to serve some of the estimated US$70 trillion in investible assets expected at Chinese households by 2030, Goldman said in a news release.
AIRLINES
Norwegian exits bankruptcy
Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA yesterday emerged from six months of bankruptcy protection with a smaller fleet and its debt almost wiped out, the budget carrier said, but also facing stronger competition and a lingering uncertainty wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic. The budget airline has raised 6 billion kroner (US$720.77 million) in fresh capital, more than enough to meet the minimum requirement set by bankruptcy courts in Dublin and Oslo. The company has 51 aircraft, down from a pre-pandemic 156 aircraft, while its debt amounts to between 16 billion kroner and 18 billion kroner, down from more than 80 billion kroner, the airline said.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Carlyle to buy Vectura
Carlyle Group Inc agreed to buy Vectura Group PLC for about ￡958 million in cash to boost the UK drugmaker’s transformation. The private equity firm offered ￡1.36 in cash as well as a ￡0.19 cash dividend for each Vectura share held, the companies said in a statement. The offer represents a 27 percent premium to Vectura’s closing price on Tuesday. Carlyle aims to speed Vectura’s expansion as the company transforms itself into a maker of inhaled therapies for other manufacturers in the industry. Vectura is working on a COVID-19 medicine, among others.
UNITED STATES
West coast eyes wind farms
The government is set to open California’s coastline to offshore wind farms, officials said on Tuesday, adding to the approval of the nation’s biggest wind project to date off Massachusetts. The government’s opening up of California waters came after a resolution to longstanding opposition from the Pentagon, which uses the ocean waters for military exercises and had put swaths of coast off limits to the industry, officials said. This gives the green light to the “first commercial scale offshore clean energy projects” on the west coast, the White House said in a statement.
SEEKING CLARITY: Washington should not adopt measures that create uncertainties for ‘existing semiconductor investments,’ TSMC said referring to its US$165 billion in the US Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) told the US that any future tariffs on Taiwanese semiconductors could reduce demand for chips and derail its pledge to increase its investment in Arizona. “New import restrictions could jeopardize current US leadership in the competitive technology industry and create uncertainties for many committed semiconductor capital projects in the US, including TSMC Arizona’s significant investment plan in Phoenix,” the chipmaker wrote in a letter to the US Department of Commerce. TSMC issued the warning in response to a solicitation for comments by the department on a possible tariff on semiconductor imports by US President Donald Trump’s
The government has launched a three-pronged strategy to attract local and international talent, aiming to position Taiwan as a new global hub following Nvidia Corp’s announcement that it has chosen Taipei as the site of its Taiwan headquarters. Nvidia cofounder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Monday last week announced during his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei that the Nvidia Constellation, the company’s planned Taiwan headquarters, would be located in the Beitou-Shilin Technology Park (北投士林科技園區) in Taipei. Huang’s decision to establish a base in Taiwan is “primarily due to Taiwan’s talent pool and its strength in the semiconductor
An earnings report from semiconductor giant and artificial intelligence (AI) bellwether Nvidia Corp takes center stage for Wall Street this week, as stocks hit a speed bump of worries over US federal deficits driving up Treasury yields. US equities pulled back last week after a torrid rally, as investors turned their attention to tax and spending legislation poised to swell the US government’s US$36 trillion in debt. Long-dated US Treasury yields rose amid the fiscal worries, with the 30-year yield topping 5 percent and hitting its highest level since late 2023. Stocks were dealt another blow on Friday when US President Donald
UNCERTAINTY: Investors remain worried that trade negotiations with Washington could go poorly, given Trump’s inconsistency on tariffs in his second term, experts said The consumer confidence index this month fell for a ninth consecutive month to its lowest level in 13 months, as global trade uncertainties and tariff risks cloud Taiwan’s economic outlook, a survey released yesterday by National Central University found. The biggest decline came from the timing for stock investments, which plunged 11.82 points to 26.82, underscoring bleak investor confidence, it said. “Although the TAIEX reclaimed the 21,000-point mark after the US and China agreed to bury the hatchet for 90 days, investors remain worried that the situation would turn sour later,” said Dachrahn Wu (吳大任), director of the university’s Research Center for
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