ENTERTAINMENT
Lotte eyes theme park’s sale
Lotte Group is considering offloading its stalled theme-park project in northeastern China for at least 10 billion yuan (US$1.6 billion), people familiar with the matter said. South Korea’s largest operator of hotels, theme parks and duty-free stores is working with an adviser to gauge interest from potential investors, the people said. Deliberations are ongoing and there is no certainty that they are to result in a transaction, the people said, adding that the group could decide to keep the complex. A Lotte Group representative said that construction of the theme park has been halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic and no decision has been reached on the park’s future.
AUTOMAKERS
Musk sells more shares
Elon Musk has sold a further US$928.6 million of Tesla Inc shares, moving closer to his target of reducing his stake in the electric automaker by 10 percent. The sale of 934,091 shares came after Musk wrote on Twitter that he was “almost done” trimming his stake in Tesla, clarifying an earlier comment in an interview with a satirical Web site that he had reached his target. “I sold stock that should roughly make my total Tesla share sale roughly 10 percent,” the world’s richest person told Babylon Bee in an interview that also addressed his wealth, taxes and priorities. He also wrote on social media that more sales are coming as part of a preprogrammed plan.
AIRLINES
Ryanair halves forecast
Low-cost airline Ryanair Holdings PLC on Wednesday said that the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 would have a considerable effect on its financial performance as it more than doubled the forecast for its annual loss and cut back flights. The Irish airline expects a loss of between 250 million euros and 450 million euros (US$283 million and US$510 million) in its financial year, which runs through March next year, up from an earlier forecast of between 100 million euros and 200 million euros. The airline said that in light of uncertainty about the Omicron variant, as well as further developments regarding travel restrictions within Europe, it has not yet made any decisions on cutbacks to its February and March schedules.
INVESTMENT
Carlyle to buy Involta
Carlyle Group Inc said that it has agreed to acquire Involta, operator of 12 data centers and a fiber network that stretches more than 19,000km. The deal’s terms were not disclosed. Involta provides information technology services to US businesses, primarily in the country’s northwest, southwest and midwest, Carlyle said in a statement on Wednesday. Private equity firm M/C Partners is the seller and the deal is set to be completed in the first quarter of next year, it said.
BRAZIL
Cuts spark resignations
More than 300 senior officials have resigned from their posts over budget cuts to the Special Department of Federal Revenue, one of the agency’s unions said on Wednesday, amid anger over President Jair Bolsonaro’s decision to grant police a pay hike. The cuts to the tax agency were enshrined in the government’s budget for next year, which was approved by Congress on Tuesday night. Although the 324 senior federal tax auditors are to remain with the agency, there might now be as many as 500 unfilled senior posts across the country, the Sindifisco union said in a statement.
Japanese technology giant Softbank Group Corp said Tuesday it has sold its stake in Nvidia Corp, raising US$5.8 billion to pour into other investments. It also reported its profit nearly tripled in the first half of this fiscal year from a year earlier. Tokyo-based Softbank said it sold the stake in Silicon Vally-based Nvidia last month, a move that reflects its shift in focus to OpenAI, owner of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT. Softbank reported its profit in the April-to-September period soared to about 2.5 trillion yen (about US$13 billion). Its sales for the six month period rose 7.7 percent year-on-year
CRESTING WAVE: Companies are still buying in, but the shivers in the market could be the first signs that the AI wave has peaked and the collapse is upon the world Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported a new monthly record of NT$367.47 billion (US$11.85 billion) in consolidated sales for last month thanks to global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Last month’s figure represented 16.9 percent annual growth, the slowest pace since February last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 11 percent. Cumulative sales in the first 10 months of the year grew 33.8 percent year-on-year to NT$3.13 trillion, a record for the same period in the company’s history. However, the slowing growth in monthly sales last month highlights uncertainty over the sustainability of the AI boom even as
BUST FEARS: While a KMT legislator asked if an AI bubble could affect Taiwan, the DGBAS minister said the sector appears on track to continue growing The local property market has cooled down moderately following a series of credit control measures designed to contain speculation, the central bank said yesterday, while remaining tight-lipped about potential rule relaxations. Lawmakers in a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee voiced concerns to central bank officials that the credit control measures have adversely affected the government’s tax income and small and medium-sized property developers, with limited positive effects. Housing prices have been climbing since 2016, even when the central bank imposed its first set of control measures in 2020, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) said. “Since the second half of
AI BOOST: Next year, the cloud and networking product business is expected to remain a key revenue pillar for the company, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu said Manufacturing giant Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday posted its best third-quarter profit in the company’s history, backed by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Net profit expanded 17 percent annually to NT$57.67 billion (US$1.86 billion) from NT$44.36 billion, the company said. On a quarterly basis, net profit soared 30 percent from NT$44.36 billion, it said. Hon Hai, which is Apple Inc’s primary iPhone assembler and makes servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, said earnings per share expanded to NT$4.15 from NT$3.55 a year earlier and NT$3.19 in the second quarter. Gross margin improved to 6.35 percent,
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