UNITED KINGDOM
Jobless rate near 50-year low
Unemployment remains close to 50-year-lows after easing over the summer, but sky-high inflation continues to squeeze wages, official data showed yesterday. The unemployment rate fell to 3.6 percent in the three months to the end of July, the Office for National Statistics said in a statement. That was the lowest level since 1974, the agency said. The latest level compared with 3.8 percent for the three months to the end of June, it added.
SINGAPORE
Exchange mulls rules change
Singapore Exchange Ltd is planning changes to its corporate disclosure rules, including asking companies to reveal exactly how much their chief executive officers are paid. Singapore Exchange Regulation, the bourse’s regulatory arm known as SGX RegCo, would consult the market on requiring disclosures for the remuneration of CEOs and directors, a statement said. It would also propose imposing a nine-year cap on the tenure of independent directors. It did not provide a timeline for either consultation.
GERMANY
Special fund to be used
The country is set to use a fund created to help companies cope with the economic hit from the COVID-19 pandemic to provide loan guarantees for struggling energy firms, a person familiar with the plan said. State development bank KfW would oversee the mechanism and the volume of loan guarantees available would be about 67 billion euros (US$67.9 billion), the person said. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government is expected to approve the plan at a regular Cabinet meeting today, the person added.
AVIATION
JAL at 65% of past capacity
Japan Airlines Co (JAL) is operating at 65 percent of its pre-pandemic international capacity, although COVID-19 curbs are limiting demand to just about 40 percent of pre-pandemic levels, an airline executive said yesterday. In the domestic market, the airline is operating at 100 percent of its pre-pandemic capacity, although demand is about 80 percent of corresponding levels, said Akihide Yoguchi, JAL’s vice president of strategy research for the Asia Oceania region. “Demand for domestic has recovered faster than international, like many other markets,” he said at a CAPA Centre for Aviation conference.
ENTERTAINMENT
Sony Music exits Russia
Sony Group Corp’s music business has exited Russia, transferring the business and musicians to local management, due to the Ukraine conflict. “As the war continues to have a devastating humanitarian impact in Ukraine, and sanctions on Russia continue to increase, we can no longer maintain a presence in Russia,” Sony Music said in a statement. It did not disclose further details of the transaction.
AUTOMAKERS
Cruise plans expansion
General Motors Co’s self-driving vehicle company Cruise on Monday announced plans to expand a robotaxi service that recently launched in California into new markets in Arizona and Texas before the end of this year. As it already has been doing in parts of San Francisco during night-time hours, Cruise’s ride-hailing service would transport passengers in vehicles that would not have a safety driver in them to take control if the robotic technology malfunctions.
INVESTOR RESILIENCE? An analyst said that despite near-term pressures, foreign investors tend to view NT dollar strength as a positive signal for valuation multiples Morgan Stanley has flagged a potential 10 percent revenue decline for Taiwan’s tech hardware sector this year, as a sharp appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar begins to dent the earnings power of major exporters. In what appears to be the first such warning from a major foreign brokerage, the US investment bank said the currency’s strength — fueled by foreign capital inflows and expectations of US interest rate cuts — is compressing profit margins for manufacturers with heavy exposure to US dollar-denominated revenues. The local currency has surged about 10 percent against the greenback over the past quarter and yesterday breached
MARKET FACTORS: Navitas Semiconductor Inc said that Powerchip is to take over from TSMC as its supplier of high-voltage gallium nitride chips Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday in a statement said that it would phase out its compound semiconductor gallium nitride (GaN) business over the next two years, citing market dynamics. The decision would not affect its financial targets announced previously, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker said. “We are working closely with our customers to ensure a smooth transition and remain committed to meeting their needs during this period,” it said. “Our focus continues to be on delivering sustained value to our partners and the market.” TSMC’s latest move came unexpectedly, as the chipmaker had said in its annual report that it has
SECURITY WARNING: The company possesses key 3-nanometer technology, and Taiwan should prevent it from being transferred to China, a lawmaker said The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it would conduct a “strict review” of any proposed acquisition of Taiwanese tech company Source Photonics Co (索爾思光電), following media reports that a Chinese firm was planning to buy the company in the Hsinchu Science Park (新竹科學園區). Local media reported that Suzhou Dongshan Precision Manufacturing Co (東山精密), China’s largest printed circuit board manufacturer, had announced plans to acquire Source Photonics for 5.9 billion yuan (US$823.1 million). The ministry said it has not received an application from Source Photonics and has formally notified the company that any buyout would constitute a change in its ownership structure. The
ELECTRONICS: Strong growth in cloud services and smart consumer electronics offset computing declines, helping the company to maintain sales momentum, Hon Hai said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday announced that its sales for last month rose 10 percent year-on-year, driven by strong growth in cloud and networking products amid the ongoing artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company, also known internationally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), reported consolidated sales of NT$540.24 billion (US$18.67 billion) for the month, the highest ever for the period, and a 10.09 percent increase from a year earlier, although it was down 12.26 percent from the previous month. Hon Hai, which is Apple Inc’s primary iPhone assembler and makes servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, said its cloud
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