■Fiber optics
New chairmen named
Global Crossing Ltd named Myron Ullman and Jeremiah Lambert co-chairmen of the bankrupt fiber-optic network operator following the resignation of founder Gary Winnick. Lambert, 68, and Ullman, 56, joined Global Crossing's board in April as the company, accused of inflating sales, tried to bolster investor confidence by adding independent directors. Winnick, whose sales of US$578 million of company stock were the subject of a congressional probe this year, announced his departure on Tuesday. "You need to get those directors who were part of the problem off quickly, and those who were not part of the problem need to stay on and provide oversight," said Roger Raber, chief executive officer of the National Association of Corporate Directors, a Washington-based consulting firm.
■ Electronics
Production to increase
Hitachi Ltd and other Japanese electronics makers will increase production of plasma display panel TVs, DVD players and digital cameras to meet rising demand, the Nihon Keizai newspaper said, citing unnamed people. Hitachi, the top maker of TVs with plasma-display panels, plans to double domestic sales of such TVs to 400,000 units next fiscal year starting April 1 and Pioneer Corp plans to double sales of the popular product in its home market to 100,000 units in the same period, the report said. Matsushita Electric Industrial Co aims to sell more than 100,000 plasma display TVs in the next fiscal year, up from an estimated 60,000 units this fiscal year ending March, the report said. Matsushita Electric, which is the world's biggest maker of consumer electronics, will increase sales of DVD players by 140 percent to 1.2 million units in the next fiscal year, while Pioneer aims to for a 250 percent increase to 600,000 units from a year ago.
■ Supermarkets
Wellcome to cut rice prices
Dairy Farm International Holdings Ltd's Hong Kong supermarket unit Wellcome will cut the price of rice as much as half following the end of rice import quotas, matching its largest rival. The company will reduce prices of all rice brands for a month and introduce a low-price house brand of Thai rice starting on Saturday. It will also run a luck draw to promote rice sales. Hong Kong yesterday ended a system, in place since the Korean War in the 1950s, that restricted rice imports to traders who met capital requirements and keep enough stock. Wellcome's largest rival Park'n Shop announced similar price cuts last week.
■ Computers
IBM closes pension gap
International Business Machines Corp, IBM, the world's largest seller of computers and related services, paid US$3.95 billion in cash and stock to fill a deficit in its US employee pension plan, the company's first contribution in seven years. The payment is US$950 million more than the US$3 billion IBM forecast earlier this month because the performance of capital markets has decreased the value of the plan's assets since then, the company said in a statement distributed by Business Wire. IBM, which has made no contributions to the plan since 1995, paid US$2.09 billion in cash and US$1.86 billion in stock. The payment won't reduce this year's per-share profit, the company said earlier this month.
Agencies
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