■ Stocks
LSE to open HK office
The London Stock Exchange will set up an Asia-Pacific office in Hong Kong in hopes of attracting listings from mainland Chinese companies, Hong Kong's pro-Beijing Wen Wei Po newspaper reported yesterday. The London market has straightforward listing procedures that are especially suitable for small- and medium-sized Chinese enterprises, the paper quoted the exchange's Asia-Pacific president Zhu Xiaojian as saying. Speaking at an investment forum in Fujian, Zhu said Hong Kong is a good place for the London exchange to tap into the booming Chinese market. Chinese enterprises raised a total of 23 billion euro (US$19 billion) through overseas listing last year. The Hong Kong office will open by early Novem-ber, Zhu was quoted as saying.
■ Semiconductors
Intel lures Samsung VP
Intel announced on Tuesday that it was hiring a top Samsung official as vice president of the world's largest chip maker and leading manufacturer of computer products. Eric Kim, who has extensive branding, consumer and product marketing exper-ience, would be Intel's pointman for marketing operations worldwide, an Intel statement said. His duties would include global branding, advertising, cooperative marketing and market research, as well as Internet and channel marketing programs. The 50-year-old Kim, who will join Intel on Nov. 15, was executive vice president and head of global mar-keting and new business development in the digital convergence area in Sam-sung Electronics Co. During Kim's tenure, Samsung attained the status of the world's fastest-growing brands. In 2002, Time magazine selected Kim for its annual "Global Influen-tials" list.
■ Automobiles
BMW overtaking Mercedes
BMW is on course to overtake annual sales of arch-rival Mercedes for the first time in almost a decade, new figures showed on Tuesday. The day after the Mercedes group said its global sales had fallen just under 5 percent so far this year to 760,300, its south German competitor posted an 8 percent jump in the first eight months of this year to 769,086. The mixed fortunes enjoyed by Ger-many's leading upmarket car makers were highlighted by sales last month in their domestic market, with Mercedes down 18 percent to 24,500 and BMW up 20 percent, despite the sluggish economy. Even though Mercedes sales fell last month for the seventh month this year, the firm said its global sales should approach last year's 1.1 million. But BMW said it expected to surpass last year's total by just under 10 percent. The last time BMW outsold Mercedes was in 1995.
■ Banking
Quattrone faces sentencing
Frank Quattrone, the master dealmaker of the 1990s technology stock boom, faces a likely prison sen-tence, four months after he was convicted of obstruc-ting a federal investigation. The 48-year-old former investment banker, con-victed of two counts of obstruction and a single count of witness tampering, faces 10 to 16 months in prison under federal sentencing guidelines. His sentence was expected to be handed down yesterday. He would be the highest-profile Wall Street figure to face time behind bars since junk-bond king Michael Milken in 1990.
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS