■FINANCE
SinoPac to end AIG deal
SinoPac Financial Holdings Co (永豐金控) has decided to terminate a bancassurance cooperation agreement it inked with American International Group (AIG) in 2007, the company said in a stock exchange filing on Friday. In order to continue servicing its customers, the company said its banking unit, Bank SinoPac (永豐銀行), would sign a new pact with AIG subsidiary Nan Shan Life Insurance Co (南山人壽) tomorrow.
■ELECTRONICS
Ju Teng to raise funds
Ju Teng International Holdings Ltd (巨騰) said on Friday that its Taiwan depositary receipts would be listed and have their trading debut tomorrow. Ju Teng, a maker of notebook-computer casings, aims to raise HK$407 million (US$52.5 million) through the sale of the receipts after pricing the issue at NT$17.30 each. The Hong Kong-based company issued 100 million shares to back the receipts on Friday. Ju Teng operates plants in China’s Jiangsu Province and its products are used in Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell Inc laptops.
■FINANCE
US says credit rating okay
The White House said on Friday it was not worried that the US economy’s credit rating could be downgraded after Standard and Poor’s warned Britain its top-level score was under threat. “No, we are not concerned about a change in our credit rating,” spokesman Robert Gibbs said. Standard and Poor’s said on Thursday that the British economy’s top-level “AAA” credit rating was under threat and lowered its outlook because of soaring public debt, sending financial markets reeling.
■IPR
Cartier sues Apple Inc
Luxury watch maker Cartier International has sued Apple Inc, saying the electronics giant is offering software that infringes on its designs without authorization. The trademark lawsuit was filed on Friday in federal court in Manhattan. It sought a stop to the practice and unspecified damages. Cartier said in the lawsuit that Apple is offering for sale, via its iTunes store, products that use the Cartier trademarks. It said the applications enable customers to display time on the iPhone and iPod Touch. The watch manufacturer said it never authorized Apple to use images that look like its watches on the software.
■INTERNET
Firm eyes Facebook stake
A Russian Internet group has offered to invest US$200 million in Facebook Inc, the Wall Street Journal reported late on Friday. Citing people familiar with the matter, the newspaper said it was unclear whether Facebook had responded to or decided to accept the offer from Digital Sky Technologies. The offer comes as the social-networking company has been talking to a range of venture-capital and private-equity firms about raising more money to help fuel its growth, the report said.
■BRAZIL
Real’s rise worries Brasilia
The sharp rise of the real in recent weeks has sparked worry in the government, which fears it could nip a recovery in export industries, Finance Minister Guido Mantega said on Friday. “This valuation of the real undermines production sectors, export sectors, agriculture etc. Thus it is a source of preoccupation,” he told reporters in Sao Paulo. The real’s rise is the result of foreign investors shoveling money back into the country as nerves calm over the effects of the crisis, he said.
CHIP WAR: Tariffs on Taiwanese chips would prompt companies to move their factories, but not necessarily to the US, unleashing a ‘global cross-sector tariff war’ US President Donald Trump would “shoot himself in the foot” if he follows through on his recent pledge to impose higher tariffs on Taiwanese and other foreign semiconductors entering the US, analysts said. Trump’s plans to raise tariffs on chips manufactured in Taiwan to as high as 100 percent would backfire, macroeconomist Henry Wu (吳嘉隆) said. He would “shoot himself in the foot,” Wu said on Saturday, as such economic measures would lead Taiwanese chip suppliers to pass on additional costs to their US clients and consumers, and ultimately cause another wave of inflation. Trump has claimed that Taiwan took up to
A start-up in Mexico is trying to help get a handle on one coastal city’s plastic waste problem by converting it into gasoline, diesel and other fuels. With less than 10 percent of the world’s plastics being recycled, Petgas’ idea is that rather than letting discarded plastic become waste, it can become productive again as fuel. Petgas developed a machine in the port city of Boca del Rio that uses pyrolysis, a thermodynamic process that heats plastics in the absence of oxygen, breaking it down to produce gasoline, diesel, kerosene, paraffin and coke. Petgas chief technology officer Carlos Parraguirre Diaz said that in
Japan intends to closely monitor the impact on its currency of US President Donald Trump’s new tariffs and is worried about the international fallout from the trade imposts, Japanese Minister of Finance Katsunobu Kato said. “We need to carefully see how the exchange rate and other factors will be affected and what form US monetary policy will take in the future,” Kato said yesterday in an interview with Fuji Television. Japan is very concerned about how the tariffs might impact the global economy, he added. Kato spoke as nations and firms brace for potential repercussions after Trump unleashed the first salvo of
SUPPORT: The government said it would help firms deal with supply disruptions, after Trump signed orders imposing tariffs of 25 percent on imports from Canada and Mexico The government pledged to help companies with operations in Mexico, such as iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), shift production lines and investment if needed to deal with higher US tariffs. The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday announced measures to help local firms cope with the US tariff increases on Canada, Mexico, China and other potential areas. The ministry said that it would establish an investment and trade service center in the US to help Taiwanese firms assess the investment environment in different US states, plan supply chain relocation strategies and
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