Antam to build new plant next year
Antam to build new plant next year
JAKARTA: State-owned PT Aneka Tambang (Antam) said Friday it expects the construction of its third ferronickel plant in South Sulawesi to begin next year.
Its President Director Dedi Aditya Sumanagara said the construction is expected to start soon after it signs a final loan agreement, expected to be in March next year.
Antam will receive US$255 million financing from German export credit agency Hermes Kreditversicherungs AG to finance the ferronickel project, which is expected to cost around $380 million.
The company will receive a $75 million loan from state-owned Bank Mandiri, and will use internal cash amounting to $50 million for the project, which will double its ferronickel output to around 25,000 metric tons per year.
Antam is 65 percent-owned by the Indonesian government, and is listed on both the Jakarta and Australian Stock Exchanges. --Dow Jones
Bridgestone returns to profit
TOKYO: Japan's top tyre maker Bridgestone Corp. said Friday it returned to profit in the first half to June, recovering from the effects of a huge tyre recall scandal in the United States.
The impact on business of the recall of 6.5 million tyres by its Firestone subsidiary in the U.S. in 2000 after a spate of deadly accidents is dissipating, said chief executive Shigeo Watanabe.
The firm's net profit jumped to 24.5 billion yen (US$204.2 million) in the first half to June, reversing a loss of 30.6 billion yen a year earlier.
Its pre-tax profit rose 78 percent to 55.7 billion yen, while revenue of 1,093.5 billion yen was up from 1,027.5 billion yen previously.
Bridgestone's first half U.S. tyre sales rose 12 percent to 500.5 billion yen and a 4.8 billion yen operating profit reversed a loss last year caused by the tyre recall scandal. --AFP
Japan's McDonald's profits plunge
TOKYO: The Japanese arm of McDonald's said Friday its profits plunged 81.4 percent in the first half as people lost their appetite for burgers after an outbreak of mad cow disease.
McDonald's Holdings Co (Japan) also slashed a full year forecast to December as consumption was expected to remain weak amid a deep economic slump.
Its net profit over the six months to June sank to 1.4 billion yen (US$11.7 million) from 7.6 billion yen a year ago.
The firm's pre-tax profit plummeted 80.5 percent in the first half to June to 2.5 billion yen, on sales of 158.3 billion yen -- down 13.9 percent from previously.
Last September, Japan became the first Asian country to harbour the brain wasting illness in its cattle, triggering a nationwide health scare that decimated beef consumption and exports. --AFP
Marconi to cut 1,000 jobs
LONDON: The British telecommunications equipment maker Marconi said Thursday it planned to eliminate as many as 1,000 more jobs in addition to the 7,000 it has cut in the past two years.
"Today we told our workforce that we are starting a consultation process on a further round of redundancies," said Marconi spokesman David Beck.
"We expect there to be up to 1,000 further redundancies."
He said the company hoped that most redundancies would be voluntary but could not rule out compulsory job cuts.
Marconi has suffered from the severe downturn in the global telecommunications sector and by expenses associated with a wave of costly acquisitions in 1999 and 2000.
The group in July 2001 cut its net earnings projections for 2001-2002 by half.
The 7,000 jobs eliminated thus far in a restructuring plan amounted to half its workforce. --AFP
FTC reach settlement with Microsoft
WASHINGTON: U.S. regulators said Thursday they had reached a settlement with Microsoft over its failure to protect users' personal data in its "Passport" Internet service.
The Federal Trade Commission said Microsoft had falsely told consumers that it adequately protected personal data, including credit card numbers, which were collected by the Passport program.
The Passport service stores personal data so that users need not retype it on each website. Passport Wallet does the same thing for Internet purchases. Kids Passport lets parents restrict the information collected from the system's participating websites.
As part of the settlement, Microsoft is required to implement a comprehensive information security program, to be certified by an independent expert every two years. It also must refrain from making false claims about the Passport service. --AFP