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