UOB largely benefited from a 43% drop in bad debt charges from a year ago, which was a recurring theme for most Asian lenders in the last quarter as the region’s economies rebound from the economic downturn.
Just when you think you’ve trimmed any semblance of fat remaining in your IT budget, an economic downturn comes along, requiring you to find new ways to further reduce spending. You can target some of the usual suspects such as travel and training or, as Knowledge Center contributor Mark Settle explains here, you can explore virtualization as a means of achieving significant IT cost savings while also improving productivity and quality of service. –
Our
IT organization began its virtualization and automation journey with a
limited number of key objectives. We wanted to obtain the maximum
return on existing investments in server and storage resources and
become more responsive to the needs of our software developers. We were
pleasantly su…
A survey finds nearly one in two Americans (48 percent) who use technology in their everyday jobs say that they are now required to do more work with fewer resources due to the current economic climate. As an example, nearly one third (30 percent) feel that they need to stay connected to work 24/7, even during weekends, breaks or holidays.
– The recent economic downturn has American workers stressed,
overworked and anxious, but many are turning to technology to help them
cope. According to a survey released today by InterCall, a conferencing
and collaboration services provider, workers are using technology to
stay connected (sometim…
Jason Marine Group, the supplier and installer of control and communication equipment to ships and rigs, says group revenue fell 16.9% to about $29.4 million in HY2010 from about $35.4 million in HY2009.
Profit after income tax attributable to equity holders decreased 29.6% to about $2.4 million in HY2010 from about $3.5 million in HY2009.
The decrease is mainly due to the fall in revenue from the sale of goods during HY2010 as the demand for new vessels softened during the financial period following the global economic downturn.
China Hongxing Sports, the sports shoes, apparel and equipment manufacturer, says net profit attributable to shareholders fell 78.2% to RMB 23.2 million ($4.7 million) for the third quarter ending Sept 30, 2009 (3Q2009) compared to RMB 106 million in 3Q2008.
Sales fell 29.5% to RMB 492.5 million in 3Q09 from RMB 698.2 million in 3Q08 mainly due to the weak consumer market brought about by the global economic downturn and excess inventory in the industry leading to higher discounts given to distributors.
China Kangda Food Company says it expects the group to report lower unaudited net profit for the nine months ended 30 September 2009 compared to the corresponding period last year.
China Kangda says the decline is mainly attributable to the decrease in demand for rabbit meat in the European Union following the global economic downturn; decrease in sale orders for processed food from customers in Japan due to the global economic downturn; and an excess supply of chicken meat products to the PRC domestic market resulting from keen competition.
{jcomments}
Mainboard-listed ISDN Holdings, the integrated engineering solutions provider, says 2Q09 sales slid 27.1% to $23.6 million from $32.4 million as demand fell in the global economic downturn.
Motion control remained as the biggest revenue earner among the three key business segments in the second quarter. It raked in sales of $17.4 million, equivalent to 73.8% of group sales, followed by Other Specialised Engineering Solutions at $5.5 million.
Lenovo notebook on display in Hong Kong (file image)” border=”0″ vspace=”4″ hspace=”4″>
Lenovo, the world’s fourth largest personal computer maker, has reported a loss and says it has not seen the bottom of the economic downturn.
The Chinese company made a loss of $16m (£9.4m) between April and June, its third straight quarterly loss, compared with a profit of £110m a year ago.
The main reason was a big fall in sales, which fell to $3.5bn, down almost 20% from a year earlier.
The results were, however, better than analysts had expected.
"Lenovo showed strong progress this last quarter but we still face numerous challenges," said the company’s chief executive Yang Yuanqing.
But Mr Yang said that the downturn was making trading conditions tough.
"The global economic crisis continues to significantly impact our core commercial customers. We cannot say we have seen the bottom of the global downturn," he added.
Indeed the drop in sales was largely due companies reining in their spending.
"There’s little evidence of a pick-up in corporate spending, and that’s the biggest worry," said Edward Yen at UBS.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Carmaker BMW saw its profits dive by three-quarters in the three months to the end of June as sales slipped during the economic downturn.
Net profit came in at 121m euros ($174m; £103m), 76% lower than the 507m euros it made a year earlier.
The firm said despite "some tentative positive signs, a lasting and wide ranging recovery is not yet in sight".
Earlier on Monday, the world’s biggest carmaker Toyota reported a big quarterly loss after sales slumped.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
In the face of the current economic downturn, many companies have begun to transition into survival mode, streamlining their businesses as much as possible in an effort to stay afloat. These companies are seeking to run their businesses as efficiently as possible and, now more than ever, dont have the robust bottom lines to support technology initiatives that simply do not work. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Kleber Bacili explains how to streamline those wasteful and unruly IT projects that just have not been performing well.
– Today, years past the beginning of their implementations, unruly IT projects left to grow uninhibited are being seen as exactly that unruly. Now with economic uncertainties abound, many of these companies are unable, or simply unwilling, to give up on the IT projects in which they have so heavily in…
Mainboard-listed Cosco Corporation (Singapore), one of the leading ship repair & marine engineering and shipping groups, today announced another set of profitable results for the second quarter ended 30 June 2009.
Group turnover declined 31% to $718.5 million in Q2 2009 from $1.0 billion in Q2 2008 amidst poor operating landscape. Ship repair, ship building and marine engineering revenue fell 30.4% to $681.3 million in Q2 2009 on lower revenue from ship repair and conversion projects due to the global economic downturn.
The whole global philanthropy report is worth reading, but here are my takeaways.
Singapore Airlines says the combination of the global economic downturn, the outbreak of Influenza A (H1N1) and fuel hedging resulted in a loss of $307 million for the first quarter ended June 2009.
This is the first quarterly loss since the SARS crisis in 2003.
As I have previously pointed out, the current economic crisis could be worse than the Great Depression. See this and this.I have also pointed out that two economists said as recently as June that the global economic downturn was worse than the Great D…
As I have previously pointed out, the current economic crisis could be worse than the Great Depression. See this and this.I have also pointed out that two economists said as recently as June that the global economic downturn was worse than the Great D…
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said it will take "unprecedented" measures to help poor countries cope with the economic downturn.
The IMF said it will boost lending by up to $17bn (£10.4bn) between now and 2014 and suspend interest on some loans to low income countries until 2011.
It plans to sell some of its gold reserves to raise funds for the loans.
The measures are partly in response to calls from the G20 countries at their April summit for greater lending.
"This is an unprecedented scaling up of IMF support for the poorest countries, in sub-Saharan Africa and all over the world," said IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
The measures "should prevent millions of people from falling into poverty," he added.
The fund said the global crisis was jeopardising the "remarkable economic progress" made by many poorer countries.
The new loans would not only help them weather the downturn, but also help them in the longer term battle against poverty, it said.
It added that $8bn would be made available over the next two years, more than the $6bn called for by the G20.
Earlier this month, the IMF agreed $2.5bn loan with Sri Lanka and a $600m loan with Ghana.</p
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
MUNICH (AP) — BMW is pulling out of Formula One at the end of this season, the second car maker to leave the series within a year.
The German company announced the decision at a news conference Wednesday, saying it wanted to use its significant F1 budget in other areas. It will remain involved in [...]
Analysis
By Theo Leggett
Business reporter, BBC World Service
BMW has confirmed that this will be its last season in Formula 1.
The team, which had been tipped to fight for the world championship, has been struggling to make an impact on the track this year.
But that’s only part of the story.
Like Honda, which pulled out of Formula 1 before the season had even started, the German carmaker has seen its sales and profits tumble as a result of the global economic downturn.
In such a difficult environment, they are struggling to justify spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year on motor sport.
"Before the end of the year we will see at least one other car manufacturer leave F1"
F1 analyst Christian Sylt of Formula Money
BMW’s departure leaves four car manufacturers still competing in F1: Ferrari, Mercedes Benz, Toyota and Renault.
Ferrari is unlikely to leave the sport, because its image as a manufacturer of supercars is intimately tied to its racing heritage.
But there is widespread speculation that at least one of the other major brands could follow BMW out of the door.
"BMW definitely won’t be the last", says F1 analyst Christian Sylt of Formula Money.
"Before the end of the year we will see at least one other car manufacturer leave F1."
According to motor sport’s governing body, the FIA, such an exodus was inevitable.
"It has been clear for some time that motor sport cannot ignore the world economic crisis," it said in a statement released after BMW’s announcement.
"Car manufacturers cannot be expected to continue to pour large sums of money into Formula 1 when their survival depends on redundancies, plant closures and the support of the taxpayer."
Race against time
So will BMW’s departure cause any lasting damage to Formula 1
The answer is, not necessarily.
Three new teams are due to join the series next year. Assuming they can raise enough sponsorship to guarantee their entries, there should still be plenty of cars on the starting grid.
But in the current climate raising the money is likely to prove difficult.
In addition, the new teams face a race against time if they are to be on the grid next year.
If the new entries fail to materialise, and more teams leave, a crisis could yet develop.
Some experts believe that the departure of major names such as Honda and BMW undermines F1′s claim to be the pinnacle of world motor sport.
It’s an argument that points towards the real problem facing Formula 1.
Spending rows
A key part of the sport’s attraction is its brash, free-spending image.
It oozes high-rent glamour, and promotes itself as a hub of white-hot technology.
That image comes at a cost. In recent years, top teams have been spending more than $400m (£244m) a season.
Yet as the departures of BMW and Honda have illustrated all too clearly, that kind of outlay can no longer be taken for granted.
For much of the past year, the main stakeholders in Formula 1 have been embroiled in a bitter dispute over how to cut costs, without emasculating the sport.
The FIA, led by its forceful president Max Mosely, wanted to put the brakes on spending by forcing teams to cut their budgets to just $60 million a year, as well as restricting technical development.
But this was vehemently opposed by most of the teams, who believed such a move would destroy the essence of Formula 1.
‘Nuclear’ threat
The teams’ ire was also directed at the Formula 1 Group, the network of companies run by Bernie Ecclestone, which control the commercial side of F1.
The group earns close to a billion dollars a year from trackside advertising, television rights and race fees.
But only half of the money goes back into F1, as payments to the teams.
The rest is absorbed by the F1 Group and its ultimate owner, the private equity group CVC Capital partners.
At a time when sponsors were hard to find, the teams argued, they should be given a bigger slice of the cake.
The dispute came to a head at the British Grand Prix in June, when eight teams threatened to walk out of F1 and set up their own rival championship.
That plan, widely seen as a "nuclear option" now looks highly unlikely to be carried out.
Under intense pressure from Bernie Ecclestone and the F1 Group as well as the team owners, the FIA backed down.
Uncertain future
The teams no longer face a compulsory budget cap. Instead they have agreed to work together, establishing ways to cut costs dramatically over the next two years.
The dispute with the F1 Group also appears to have simmered down.
It now looks as though the current commercial arrangements will stay in place until 2012.
These plans are to be formally set out in a new governing document for the sport, known as the Concorde Agreement – which the FIA says will be signed in the coming days.
But while the agreement offers F1 some welcome stability after a period of turmoil, it does nothing to remedy the harsh economic environment.
And as BMW’s departure illustrates all too graphically, the sport’s future remains far from certain. </p
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
IBM acquires Ounce Labs to build out its application testing capabilities. The purchase, which follows continued growth in the market, may trigger a reaction from HP and other vendors.
– IBM has acquired Ounce Labs to bolster
its application testing abilities.
The move underscores the demand
for vulnerability testing, which analysts say has continued to grow even in the
face of an economic downturn. According to Gartner, the market for both dynamic
and static testing has grow…
