Digital cameras and smartphones have become so pervasive that many people think film cameras are now fit only for antique collectors. Fujifilm Corp., however, is bucking the trend, successfully targeting young female consumers with its Instax instant camera series, better known as Cheki in Japan.
Updated 5 Years ago

Four BMW dealers in Wuhan, Hubei province were the first to be fined by China's anti-monopoly campaign targeting luxury automakers, eeo.com.cn reported on Wednesday. It said Hubei Province Price Bureau fined the four dealers a combined 1.63 million yuan ($264,773) for deceptive pricing and setting unified prices for pre-delivery inspections (PDI).
Updated 5 Years ago

Brazilian state lender Banco do Brasil posted adjusted net income of 3.00bn reais (US$1.32bn) in the second quarter, up 14.0% year-on-year, according to the bank's latest financial results release. The result also came in above the market estimate of 2.55bn reais, as reported by investment bank JPMorgan, reflecting higher than expected net interest income (NII) and lower than forecast expenses.
Updated 5 Years ago

Colombia is looking at banks, multilateral organizations, bonds and infrastructure funds to finance its ambitious 47tn-peso (US$25bn) highway program dubbed 4G, Portafolio newspaper reported. Tenders have been delayed for months and some of them have received few bids given the lack of financing sources. Insurer AIG said several highways could be difficult to award as traffic estimates for 20 to 25 projects – of the 40 in the program – were overstated, and anticipated possible financial strains in tenders.
Updated 5 Years ago

Gold production at Vancouver-based B2Gold's El Limón mine in Nicaragua will be impacted by delays to the installation of a water pump well, according to company filings. The pump well, designed to remove excess underground water, was delayed partly by two fatalities during separate incidents at the mine during the second quarter, as well as by the late receipt of approvals and installation delays, the company said in its Q2 management's discussion and analysis (MD&A) report.
Updated 5 Years ago

The oil and gas fields for exploration and production assigned to Pemex in round zero will guarantee the Mexican state oil firm's short and medium-term viability, and set the bases for its expansion, according to CEO Emilio Lozoya Austin. Pemex has been assigned 100% of 2P (proven and probable) reserves it requested in March, and 67% of the country's prospective oil and gas resources as part of round zero.
Updated 5 Years ago

Chinese households increased the amount of savings diverted into wealth-management products to a record 12.7 trillion yuan ($2.1 trillion) as the government tries to manage risks from an explosion in shadow banking. The outstanding value rose 24 percent in the first half from the end of last year, the China Banking Wealth Management Registration System said on its website today. The average annualized return was 5.2 percent, compared with 3 percent for benchmark one-year deposits.
Updated 5 Years ago

A Ferrari 250 GTO Berlinetta sold for $38.1 million in California, setting a record for a car sold at auction globally. The 1962 red two-seat coupe was estimated to sell for $30 million to $40 million at yesterday’s Bonhams auction in Carmel. Before the sale,Robert Brooks, Bonhams chairman, had expected the price to surpass the record for a car sold at any auction -- $29.7 million for a 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196R Formula 1 racing car sold by Bonhams in 2013.
Updated 5 Years ago

BlackBerry Ltd.’s smartphone shipments grew 15 percent in the second quarter from the prior period, recording their first sequential gain in a year as Chief Executive Officer John Chen’s turnaround plan takes hold. BlackBerry shipped 1.5 million units, research firm IDC said in a statement, compared with 1.3 million in the first quarter. The company’s share of the global smartphone market held steady at 0.5 percent as the overall market grew, IDC said.
Updated 5 Years ago

After a slew of bad data across the globe this week, the market may need to start rejigging its expectations for the end of easy monetary policy, some analysts said. "It's been a building sense in the last couple of months," across regions as diverse as Australia, New Zealand, Korea and even the U.K., said Richard Jerram, chief economist at Bank of Singapore, although he added that the U.S. is a "notable exception."
Updated 5 Years ago