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Technology Stocks : Seagate Technology -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Chen who wrote (5339)	7/31/1998 10:24:00 AM
From: DJBEINO	Respond to of 7841

US SEAGATE TECHNOLOGY INCREASES CHINA STAKE TO $US120 MLN BEIJING, July 31 -- Seagate Technology Inc., the world's largest computer disc-drive producer, announced here this week that it is increasing its investment in a joint venture in east China to $US120 million. By the end of June, the U.S.-based company had invested over $US83 million in fixed assets and was employing 4,000 people in China. Seagate is a leading provider of technology and products that enable users to store, access and manage electronic information. It is the world's largest manufacturers of hard disc drives, magnetic discs and read-write heads. Seagate's joint venture plant in the Wuxi-Singapore Industrial Park in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, produces the company's trademark disc drives. In June, Seagate also announced an increase in investment in a joint venture in south China's Shenzhen City from an original $US20 million to $US122 million. This joint venture was ranked China's top foreign company by export value last year. "This significant increase in investment over a three to five year period of time reflects the continued confidence Seagate has in China as a world-class manufacturing facility," said Eddie Lui, Seagate vice president and managing director of the company's Far East Desktop operations.

To: John Chen who wrote (5339)	7/31/1998 10:24:00 AM
From: Stitch	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 7841

John, In a word: uncertainty. With Al's departure it isn't clear what is going to happen. Everyone assumes his departure is derived from loggerheads over a major event or decision. Now everyone is waiting for the next shoe to fall. Best, Stitch PS ( I bought more)

To: John Chen who wrote (5339)	7/31/1998 10:26:00 AM
From: DJBEINO	Respond to of 7841

Seagate, IBM Dismiss Speculation of Plant Closures Bloomberg News July 29, 1998, 10:48 p.m. PT Singapore, July 30 (Bloomberg) -- Seagate Technology Inc., the world's largest independent maker of disk drives, and IBM Singapore Pte. dismissed market speculation about plans to fire more workers or shut operations in Singapore. Scotts Valley, California-based Seagate is the island- state's second-biggest private employer, accounting for about 2 percent of gross domestic product, analysts say. ''Seagate has no plans to pull out of Singapore,'' a company spokeswoman said. ''Singapore continues to be a cornerstone of Seagate's volume disk drive manufacturing operations.'' IBM, which has a disk drive plant that makes high-capacity disk drives in eastern Singapore, also said it's not firing workers or scaling down production. In the past month, several major electronics companies such as Adaptec Inc. and Motorola Inc. have fired workers in Singapore as demand for their products weakened because of Asia's currency and debt crisis. The country's electronics output shrank 1.7 percent in the first half. Disk drive production alone accounts for one-fifth of Singapore-made electronics exports. A slowdown in global orders means fewer such exports, which could push trade-dependent Singapore into a recession in the second half. The economy is seen posting just 0.5 percent to 1.5 percent expansion this year, from 7.8 percent last year. Speculation about firings in Singapore's key electronics industry has been rife after many multinational companies announced production cutbacks to sidestep inventory problems. Job Worries More than 12,000 workers lost their jobs in the first five months of the year, and the government warned up to 25,000 are expected to be jobless this year -- 20 percent higher than in the recession of 1985. Most of those affected were from electronics manufacturing companies. Top government ministers have warned workers to stay relevant through skills development and re-training, as more jobs are lost to neighboring countries made more attractive by currency devaluation. The Singapore dollar has lost 15 percent to the U.S. dollar in a year, less than the 80-percent decline of the Indonesian rupiah and the 36-percent decline of the Malaysian ringgit. ''With the (relative) strengthening of the Singapore dollar against other Asian currencies, many of the jobs that are lost will never find their way back to Singapore,'' Lim Boon Heng, who heads Singapore's national labor union, told union workers today. If workers don't develop new skills for new jobs, ''the threat of structural unemployment is not only real, but also big.'' Apart from Adaptec and Motorola which fired workers, Hewlett-Packard Co. asked some workers at a printer division to take mandatory leave to slow production. Compaq Computer Corp. also said it would close a plant in Singapore as part of a reorganization after it bought Digital Equipment Corp. Western Digital Corp., a disk drive maker, also cut its production week. Seagate Stays Put Seagate's spokeswoman said the company has ''no idea'' how the market speculation about the plant closure began, as the Singapore operations are Seagate's only mass manufacturing site for high-capacity disk drives used in high-end computers. It's been the subject of such talk since January, when it cut about 10,000 workers or 10 percent of its worldwide workforce after disk-drive prices plunged and demand for personal computers slowed. Among them were 1,800 workers in Singapore, where the company had about 18,000 employees. Two weeks ago, William Watkins, executive vice president of Seagate's disk-drive operations said ''It's still very competitive out there ... but I think we're pretty comfortable where we're at, especially in Singapore.''