■ Steel
Mittal badmouths Russians
Mittal Steel, the world's biggest steel maker, sought on Friday to highlight the influence that Russian businessman Alexei Mordashov would exert over the future of a merged group comprising European steel group Arcelor and Russia's Severstal. Arcelor and Severstal have plans to merge in what is seen as a defensive move by Arcelor, which is trying to fend off a hostile takeover bid from Mittal Steel. Mittal Steel said that Mordashov, who is the founder and chairman of Severstal, had notified the EU competition services on Friday about his future "decisive influence" over the merged Severstal-Arcelor group. Under the terms of their merger, Arcelor is to buy Severstal in a US$15.3 billion (12.1 billion euro) transaction but Mordashov would end up with a stake of 38 percent in the merged company. "This filing [with the EU competition body] clearly evidences that the Severstal transaction is not an acquisition of control of Severstal by Arcelor, but the acquisition of control of Arcelor by Mordashov," said a spokesman for Mittal.
■ Singapore
Governance ratings released
Singapore has been ranked second only to the US in a survey of corporate governance among the world's key financial centers, said a report on Friday. In the survey, the Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy ranked 14 economies for their corporate governance. The US was first, followed by Singapore. Japan was third. The rest in descending order were: Britain, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, India, the Philippines, Indonesia, China and Vietnam. Singapore scored 2.4 overall, and the US scored 2.3. Zero is the best grade, while 10 is the worst.
■ Semiconductors
Intel moves chip date
Intel Corp is moving up the planned shipment date of a computer chip that will compete against one from rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Intel officials told analysts during a conference call on Friday that the company expects to ship its Tulsa chip in the third quarter instead of the fourth quarter. The microprocessor is one of Intel's latest for server systems, one of the markets in which AMD's Opteron chips have made recent gains at Intel's expense. Intel said the launch of another server chip, code-named Woodcrest, will be June 26. The Santa Clara, California-based chip manufacturer also contested some of AMD's earlier claims, saying that Woodcrest performs better and uses less power than the Opteron.
■ Retail
Lacoste sues Silk Alley
French clothing retailer Lacoste is suing Beijing's Silk Alley market, which is popular with tourists, for selling fake shirts bearing its famous crocodile logo, state media reported yesterday. The company is seeking 100,000 yuan (US$12,500) in compensation from the owner of the indoor market, Beijing Xiushui Haosen Clothing Co (秀水豪森服裝), and some of its tenants for trademark infringement, Xinhua news agency reported. "Xiushui Haosen not only failed to stop these tenants from selling counterfeited Lacoste products but also tried to connive with them by providing business premises," Xinhua quoted the indictment as saying. Lacoste could not be reached for comment on Saturday. In November last year, Chanel, Prada, Burberry, Louis Vuitton and Gucci sued Silk Alley and asked for 2.5 million yuan in compensation for allegedly selling fake copies of their products.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by