■ FINANCE
Northern Rock submits plan
The board of struggling bank Northern Rock PLC said on Friday it has submitted a revised rescue plan involving a larger amount of new equity to the British government. Northern Rock's board in a statement said it will raise at least US$1.4 billion of new equity if the government chooses its plan. It said the revised plan also increased the economic returns that the government would receive for providing ongoing financial support. The board said its revised plan doesn't involve any significant changes to the business plan it previously submitted, which involved reducing Northern Rock's assets and reorganizing its operations.
■ RETAIL
UK's small grocers get help
Britain's competition watchdog said on Friday it wants to appoint an ombudsman to prevent supermarkets from squeezing grocery suppliers. The Competition Commission's provisional ruling called for a new, stronger code of practice for dealings between retailers and suppliers, which the new ombudsman will enforce. The watchdog will spend three weeks consulting retailers and suppliers on the proposals before compiling its final decision. Small business and environmental lobby groups have long complained that Tesco PLC, J. Sainsbury's PLC and other companies are driving small stores out of business.
■ US
Fed moves given thumbs up
Moves by Congress to pump money into the US economy and by the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates will generate a slightly stronger economy this year, economists predicted on Friday. The economy will experience real growth in GDP of 1.9 percent this year, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicted, a 0.2 percentage point increase over estimates produced by the agency in December. The effect of the fiscal and monetary policy moves more than make up for a softening in the economy since CBO economists finalized their prior forecast of 1.7 percent growth. The agency did not say how much of the anticipated increase in GDP was due to the recently passed economic stimulus bill.
■ FINANCE
Mack given compensation
Morgan Stanley said CEO John Mack received compensation valued at about US$41.7 million last year, a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission showed, a year when the investment bank's profit plunged 57 percent. Mack, one of the highest paid bankers on Wall Street, did not receive a bonus last year because of the company's losses, which reached US$3.59 billion in the fourth quarter, owing to the subprime crisis. But Mack did receive an US$800,000 salary, stock awards valued at US$40.2 million and US$399,153 of other compensation, the filing showed.
■ EDUCATION
Eisner honors professor
Former Walt Disney Co CEO Michael Eisner has donated US$1.75 million to Denison University to honor one of his favorite professors, the school said on Friday. Eisner is a 1964 graduate of the Ohio university. He made the gift from The Eisner Foundation to establish the Dominick Consolo Endowed Professorship. Consolo, an emeritus professor of English, was an active faculty member at Denison from 1958 until 1992. Eisner has said that he was one of the inspirations for Robin Williams' character in the movie Dead Poets Society.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure