US federal antitrust regulators on Friday cleared Wells Fargo’s US$11.7 billion acquisition of Wachovia Corp, capping a weeklong battle for the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank.
The rapid approval comes a day after Citigroup Inc walked away from its own efforts to buy Wachovia — which experienced a US$5 billion run on deposits late last month after the failure of west coast rival Washington Mutual Inc, court documents filed on Friday by Citigroup showed.
Late on Thursday, Citigroup broke off talks with Wells Fargo and federal regulators after the suitors failed to reach an agreement over how to split up the bank.
San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co said on Thursday it would proceed with the purchase and plans to complete the deal by the end of the fourth quarter. The acquisition still needs the approval of Wachovia shareholders.
Wachovia shares rose US$1.55, or 43 percent, to US$5.15 on Friday. Wells Fargo shares rose US$1.06, or 3.9 percent, to US$28.31. Citigroup shares added US$1.18, or 9.1 percent, to US$14.11.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) included the deal on a list of transactions released on Friday that received an “early termination” of their antitrust reviews. Early termination refers to the completion of a review by the FTC or Justice Department before the end of a 30-day period required under antitrust law.
In related news, US regulators closed two small banks on Friday in the latest failure in the sector, and brokered a deal to sell the assets of them to nearby institutions. Deposits were protected in the deals.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp said it closed Main Street Bank, in Northville, Michigan, along with the Michigan Office of Financial and Insurance Regulation.
The assets were sold to Monroe Bank & Trust, in Monroe, Michigan, at a 1 percent premium, the FDIC said.
Main Street Bank had total assets of US$98 million and US$86 million in total deposits as of Tuesday.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to