■BANKING
Local lenders resolve cases
Taiwanese banks have reached settlements in more than 2,000 cases linked to investments in Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc-related securities, the financial regulator said on Friday. An average of 300 cases are being resolved per week with settlements already reached on investments worth NT$1.6 billion (US$46 million) as of Feb. 20, the Financial Supervisory Commission said in a statement. All cases related to investments made in Lehman-linked notes after Sept. 1 have been resolved, the statement said.
■ELECTRONICS
Micron to transfer patents
Micron Technology Inc will transfer more than 2,500 of its chip patents to local chipmakers in exchange for the government’s financial aid, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported yesterday, citing Michael Sadler, excutive vice president of Inotera Memories Inc (華亞科技), a DRAM joint venture between Micron and Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技). The government is planning to form a new DRAM company to consolidate local memory chipmakers. Micron will invest more funds in this new company and start producing its most advanced 50-nanometer chip within a year at the earliest, the newspaper said.
■PETROLEUM
Pemex shows US$7bn loss
Mexican national oil company Pemex on Friday announced a loss of more than US$7 billion for last year, a sixfold increase over the previous year, a company spokesman said. The loss was attributed mainly to the drop in the peso’s value, the spokesman said. Pemex declared a loss of around US$1 billion in 2007. Mexico’s peso was on Friday trading at a record low of 15.22 to the US dollar, despite an injection of cash by the country’s Central Bank (Banxico).
■AVIATION
UK, China firms seal deals
A US$1.2 billion deal between British jet engine maker Rolls-Royce and Hainan Airlines of China was announced on Friday as British and Chinese firms signed deals worth up to US$1.9 billion. The announcements, sealed at a ceremony in London attended by China’s Trade Minister Chen Deming (陳德銘) and Britain’s Business Secretary Peter Mandelson, came on the last leg of a Chinese trade tour of Europe. The US$1.2 billion deal is for the purchase of Rolls-Royce jet engines and a service contract for Hong Kong Airlines planes, it was announced.
■BANKING
HSBC to sell shares
HSBC, Europe’s biggest bank, plans to raise more than £12 billion (US$17 billion) in a share sale aimed at propping up its capital base in order to cope with the economic crisis, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The FT said the share issue would likely be announced alongside its full-year results for last year due tomorrow. The newspaper quoted unidentified people involved in the discussions as saying the offer price for the sale had not been set and the deal could still be postponed.
■INVESTMENT
GE to cut dividend
For the first time since the Great Depression of the 1930s, General Electric Co (GE) is cutting its quarterly dividend, a move that allows the struggling conglomerate to save US$9 billion a year as it braces for a tough year. GE said on Friday it would pay shareholders a US$0.10-per-share dividend beginning in the third quarter, 68 percent lower than the company’s original plan of US$0.31. The dividend cut is the company’s first since 1938.
Six Taiwanese companies, including contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), made the 2025 Fortune Global 500 list of the world’s largest firms by revenue. In a report published by New York-based Fortune magazine on Tuesday, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. (better known as Foxconn) ranked highest among Taiwanese firms, placing 28th with revenue of US$213.69 billion. Up 60 spots from last year, TSMC rose 60 places to reach No. 126 with US$90.16 billion in revenue, followed by Quanta Computer Inc. at 348th, Pegatron Corp. at 461st, CPC Corp., Taiwan at 494th and Wistron Corp. at 496th. According to Fortune, the world’s
WEAKER ACTIVITY: The sharpest deterioration was seen in the electronics and optical components sector, with the production index falling 13.2 points to 44.5 Taiwan’s manufacturing sector last month contracted for a second consecutive month, with the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) slipping to 48, reflecting ongoing caution over trade uncertainties, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The decline reflects growing caution among companies amid uncertainty surrounding US tariffs, semiconductor duties and automotive import levies, and it is also likely linked to fading front-loading activity, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “Some clients have started shifting orders to Southeast Asian countries where tariff regimes are already clear,” Lien told a news conference. Firms across the supply chain are also lowering stock levels to mitigate
NEW PRODUCTS: MediaTek plans to roll out new products this quarter, including a flagship mobile phone chip and a GB10 chip that it is codeveloping with Nvidia Corp MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday projected that revenue this quarter would dip by 7 to 13 percent to between NT$130.1 billion and NT$140 billion (US$4.38 billion and US$4.71 billion), compared with NT$150.37 billion last quarter, which it attributed to subdued front-loading demand and unfavorable foreign exchange rates. The Hsinchu-based chip designer said that the forecast factored in the negative effects of an estimated 6 percent appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar against the greenback. “As some demand has been pulled into the first half of the year and resulted in a different quarterly pattern, we expect the third quarter revenue to decline sequentially,”
DIVERSIFYING: Taiwanese investors are reassessing their preference for US dollar assets and moving toward Europe amid a global shift away from the greenback Taiwanese investors are reassessing their long-held preference for US-dollar assets, shifting their bets to Europe in the latest move by global investors away from the greenback. Taiwanese funds holding European assets have seen an influx of investments recently, pushing their combined value to NT$13.7 billion (US$461 million) as of the end of last month, the highest since 2019, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Over the first half of this year, Taiwanese investors have also poured NT$14.1 billion into Europe-focused funds based overseas, bringing total assets up to NT$134.8 billion, according to data from the Securities Investment Trust and Consulting Association (SITCA),
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