■STOCKS
NSF income passes NT$30bn
Taiwan’s National Stabilization Fund (NSF) is expected to report income exceeding NT$30 billion (US$936 million) for the first two quarters of the year at its regular quarterly meeting on Tuesday, according to financial officials. The fund earned about NT$25 billion in selling off NT$62 billion in shares on the local stock market between March 1 and April 9. The NSF began buying shares in September 2008 at the outset of the global financial crisis to help stabilize local markets, eventually buying NT$59.9 billion in shares. The quarterly meeting is expected to review the government-backed fund’s performance in the first half of the year.
■NATURAL GAS
Japan, Russia to build plant
Japan and Russia have agreed to jointly build a liquefied natural gas plant in Vladivostok, with 5 million tonnes of output to be shipped to Japan annually, a newspaper said yesterday. An official accord will be signed in November when Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visits Japan to attend the APEC summit in Yokohama, southwest of Tokyo, the business daily Nikkei said. The new facility, expected to begin output as soon as 2017, will liquefy natural gas delivered by pipeline from eastern Russia. The Japanese trade and industry ministry as well as Japanese companies such as Itochu Corp and Japan Petroleum Exploration Co will be engaged in the construction, the newspaper said.
■COPYRIGHT
US judge reduces damages
A US federal judge on Friday drastically trimmed a US$675,000 verdict against a Boston University graduate student who was found liable for illegally downloading and sharing 30 songs online, saying the jury damage award against a person who gained no financial benefit from his copyright infringement is “unconstitutionally excessive.” Joel Tenenbaum, from Providence, Rhode Island, was sued by some of the largest music companies who said he violated copyright rules. He admitted in court to downloading songs between 1999 and 2007. The jury found him liable and assessed the damage award in July last year. His lawyers appealed, calling the award “severe” and “oppressive.”
■ENTERTAINMENT
Icahn, Lions Gate call truce
Billionaire investor Carl Icahn and the Lions Gate Entertainment Corp film studio have agreed to temporarily halt their fighting and work together on acquisitions. The agreement, announced on Friday after the market closed, isn’t a permanent fix for the acrimony between Icahn and Lions Gate. The agreement lasts only 10 days — until July 19 — but could be extended. Icahn has been trying to take over Lions Gate and force changes to the company’s spending and its acquisitions strategy that he says will benefit shareholders. One of Icahn’s issues is his disagreement with the company’s decision to explore a bid for the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc film studio.
■BANKING
Bay National shuts down
Regulators have shut down a bank in Maryland, marking the 87th failure this year of a federally insured bank. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp said on Friday it was appointed receiver of Bay National Bank, based in Baltimore. The bank had US$282.2 million in assets and US$$276.1 million in deposits as of March 31. With 87 closures nationwide so far this year, the pace of bank failures far outstrips that of last year, which was already a brisk year for shutdowns. By this time last year, regulators had closed 45 banks.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six