EQUITIES
PRC firms to list in Taiwan
Forty-three companies with major operations in China are receiving listing guidelines in preparation to sell shares in Taiwan, Taiwan Stock Exchange Corp (台灣證交所) deputy general manager Stanley Chu (朱士廷) said at a conference in Shanghai yesterday.
EQUITIES
Kazakh firms mull HK listing
Several Kazakh companies, some of them already quoted on the London stock exchange, are to list in Hong Kong, Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Masimov said, according to a report yesterday. ENRC, one of central Asia’s largest miners with a London market capitalization of £12.1 billion (US$19.3 billion), will be among them, the South China Morning Post said. An ENRC spokesman told the paper no final decision had been taken over a secondary listing. Kazakhmys said earlier this month it was considering a Hong Kong listing.
BANKING
Taiwan, PRC banks to co-op
Taiwan Business Bank (臺灣企銀) said on Friday its board approved a plan to cooperate with Bank of Beijing (北京銀行) in yuan-lending services for Taiwanese businesses there and increase personnel exchange, according to a stock exchange filing. The Taipei-based bank said it would submit the cooperation plan to the Financial Supervisory Commission for review before signing a formal contract with the Chinese lender, the filing showed. The Taiwanese lender did not say when the pact would be signed. The Bank of Beijing is 16.07 percent owned by ING Groep NV, after they began the strategic alliance five years ago.
AUTOMOBILES
No date for IPO: GM
General Motors Co (GM) on Friday clarified comments made earlier this week by chairman Ed Whitacre about the automaker’s expected initial public stock offering (IPO), saying the remarks “were not intended.” Whitacre told reporters in San Antonio on Wednesday that GM’s IPO would take place sometime next month and estimated the shares would be priced from US$20 to US$25 per share. GM said on Friday in a filing with the SEC that a price range for the offering had not yet been determined “and will be disclosed only after it has been determined.”
CONGLOMERATES
GE sales disappoint
General Electric Co (GE) posted a sharper-than-expected drop in revenue on slack demand for wind turbines, railroad locomotives and other heavy equipment, reflecting a weak economy. Revenue came to US$35.89 billion, below the US$37.54 billion analysts had expected, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. The largest US conglomerate’s 5.1 percent drop in sales overshadowed better-than-expected profit and sent GE shares down 5.5 percent on Friday in their steepest slide since July.
FASHION
D&G accused of tax evasion
Italian prosecutors accused the fashion house Dolce and Gabbana of failing to declare about 840 million euros (US$1.17 billion) in revenue, Italy’s main business daily reported yesterday. Investigators have closed their inquiry against founders Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, and five other people, but no formal charges have yet been presented, Il Sole 24 Ore said, citing prosecutors in Milan. The allegation is that Dolce and Gabbana created a company in Luxembourg in 2004 and 2005 which was given control of the group’s brands, thereby avoiding Italian taxes. The unpaid taxes amount to 420 million euros, Il Messaggero daily reported.
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