MINING
Rusal refuses to sell stake
United Co Rusal rejected OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel’s offer to buy a US$12.8 billion stake it holds in the Russian nickel mining company, saying it wouldn’t be in the best interests of its shareholders. The board “approved the committee’s recommendation to reject the proposal to sell the company’s 20 percent stake,” Rusal said in a statement. Billionaire Oleg Deripaska, who owns 47 percent of Rusal, has rejected three offers since October to sell out of Norilsk, the world’s largest nickel producer, even as Rusal investors Mikhail Prokhorov and Viktor Vekselberg push for a sale.
FOOD
Bright Food promotes bid
China’s Bright Food Group (光明食品) has said a tie-up with France’s Yoplait would bring expansion opportunities in the massive Chinese market, as it promotes a bid for a stake in the French company. Switzerland’s Nestle and General Mills of the US are also among those interested in buying a 50 percent stake in Yoplait, which is owned by private equity firm PAI Partners, a person familiar with the situation said last month. Last year, the Chinese company failed in a bid for the sugar and biofuels unit of Australia’s CSR. It also reportedly abruptly ended acquisition discussions with US nutritional product retailer GNC and Britain’s United Biscuits.
BANKING
Goldman CEO may testify
Goldman Sachs Group Inc chief executive Lloyd Blankfein has agreed to testify for the prosecution at Galleon Group LLC co-founder Raj Rajaratnam’s insider-trading trial set to begin next week, according to a person briefed on the matter. Blankfein, 56, may end up not testifying because prosecutors often line up potential witnesses before a trial who are not called to testify, the person said. Rajaratnam is accused of earning US$45 million in illicit profits from information leaked by corporate insiders, hedge fund traders and others. He denies wrongdoing and said his trades were based on Galleon research.
ADVERTISING
WPP posts strong results
A rebound in the US advertising market allowed WPP, the world’s largest ad group, to follow its peers and post strong full-year results yesterday and a solid outlook for this year. WPP, whose ad agencies include JWT and Ogilvy & Mather, posted fourth-quarter organic revenue growth of 8.5 percent and said the solid performance had continued into January, with revenue up more than 8 percent. The strong finish to the year helped WPP to post a full-year figure of 5.3 percent, with both the fourth quarter and full-year figures ahead of forecasts. This year, it expects the key industry metric of like-for-like growth of 5 percent and operating margins to rise 0.5 margin points to 13.7 percent.
AVIATION
Bombardier, ICBC seal deal
Canada’s Bombardier, the third-largest aircraft maker in the world behind Airbus and Boeing, says it has secured an US$8 billion financing deal from a Chinese leasing firm. Under a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed by the two firms, ICBC Leasing will provide customers of Bombardier with advance payment financing, delivery financing and leasing solutions for some commercial and business jets. “This MOU provides mutual benefits to Bombardier and ICBC Leasing, since it addresses both parties’ objectives of providing optimized aircraft solutions to operators in China and elsewhere,” Bombardier Aerospace president Guy Hachey said in a statement on Thursday.
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
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
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
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