FLAT PANELS
Rules to be eased
Taiwan will further relax regulations on Taiwanese investments in Chinese flat-panel industries, the Chinese-language Commercial Times reported yesterday, without saying where it got the information. The government will lift certain merger and acquisition rules on Taiwanese LCD companies buying their Chinese counterparts, the newspaper said. The news came after the government announced earlier this month to lift restrictions on Chinese investment in local LCD and semiconductor industries.
SPAIN
Fitch confirms rating
Fitch Ratings confirmed Spain’s sovereign credit rating on Tuesday, but downgraded its outlook to negative, blaming a weak economy, banking woes and spendthrift regions. Spain’s rating was left at AA-plus, reserved for borrowers of “very high credit quality,” but the outlook was switched to negative from stable, reflecting the risk of a rating cut ahead. Fitch, one of the three top agencies that assess how creditworthy borrowers are, warned that an EU summit from March 24 to March 25 could make things worse for Spain if it fails to produce a “credible and comprehensive” response to the debt troubles of the 17-nation eurozone.
INTERNET
CBS buys Clicker Media
US television network CBS announced on Friday that it has acquired Clicker Media, a startup that provides an online video program guide. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. CBS Corp president and chief executive Leslie Moonves said in a statement that Clicker’s co-founder and chief executive, Jim Lanzone, had been named president of CBS Interactive, which oversees the broadcaster’s Web properties.
MEDIA
Playboy goes private
A partnership led by Hugh Hefner has succeeded in taking Playboy private. Playboy Enterprises Inc said on Friday that its acquisition by Hefner’s Icon Acquisition Holdings LP has closed. The US$6.15-per-share deal was funded with US$195 million of debt and US$185 million from the private investment firm Rizvi Traverse and Playboy management, including Hefner. Under the deal, Rizvi Traverse will own about 60 percent of the company. Hefner will own about 37 percent, and other executive management will have the remaining 3 percent.
AVIATION
EADS drops fight
The European plane--building company that lost out on a US$35 billion refueling tanker deal said on Friday it will not appeal the Air Force’s decision to go with Boeing Co in one of the biggest US defense contracts ever. One week after the military chose Boeing, officials of European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co (EADS), the parent of Airbus, said they were disappointed with the decision, but did not want to extend a multimillion-dollar fight that has already dragged on for a decade.
FINANCE
UBS chief forgoes bonus
The chief executive of Swiss bank UBS will forgo his bonus for the second year in a row because the share price did not increase last year, the company said on Friday. Oswald Gruebel, who helped UBS return to a profit last year for the first time since the start of the financial crisis, will not draw on bonus payments he was entitled to for last year. His base annual salary is the same as when he joined the company in February 2009, at SF3 million (US$3.22 million), UBS said.
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
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in
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