MINING
Resourcehouse may cut IPO
Australian miner Resourcehouse may cut the size of a Hong Kong share sale originally slated to raise US$3.6 billion, after the company postponed the deal several times in the past two years. The unprofitable Australian mining company, controlled by billionaire Clive Palmer, is considering shrinking the initial public offering (IPO) to US$2.54 billion, Dow Jones Newswires reported yesterday, citing a company term sheet. The miner still planned to sell about 5.71 billion shares, but was considering an IPO share price of HK$3.45, well below its previous range of HK$4.48 and HK$4.93 per share, Dow Jones said. The company was originally scheduled to price its shares yesterday and to list the stock on Hong Kong’s bourse on Friday.
AVIATION
Qantas seeks redundancies
Australian airline Qantas yesterday confirmed it was seeking up to 350 voluntary redundancies among its 7,000 crew members as it seeks to mitigate fluctuating fuel prices and the cost of natural disasters. In March, the carrier said it would slash capacity and management staff because of a series of calamities, including floods in Australia and earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand, which coincided with a spike in oil and jet fuel prices. The airline said it hoped that about 350 employees or 5 percent of its cabin crew would take up the offer of voluntary redundancy once staff had finalized their expressions of interest in the offer.
SECURITIES
Nomura slashes execs’ pay
Nomura Holdings Inc cut pay for CEO Kenichi Watanabe and top executives by 38 percent last year after Japan’s biggest brokerage posted a profit drop, according to documents sent to shareholders. The securities firm reduced total compensation for its top 10 executives to ¥899 million (US$11 million) for the year ended March 31, from ¥1.45 billion a year earlier, the documents showed. Watanabe and chief operating officer Takumi Shibata oversaw a 58 percent profit decline to ¥28.7 billion for the year.
MINING
Rio signs profit-sharing deal
Mining giant Rio Tinto has signed a profit-sharing deal with the five indigenous groups that will allow the company to mine iron ore on lands the groups own in Western Australia. The agreements gives the Anglo-Australian company access to 71,000km2 in Pilbara. The remote region is rich in iron ore and other minerals. Rio Tinto said in a statement on Friday that the agreements set up trusts to be funded by mining revenue that will pay for health, education and anti-poverty projects. They will also set aside money for future generations.
TECHNOLOGY
Apple signs music deal
Apple Inc reached an agreement with Universal Music Group, the largest record label, setting the stage for its new service to let users access song libraries on multiple devices, two people with knowledge of the talks said. The new music service, enabling customers to store their music on Apple’s servers, will be previewed on Monday by CEO Steve Jobs at Apple’s annual developers conference in San Francisco, said the people, who declined to be identified because the deals aren’t public. Apple’s deal with Universal Music follows agreements with Sony Corp’s music unit, Warner Music Group Corp and EMI Group Ltd.
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
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
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
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