AUTOMOBILES
BYD selling shares to expand
Chinese car and battery maker BYD Co (比亞迪) is raising 1.42 billion yuan (US$220 million) in a share offering aimed at raising cash for a major expansion. BYD said in a notice to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Sunday that it would sell 79 million shares, or a 3.4 percent stake, at 18 yuan each on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. The Shenzhen-based company already has shares traded in Hong Kong. MidAmerican Energy, a subsidiary of billionaire investor’s Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, holds a 9.9 percent stake in BYD. Proceeds from the sale will help pay for a 2.2 billion yuan expansion mainly focused on an auto research, development and production base in Shenzhen.
AUTOMOBILES
Ford relaunching Lincoln
US auto giant Ford is investing US$1 billion to relaunch its struggling luxury Lincoln brand, in decline for a decade, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. As part of the effort, Ford will back seven new or significantly upgraded models for Lincoln in the next four years, the daily said, citing auto dealers briefed by Ford over the plans. “We are fully committed to making Lincoln a world-class luxury brand with compelling vehicles and an exceptional consumer experience to match,” the report quoted Lincoln spokesman Timothy Elliott as saying.
CREDIT RATINGS
Nippon Steel, JFE cut
Nippon Steel Corp and JFE Holdings Inc, Japan’s two largest steelmakers, had their credit ratings cut by Moody’s Investors Service on concern they would find it difficult to pass on rising costs and improve profitability. Nippon Steel was lowered one notch to “A2,” Moody’s fourth--lowest investment grade rating, while JFE Holdings was cut to “A3,” Moody’s said in separate statements yesterday. The outlooks for the ratings of the two companies were “stable.” Moody’s also downgraded Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), the operator of Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, to below investment grade, warning the rating was on review for further possible action. The Japanese unit of the major US credit rating firm said it downgraded TEPCO’s senior secured debt rating to “Ba2” from “Baa2.” It also downgraded the firm’s long-term issuer rating to “B1” from “Baa3.”
SHIPBUILDING
STX to build Russia shipyard
South Korean shipbuilding and shipping conglomerate the STX Group said yesterday it had signed an initial deal to build a US$1 billion shipyard in Russia. The group said a memorandum of understanding covering engineering, procurement and construction for the St Petersburg project was signed with OAO United Shipbuilding Corp. STX has also been seeking to jointly build shipyards in Brazil and the United Arab Emirates. The group has 18 shipyards in eight countries, including South Korea and China.
ELECTRONICS
Samsung to supply KDDI
South Korea’s Samsung Electronics said yesterday it had been chosen to provide next-generation communications equipment to KDDI, Japan’s No. 2 mobile phone operator. KDDI is scheduled to start a commercial service using long-term evolution (LTE) technology next year, Samsung said in a statement without disclosing the value of the deal. Samsung, the world’s second-largest mobile phone maker, already provides LTE equipment to wireless carriers in the US and the Middle East. It said it was working to offer LTE services to eight mobile operators around the world.
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