MINING
Peabody makes new bid
Australian miner Macarthur Coal said yesterday it had received a takeover bid from US mining giant Peabody Energy and major steel producer ArcelorMittal valued at A$4.68 billion (US$5 billion). Macarthur, the world’s top producer of a pulverized coal used to make steel, has rejected several previous takeover bids from Peabody in the past two years. The latest offer is for A$15.50 per share, less the final dividend for this year, under which the foreign-based firms would take control of Macarthur through a jointly owned bid company.
ELECTRONICS
Philips to buy China’s Povos
Dutch electronics giant Philips yesterday said it had agreed to buy Chinese kitchen appliance company Povos (奔騰). Philips announced the deal in a statement issued in Amsterdam, but did not give financial details. It said the transaction, which was subject to confirmatory due diligence and other customary closing conditions, was expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year. Shanghai-based Povos employs about 1,800 people and its product range included rice cookers, induction cookers, electric pressure cookers and kettles, Philips said.
BIOCHEMICALS
Lonza eyes Arch Chemicals
Swiss biochemicals group Lonza yesterday said it is offering to pay US$1.4 billion to acquire US group Arch Chemicals, a move which it said would strengthen its position in the market of microbe control. Lonza is offering US$47.20 for each Arch Chemicals share, a premium of 36.7 percent over the US firm’s average closing price over the last 30 trading days.
AUTOMOBILES
Renault sets sales record
Renault SA’s vehicle sales rose to a record 1.4 million units in the first half of the year, up 1.9 percent from year-earlier levels, the company said in an e- mailed statement yesterday. International sales increased 20 percent from year-earlier levels, boosted by Brazil and Russia. French sales declined 9.9 percent, the statement said. Renault expects the world car market to grow between 3 percent and 4 percent this year from last year’s levels, with a decline of between 0 and 2 percent in the European market.
AVIATION
Pilots union votes for action
A union representing 2,500 Qantas pilots has voted to take industrial action against the Australian airline, including the possibility of a strike. The Australian and International Pilots Association yesterday said the flagship Australian carrier had failed to ease their concerns about job security. The union says Qantas plans to shift some of its operations to Asia and start outsourcing work. Union spokesman Anil Lambert said a strike would be a last resort, with less severe forms of action such as work-to-rule far more likely. Pilots will decide this weekend what kind of action to take.
CHINA
Current account surplus falls
The current account surplus plunged 21 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, revised government figures showed yesterday — a much larger fall than previously announced. The current account surplus reached US$28.8 billion in the first three months of the year, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange said in a statement. That was US$1 billion less than the figure published in May, meaning the fall from the same period last year widened to 21 percent from 18 percent. No explanation was offered for the change.
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
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
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