INVESTMENT
CIC to get extra funding
China Investment Corp (CIC, 中國投資公司), China’s sovereign wealth fund, will receive as much as US$50 billion in additional funding, Reuters reported, citing two people familiar with the matter. Government agencies reached an agreement that will allocate cash from China’s US$3.2 trillion foreign exchange reserves each year, and “chart the future” of domestic unit Central Huijin Investment Ltd (中央匯金). CIC declined to comment on the report when contacted by reporters. Chairman Lou Jiwei (樓繼偉) deployed almost all the fund’s cash last year as an improving world economy prompted a 10 percent gain in the MSCI World Index. Net income rose 24 percent while the Beijing-based fund posted an 11.7 percent return on its overseas investments, according to its July annual report. CIC will receive additional funding annually based on its performance in the previous year, according to a report by Weekly on Stocks that was posted to Web sites including that of the China Securities Journal and Sohu.com in June. The fund may get US$50 billion as the first batch of new capital this year, the report said, without saying where it got the information.
INVESTMENT
NYSE Euronext sale okayed
Deutsche Boerse won US antitrust approval to buy NYSE Euronext yesterday in a US$9 billion deal that has hit serious antitrust headwinds in Europe. The US Department of Justice said on Thursday that the deal, which was announced in February, won approval on condition that a Deutsche Boerse subsidiary, the International Securities Exchange, divest its 31.5 percent interest in Direct Edge. Direct Edge is the fourth-largest US exchange, the department said. Despite the divestiture, Deutsche Boerse and NYSE must continue to provide some services to Direct Edge, the department said. In Europe, there have been weeks of negotiations during which EU antitrust staff made clear their reservations about approving a combination of Deutsche Boerse’s Eurex and NYSE Euronext’s Liffe on concerns that the merged entity would have a monopoly over European listed derivatives trading.
RUSSIA
Refinancing rate cut
Russia’s central bank yesterday cut its main refinancing rate for the first time since June of last year, citing uncertainties about global economic growth. The bank said its cut of 25 basis points to 8 percent was “based on the assessment of inflationary risks and risks to stable economic growth, including those caused by uncertainty over the foreign economic situation.” It marks the first time that rates have come down in Russia since June 1 last year and underscores concerns over how Europe’s sovereign debt problems may affect the domestic financial sector.
INSURANCE
AIG CEO wants to stay on
American International Group Inc (AIG) chief executive officer Robert Benmosche, who’s been treated for cancer, may stay in the top job longer than previously planned. Benmosche, 67, has said he’d like to remain CEO past next year, according to an e-mailed statement yesterday from Mark Herr, a spokesman for the New York-based insurer. Benmosche took the CEO post in 2009 and had previously said he planned to complete three years on the job. “He has said he would like to, health-willing, continue to lead AIG past 2012,” Herr said. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier on Benmosche’s plans.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by