BANKING
Head of bank arrested
The head of a South Korean bank has been arrested in Seoul on suspicion of embezzling company funds as part of a probe into irregularities by suspended savings banks, prosecutors said yesterday. Solomon Savings Bank chief executive Lim Suk was arrested late on Tuesday on claims he embezzled 17 billion won (US$14.5 million) and issued 150 billion won in illegal loans, prosecutors said. Lim’s arrest came after Kim Chan-kyong, boss of Solomon, Mirae, Hanju and Korea Savings Bank, was arrested last week on embezzlement charges.
MACHINERY
Japan’s core orders fall
Japan’s core machinery orders fell 2.8 percent in March from the previous month, official figures showed yesterday, matching market expectations. The core private-sector data, which exclude volatile demand from power companies and for ships, turned down after two months of increases, according to the Cabinet Office. The core orders are seen as a leading indicator of corporate capital spending. In the January-March quarter, orders rose by 0.9 percent from the previous quarter. The orders are forecast to increase 2.5 percent in the April-June term, the office said.
SOUTH KOREA
Unemployment rate drops
South Korea’s unemployment rate declined last month mainly because of more positions in the service sector, official figures showed yesterday. The jobless rate was 3.5 percent last month, down from 3.7 percent in April last year, Statistics Korea said. The figure was also down from 3.7 percent in March this year. Seasonally adjusted, the unemployment rate stood at 3.4 percent in April, unchanged from the previous month.
TRADE
US, EU push trade deals
The US and EU are laying the groundwork for trade talks that could quickly produce an agreement to help boost jobs on both sides, US Trade Representative Ron Kirk said on Tuesday. Last year, the US and the EU created a high-level working group led by Kirk and EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht to examine options for expanding trade and economic ties. Kirk and De Gucht are expected to deliver their preliminary recommendations next month and a final report by year end.
INVESTMENT
Whitworth buys into Pepsi
Activist investor Ralph Whitworth said on Tuesday that his firm has taken a US$600 million stake in PepsiCo Inc, a move that could ramp up pressure on the company to make changes. Whitworth, the co-founder of San Diego-based Relational Investors, said that his firm has accumulated a 0.6 percent stake in the food and beverage giant since last fall. The holding is expected to be disclosed this week in a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In a statement, PepsiCo said that it has had constructive meetings with Relational.
AEROSPACE
EADS returns to profit
European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co (EADS) returned to profit in the first quarter and raised its guidance for some earnings this year, while cautioning that its latest aircraft program remains “very challenging.” First-quarter net income reached 133 million euros (US$169 million), compared with a year-earlier loss of 12 million euros, EADS said yesterday.
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