FINANCE
JPMorgan returns US$600m
JPMorgan Chase has returned about US$600 million that was held at the bank when securities firm MF Global Holdings Ltd failed last fall, according to a news report. The Wall Street Journal also reported on Saturday that a bankruptcy trustee representing MF Global’s customers might pursue JPMorgan for several hundred million dollars in additional claims. The newspaper cited unnamed people familiar with the matter and with the investigation into MF Global’s collapse. MF Global failed in October last year after a calamitous bet on European debt spooked its investors, partners and clients. The collapse left an estimated US$1.6 billion hole in customer accounts. The recovered money will eventually be passed along to customers.
SOUTH KOREA
Policy to focus on growth
The nation will focus policy efforts more on boosting economic growth and allocate additional state funds to support small companies and exporters, Finance Minister Bahk Jae-wan said. “We need to make more effort to support economic growth as some progress has been made in terms of stabilization” of prices, Bahk told reporters in Seoul on Saturday. “We’re not in a situation where we need an extra budget, but we will try to use more state funds to support small firms and exporters.” Bahk reaffirmed the government’s commitment to draft a budget that will achieve fiscal balance by next year, reducing its fiscal deficit to zero.
AUTOMAKERS
Volkswagen looks to China
German carmaker Volkswagen moved on Saturday to strengthen its strategic focus to expanding sales in China, while reshuffling the leadership of its truck business. Volkswagen AG’s supervisory board approved the creation of a new position on its board of directors managing all business related to China. Europe’s biggest carmaker — which includes Volkswagen, Audi, Lamborghini, Porsche, Skoda and Bentley — said in a statement the move “reflects China’s importance as the world’s largest car market.”
AUTOMAKERS
Fisker expands Karma recall
Privately held Fisker Automotive is expanding a recall of its plug-in hybrid Karma because of potential problems with the electric car’s battery. The automaker initially recalled 50 of the US$100,000 cars in December last year. It said improperly installed hose clamps in the model’s battery pack could cause coolant to leak, potentially starting a fire. Fisker has added 19 cars to that recall, 10 of which it believes were delivered to customers. The Irvine, California-based automaker said no incidents have been reported.
Italy
PM touts eurobond solution
Prime Minister Mario Monti believes eurobonds, a contested tool proposed as a way to alleviate the eurozone crisis, will eventually become reality, he told a Greek newspaper yesterday. “I believe we will have eurobonds in some form or other, because our [European] Union is getting closer,” Monti told the daily journal To Vima. He also said that eurobonds were not a “licence to spend” or an alternative to cutting debt. However, in the same publication, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle reiterated Berlin’s opposition, saying eurobonds would “increase debt and reduce competitiveness.” Underwritten by all eurozone countries, eurobonds would allow troubled members such as Greece to raise funds at much less painful interest rates.
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