BANKING
Australian bank posts profits
Australia’s largest lender, Commonwealth Bank, yesterday posted a 1 percent rise in first-half net profit to A$3.66 billion (US$3.77 billion), sending its shares to an all-time high. The bank’s result for the six months to Dec. 31 last year was up from A$3.62 billion in the same period the previous year. Commonwealth’s cash profit, a measure often preferred by financial institutions, rose 6 percent to A$3.78 billion, slightly above analyst expectations. The profit growth, due mainly to a stronger performance from its domestic and wholesale businesses, pushed its shares more than 2.6 percent higher in afternoon trade to A$67.27. Chief executive officer Ian Narev described it as a “a strong result which continues to demonstrate the benefits of the group’s consistent, long-term strategy.”
ECONOMY
S&P downgrades Slovenia
Ratings firm Standard & Poor’s (S&P) downgraded Slovenia’s government bond ratings by a notch on Tuesday, citing the struggling eurozone country’s larger-than-expected debt burden. Slovenia’s long-term sovereign ratings was cut to “A-” to “A” and also removed the rating from a negative watch, where it was placed on Nov. 6 last year. S&P said the country’s outlook was “stable.” “The downgrade reflects Slovenia’s higher-than-anticipated debt burden, due to its announced support of its state-owned banks, amid uncertain growth prospects,” S&P said in a statement. The agency also noted rising risks to resolving economic and financial pressures. “In our view, this confluence of factors constrains Slovenia’s ability to further implement policy responses to help boost its banking system, public finances, and growth prospects,” S&P said.
AUTOMOBILES
Peugeot Citroen posts loss
PSA Peugeot Citroen, Europe’s second-biggest carmaker, reported its first operating loss in three years as a contraction in the regional vehicle market caused its automotive division’s cash consumption to accelerate. The loss before interest, taxes and one-time gains or costs was 576 million euros (US$774 million) last year compared with profit of 1.09 billion euros a year earlier, Paris-based Peugeot said yesterday in a statement. The loss was narrower the 647 million-euro average of 17 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Revenue fell 5.2 percent to 55.4 billion euros. Operational free cash flow was a negative 3 billion euros last year, Peugeot said, adding that it plans to cut the cash-consumption rate by 50 percent this year and reach the break-even level by next year.
ENERGY
CNOOC wins assets approval
CNOOC Ltd, China’s biggest offshore oil and natural gas producer, won approval to acquire the US assets of Nexen Inc, its last regulatory hurdle in the US$15.1 billion purchase of the Canadian energy company. The US Committee on Foreign Investment approved the deal, now expected to close the week of Feb. 25, Nexen said in a statement on Tuesday. The panel reviews takeovers by foreign-owned companies for national security implications. CNOOC’s acquisition of the Calgary-based company falls under US jurisdiction because of Nexen’s Gulf of Mexico oil and gas operations, which account for about 8 percent of its output. CNOOC’s acquisition, the biggest overseas purchase by a Chinese company, prompted changes in the way Canada reviews takeovers of oil sands operators by state-controlled companies.
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