The 100 wealthiest people on the planet added US$380 million to their collective net worth after the Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 Index reached its highest level since October 2007 last week.
Carlos Slim, the world’s richest man, shed US$3.9 billion from his net worth as shares of America Movil SAB slid 10.8 percent after the mobile phone operator said slower economic growth in Mexico hurt revenue.
Slim, 73, has a net worth of US$74.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The S&P 500 closed at 1,519.79 on Friday, up 0.12 percent for the week. The index capped a seventh straight weekly gain, the longest streak in two years.
Better-than-forecast manufacturing and consumer confidence data fueled optimism in the economy. The yen erased gains against the US dollar as G20 finance officials met in Moscow.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, 57, is the world’s second-richest person with a US$66.2 billion fortune.
Amancio Ortega, the 76-year-old founder of Inditex SA, the world’s biggest clothing retailer and owner of the Zara clothing chain, is No. 3 with a net worth of US$57.4 billion, US$3.9 billion ahead of Warren Buffett.
The 82-year-old Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc and 3G Capital, an investment firm backed by three Brazilian billionaires — Jorge Paulo Lemann, 73, and his partners Marcel Telles and Carlos Alberto Sicupira — agreed to buy Pittsburgh-based HJ Heinz Co for about US$23 billion on Thursday.
The trio have a combined net worth of US$35.5 billion. Lemann is Brazil’s richest man.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”