INDIA
RBI keeps rates unchanged
The central bank kept its benchmark interest rates unchanged yesterday, after three successive cuts, citing inflationary concerns and a weak rupee in the face of a global economic slowdown. After meeting in Mumbai, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said the benchmark repo rate, at which it lends to commercial banks, would be on hold at 7.25 percent, as expected by most economists. The cash reserve ratio — the percentage of deposits banks must keep with the central bank — was also kept unchanged at 4 percent.
BEVERAGES
Suntory unit prices IPO
Suntory Holdings Ltd plans to price shares of its soft-drinks unit between ¥3,000 and ¥3,800 in what would be Japan’s biggest initial public offering (IPO) this year. The Suntory Beverage & Food Ltd listing will raise ¥375.6 billion to ¥475.8 billion (US$3.95 billion to US$5 billion) based on the sale of 125.2 million shares including over allotment, according to Bloomberg calculation. The low end of the range is 21 percent below the tentative IPO price of ¥3,800 the company set last month for the July 3 Tokyo listing. The offer price will be finalized on June 24, according to a May 29 filing.
INVESTMENT
Temasek sets up UK unit
Temasek Holdings Pte, Singapore’s state-owned investment company, said it has set up a UK-based unit that will focus on investments in the region. John Cryan, president of Europe and co-head of the portfolio and strategy group, was named as one of the two directors of the new unit, Financial News reported earlier. Stephen Forshaw, a spokesman for the investment company, confirmed in an e-mailed statement that the creation of the “UK-incorporated entity” will help Cryan’s role. The new unit “provides a suitable setup to match our investment activity in Europe, which will very much be a continuing focus for us,” Forshaw said in the statement.
BANKING
British mutual ups cushion
The Co-operative Bank yesterday said that it was putting in place a plan to increase its capital cushion by an additional £1.5 billion (US$2.4 billion) to secure its future. The British bank, which as a so-called mutual is owned by its 4.7 million customers, said in a statement that it would raise the new capital by issuing a bond and new shares, with £1 billion being raised this year and the remainder next year. “We have put in place a detailed and comprehensive solution to meet the current and longer-term capital requirements of the bank. In doing so we have agreed a plan to ensure its future,” said Euan Sutherland, chief executive of The Co-operative Group, the bank’s parent.
ENERGY
Sundance eyes acquisitions
Sundance Energy Australia Ltd, an explorer that entered the Eagle Ford shale formation of Texas this year with the purchase of Texon Petroleum Ltd, said it will look to make further US oil and gas acquisitions. Sundance is capable of making another deal the size of the Texon transaction, valued at about A$100 million (US$96 million), and will consider adding acreage through drilling leases or purchases, managing director Eric McCrady said in an interview in Sydney. The Denver-based company is not negotiating any acquisitions at present, he said.
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