INSURANCE
ING to sell S Korean arm
Dutch banker ING is selling its South Korean life insurance arm ING Life Korea to private equity firm MBK Partners in a deal worth 1.24 billion euros (US$1.6 billion), it said yesterday. MBk Partners is the biggest private equity business in South Korea. “This transaction is a major step in the divestment of our Asian insurance and investment management activities,” Amsterdam-based ING said in a statement. ING said the deal would allow it to retain a 10 percent stake in ING Life Korea and the company, which employs 1,000 people and serves 1.3 million clients, will continue to operate under the brand for a maximum of five more years.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Amgen to buy Onyx
Biotech drugmaker Amgen Inc will buy cancer drug maker Onyx Pharmaceuticals for about US$10.4 billion in cash in a deal that will add several cancer drugs to Amgen’s stable and add to its pipeline of new drugs. Amgen said on Sunday it will acquire Onyx for US$125 per share, and it expects to complete the deal at the beginning of the fourth quarter. The companies value the deal at US$9.7 billion excluding Onyx’s cash, and Amgen said it will use US$8.1 billion in committed bank loans to finance the deal. Amgen is the biggest biotech drug company in the world. Its products include Prolia for osteoporosis, Enbrel for rheumatoid arthritis and skin disorders, and Neulasta and Neupogen for fighting infection in cancer patients.
ENERGY
Dutch try to allay concerns
The Dutch government is trying to allay environmental and safety concerns about extracting the country’s shale gas reserves, saying an independent study has found that the resources can be exploited safely. Dutch Economic Affairs Minister Henk Kamp said yesterday the study by engineering group Witteveen & Bos found current safety and environmental laws were sufficient to cover any risks and test drilling is necessary to determine the potential importance of the resource for the Dutch economy. This fall, parliament will debate whether test drilling should be given the go-ahead, with the swing vote likely to be the center-left Labor Party, which has shifted its position on shale gas several times.
AUTOMOBILES
BYD reports soaring profits
Chinese auto and battery maker BYD Co (比亞迪) says half-year profit soared as sales in the world’s biggest car market recovered. BYD said on Sunday that profits started growing again in the January-June period after falling sharply the year before as competition among automakers intensified. US billionaire investor Warren Buffett owns about 10 percent of BYD. BYD said profit rose to 427 million yuan (US$70 million), 26 times higher than the same period a year ago as revenue climbed 13 percent to 24.2 billion yuan. Auto sales rose by 25 percent to 250,000 vehicles, faster than the rate of sales growth in the broader China auto market.
AVIATION
Dreamliner makes U-turn
A Dreamliner flight from Tokyo made a U-turn after its weather radar malfunctioned yesterday, its Japanese operator said. While the error is not uncommon among other plane models it is the latest glitch for the once-grounded high-tech plane after a run of more serious setbacks. All passengers got on another 787 at Haneda Airport and safely arrived in Kumamoto in the early afternoon, ANA spokesman Ryosei Nomura said. He said this kind of trouble “could happen in other models of airplane.”
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