PHILIPPINES
Moody’s upgrades rating
Moody’s yesterday became the third and final ratings agency to grant the country investment-grade status. The decision to give Manila a “Baa3” rating with a “positive outlook” follows similar moves by Standard & Poor’s and Fitch earlier this year.
A “Baa3” rating is the lowest in the outfit’s investment ranks, but represents an important milestone for the country, which saw its economy expanded 6.8 percent last year and 7.6 percent in the first half this year, among the highest levels in the Asia-Pacific region.
UNITED KINGDOM
House prices rise again
House prices rose for an eighth month last month as official aid programs boosted demand, according to a report by Halifax. Home values increased 0.3 percent from the previous month to an average £170,733 (US$276,900), the mortgage unit of Lloyds Banking Group PLC said in a statement yesterday. The property market has strengthened in recent months, prompting concerns that the government’s Help to Buy housing plan may fuel a bubble.
INVESTMENT
Empire State Building public
The Empire State Building went public on Wednesday as part of a real-estate trust traded for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange. The Empire State Realty Trust, which owns the landmark skyscraper and 17 other buildings in the New York area, closed US$0.10 higher (0.8 percent) at US$13.10 after being introduced to the markets at an IPO price of US$13 a share. Shares traded as high as US$13.49 earlier in the day. The company sold 71.5 million shares, raising US$929.5 million. It said it may offer an additional 10.7 million shares in the next 30 days.
AUTOMAKERS
Hyundai drops lighters
Hyundai Motor yesterday said it would stop putting cigarette lighter sockets in cars made for the domestic market in favor of a USB power point. The South Korean auto giant said its decision would affect all passenger cars and SUVs sold at home from this month. A company spokesman said the automaker was “the first auto company in the world” to make the change. Hyundai’s decision followed a domestic survey that showed many drivers used the lighter jack to charge mobile phones or tablet computers rather than for lighting cigarettes.
INSURANCE
Athene sells for US$2.6bn
British insurance group Aviva PLC on Tuesday said the sale of its US life and annuities business to Athene Holding Ltd had fetched US$2.6 billion, above the US$1.8 billion price announced in December last year. The additional US$800 million represented estimated earnings and other improvements in statutory surplus from June 30 last year to Monday, the company said. Cash proceeds to Aviva totaled US$2.3 billion, following the repayment of an external loan of Aviva USA Corp.
MINING
Glencore shutting Falcondo
Glencore Xstrata PLC says it will temporarily close the Falcondo nickel mine in the Dominican Republic that it had been seeking to expand amid environmental opposition. Falcondo mine spokesman Alain Astacio says the mine will close for an estimated two to three years because of falling nickel prices. The company is laying off 900 of 1,000 employees and about 700 contractors.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is