MACROECONOMY
Global growth to slow
Global growth is expected to lag this year and next, but for the first time in a long time, it is not all Europe’s fault. That is the view of a leading international economic body, which said on Tuesday that a slowdown in emerging economies and the potential for another US budget crisis are the main sources of concern for the global economy. In its half-yearly forecast, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development lowered its forecast for global growth this year to 2.7 percent and 3.6 percent for next.
ARGENTINA
Commerce secretary resigns
Feared Secretary of Commerce Guillermo Moreno has quit. Moreno was a pitbull for President Cristina Fernandez. He tried to jail economists for publishing independent inflation numbers, and broke up board meetings of the opposition Grupo Clarin. Executives have accused him of blocking their imports, freezing their prices and making their corporate lives miserable until they agreed to support the government’s economic policies. Presidential spokesman Alfredo Scoccimarro says Fernandez accepted the resignation on Tuesday.
INTERNET
Yahoo boosts buyback
Yahoo boosted its share buyback plan by US$5 billion, returning more cash to shareholders as chief executive Marissa Mayer seeks to revive growth at the largest US Internet portal. Yahoo is also to raise US$1 billion in convertible debt funding maturing in 2018, the Sunnyvale, California-based company said in a statement on Tuesday. Yahoo has made US$5.3 billion in buybacks since January last year, including US$1.7 billion in the third quarter, the company said on its earnings conference call on Oct. 15.
PHARMACEUTICALS
GSK to sell part of shares
British drugs firm GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) yesterday announced that it would sell one-third of its shareholding in South African company Aspen for £425 million (US$685 million). “GSK has agreed to the sale of 28.2 million ordinary shares in Aspen Pharmacare Holdings Ltd” via a placing of shares to institutional investors, it said in a statement. Following settlement of the sale, GSK will hold 56.5 million ordinary shares in Aspen, representing 12.4 percent of the issued share capital.
MEDICAL EQUIPMENT
Johnson & Johnson settles
Johnson & Johnson on Tuesday said that it would pay US$2.5 billion to settle thousands of lawsuits brought by hip replacement patients who accuse the company of selling faulty implants that led to injuries and additional surgeries. The agreement presented in US District Court in Toledo, Ohio, is one of the largest for the medical device industry. It resolves an estimated 8,000 cases of patients who had to have the company’s metal ball-and-socket hip implant removed or replaced. The deal provides about US$250,000 per patient and covers those who had their implants removed or replaced before Aug. 31 this year.
JUSTICE
Trader jailed for scheme
A former trader was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison on Tuesday for an unauthorized purchase of about US$1 billion in Apple Inc stock that eventually led to the demise of financial services firm Rochdale Securities. David Miller, 41, was sentenced by US District Judge Robert Chatigny in Hartford, Connecticut, seven months after pleading guilty to wire fraud and conspiracy.
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