INVESTMENT
Partners get big payout
Brevan Howard Asset Management LLP, the UK unit of Europe’s largest closely held hedge-fund firm, paid its partners as much as £60.4 million (US$99 million) for the year through March, according to a corporate filing. The highest-paid partner, who wasn’t identified, received £39.4 million, down from £78.9 million a year earlier, according to the filing posted on the UK Companies House Web site on Saturday. The UK unit had 46 designated members in that period, meaning each partner received an average pay of as much as £1.31 million. Brevan Howard Capital Management LP, based in St. Helier, Jersey, manages about US$40 billion and charges clients fees for overseeing the assets and for positive investment performance in its hedge funds.
STOCKS
SodaStream loses fizz
SodaStream International Ltd, the Israeli maker of home soda machines, fell last week on speculation poor holiday sales will erode earnings. Shares of Lod-based SodaStream sank 3.8 percent last week to US$48.32, the worst annual debut since the firm’s 2010 initial public offering. The shares touched a nine-month low on Thursday. The Bloomberg Israel-US Index rose 0.3 percent to US$110.2 for a 0.5 percent weekly gain. Ituran Location & Control Ltd, which makes devices for locating stolen vehicles, rose 5 percent in the week to a record. SodaStream has declined 24 percent since Oct. 29, the day before the company reported third-quarter sales that fell short of analysts’ estimates, the first miss on record. Surveys of SodaStream products among US retailers showed modest sales growth from the prior year during the holidays, Longbow Research LLC said.
BANKING
Goldman Sachs ups UK pay
The average pay for Goldman Sachs Group Inc’s top UK bankers rose 77 percent in 2012, even as it declined at US-based peers amid calls from governments and the public to reduce executive compensation. Goldman Sachs paid an average of US$4.67 million in 2012 to UK employees deemed by regulators as risk-takers, as well as their managers, up from US$2.64 million in 2011, according to figures disclosed by the firm. For similar staff at Citigroup Inc, average pay climbed 9 percent to US$2.38 million. At Bank of America Corp, it fell 2 percent to US$2.36 million, and at JPMorgan Chase & Co, it slid 3 percent to US$3.4 million, totals disclosed separately show. The largest US banks reported their figures for 2012 as recently as last week under European disclosure rules that are part of a regulatory push to alter pay practices blamed for contributing to the 2008 financial crisis.
AUTOMOBILES
Benz tops BMW in US sales
Mercedes-Benz withstood a sales surge from Bayerische Motoren Werke AG’s BMW last month, ending its rival’s two-year reign as the top-selling US luxury vehicle brand, as the breadth of Mercedes’ lineup pushed it to an annual record. Daimler AG’s Mercedes posted a 17 percent gain last month with 33,007 deliveries, led by the new entry-level CLA, and revamped mid-size E-Class and premium S-Class cars. For the year, the brand’s sales rose 14 percent to 312,534, or 3,254 more than BMW. Daimler Chief BMW was unable to close the gap after Mercedes opened a 7,610-vehicle lead through November. BMW reported sales last month of 37,389, a drop of just 10 from a year earlier, as deliveries surged 56 percent for its 3 Series and 4 Series sedans. The automaker’s annual total rose 10 percent to 309,280, topping its record from 2007.
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Huawei Technologies Co’s (華為) latest smartphones carry a version of the advanced made-in-China processor it revealed last year, results from an independent analysis showed. This underscored the Chinese company’s ability to sustain production of the controversial chip. The Pura 70 series unveiled last week sports the Kirin 9010 processor, research firm TechInsights found during a teardown of the device. This is a newer version of the Kirin 9000s, made by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) for the Mate 60 Pro, which had alarmed officials in Washington who thought a 7-nanometer chip was beyond China’s capabilities. Huawei has enjoyed a resurgence since
purpose: Tesla’s CEO sought to meet senior Chinese officials to discuss the rollout of its ‘full self-driving’ software in China and approval to transfer data they had collected Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk arrived in Beijing yesterday on an unannounced visit, where he is expected to meet senior officials to discuss the rollout of "full self-driving" (FSD) software and permission to transfer data overseas, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Chinese state media reported that he met Premier Li Qiang (李強) in Beijing, during which Li told Musk that Tesla's development in China could be regarded as a successful example of US-China economic and trade cooperation. Musk confirmed his meeting with the premier yesterday with a post on social media platform X. "Honored to meet with Premier Li