MEDICAL DEVICES
Medtronic to buy Covidien
US medical-device maker Medtronic PLC will buy its Irish-based competitor Covidien for US$42.9 billion, the company said late on Sunday. The deal would allow Medtronic to take advantage of Ireland’s lower business tax rates — 12.5 percent versus 35 percent in the US. The cash-and-stock transaction is valued at US$93.22 per Covidien share, or about US$42.9 billion based on Medtronic’s closing price of US$60.70 per share on Friday, the statement read. The combined firm will have a broad product portfolio and about 87,000 employees in more than 150 countries.
AVIATION
Airbus, Safran team up
Aerospace giant Airbus Group and French engine maker Safran SA yesterday announced a joint venture on space launchers, as Europe looks to compete with rising US rival Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX). The two companies said in a statement they would team up on production of Ariane rockets for Arianespace SA, which is facing intense competition from low-cost SpaceX in sending up communications satellites. The companies said the 50-50 joint venture would bring together “expertise in the launcher systems from Airbus Group as well as propulsion systems from Safran.”
ECONOMICS
Africa meet touts integration
Africa needs to first rely on internal investment if it is to achieve the infrastructure developments it urgently needs, Senegalese President Macky Sall said on Sunday at a regional summit. Sall also called for greater integration of the economies and infrastructures of African countries, and a “paradigm shift” in the way the resources of the continent are used. The two-day meeting of Dakar Financing Summit brought together the leaders of Mali, Nigeria and Benin, with 300 delegates.
RETAIL
Starbucks offers college aid
Starbucks Corp is rolling out a program that would allow its workers to earn an online college degree at Arizona State University at a steeply discounted rate. The coffee chain is partnering with the school to offer the option to 135,000 US employees who work at least 20 hours a week. The Seattle-based firm says it will phase out its existing tuition reimbursement program, which gave workers up to US$1,000 a year for education at certain schools.
AIRLINES
Wizz Air cancels listing
Wizz Air Hungary Airlines Ltd yesterday abandoned its plans for an initial public offering (IPO), citing current market volatility in the airline sector. The carrier said last month it planned to list its shares on the London Stock Exchange, seeking to raise 200 million euros (US$272 million) to strengthen its balance sheet as it seeks to fund more growth. Wizz Air is central and eastern Europe’s largest budget airline of central and eastern Europe with a market share of 38 percent, and makes money while traditional local airlines have struggled or gone bust in recent years.
COMPUTER SERVICES
Atos to list Worldline unit
Atos SE, a French computer-services provider, will split off its Worldline unit in an initial public offering valuing the business at about US$3 billion, seeking to capitalize on demand for electronic payment. The IPO is set to raise about 610 million euros through a sale of about 255 million euros of new shares and 355 million euros of existing shares, Paris-based Atos, which is keeping 70 percent, said yesterday.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by