STOCKS
Samsung SDS set for listing
Samsung SDS has set a preliminary price for its share listing, valuing the firm at about 15.47 trillion won (US$14.88 billion), a person with direct knowledge of the matter said ahead of what may be South Korea’s biggest listing this year. The sale of shares in Samsung SDS, the IT services affiliate of Samsung Group, could raise at least 1 trillion won, local media have reported. A spokesman for Samsung SDS said the firm is expected to list sometime in November, but declined to provide more details. The sprawling Samsung Group, South Korea’s biggest conglomerate, is restructuring its complex ownership ahead of an eventual generational succession. Samsung Electronics Co Ltd Chairman Lee Kun-hee, 72, the group patriarch, has been hospitalised since suffering a heart attack in May.
ZIMBABWE
IMF says no to Harare loans
The IMF has scotched suggestions that the cash-strapped country could get fresh financial aid, saying it must first service old debts. Domenico Fanizza, a senior official at the IMF’s Africa department, said the Washington-based lender “by its law” could not give more support until President Robert Mugabe’s government makes up missed repayments. The country is saddled with debts of more than US$10 billion, according to an Agence France-Presse tally of Ministry of Finance figures, and has stuttered in making repayments.
STOCK MARKETS
WSE freezes merger idea
The Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE), central Europe’s leading market, on Tuesday said it has decided to put the brakes on a possible merger with its Vienna-based counterpart. “Following an in-depth analysis of available options of regional growth and taking into account the high growth potential of the Polish economy and its capital market, WSE has decided to focus on organic growth at this time,” the exchange said in a statement. “Therefore, WSE is not considering a capital alliance with [the Vienna-based] CEE Stock Exchange Group AG at this time,” it added, while leaving open the option of a merger somewhere down the line.
AUTOMAKERS
Hyundai staff strike for pay
About 40,000 Hyundai workers have launched a partial strike over a wage row fuelled by union anger at the South Korean carmaker’s US$10 billion bid for a plot of land in Seoul. Workers at the main Hyundai plant in the southern city of Ulsan and others across the country walked off their jobs for two hours on Tuesday and yesterday, a union spokesman said. “We plan to extend it to four hours beginning Thursday,” the spokesman told reporters. The partial strike — the second in a month — came amid stalled negotiations over whether regular bonuses should be considered part of the basic wage that is used to calculate rates for overtime, holiday shifts and pensions.
SMARTPHONES
BlackBerry to launch phone
BlackBerry was set to launch an unconventional new smartphone dubbed the Passport yesterday, as it embarks on potentially the most critical phase of its long turnaround. The one-time smartphone industry pioneer recently concluded a three-year-long restructuring process and has largely halted the bleed, but it is now up to chief executive John Chen (程守宗) to prove that the company’s new devices and services are capable of generating sustainable new streams of revenue and returning it to profitability.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the