VENEZUELA
Clorox factory seized
Clorox Co says the governments decision to seize the company’s shuttered facilities near Caracas may pose safety risks for workers and nearby residents. The Oakland, California-based company closed its production facilities last week saying it had been operating at a loss due to government-imposed price freezes and the soaring costs of materials and operation. Authorities said Clorox has illegally abandoned the the location. The government responded on Friday night by seizing the Clorox factory in a move it said would save about 800 jobs. However, Clorox said in a statement that the government’s actions raise grave concerns.
CUBA
Tokmakjian president jailed
A Canadian company says its president has been sentenced to 15 years in prison on corruption-related charges that government officials call part of a widespread campaign against graft. The Ontario-based automotive company Tokmakjian Group says its lawyers were notified on Friday that Cy Tokmakjian was convicted and sentenced on a variety of charges. Company vice president Lee Hacker said that firm managers Claudio Vetere and Marco Puche got shorter sentences. Havana officials have provided few details about the case.
AVIATION
Air France strike ongoing
Talks between Air France and its pilots reached an impasse on Saturday after a union request for a mediator was rejected by both the airline’s management and the French government, dragging the longest-ever strike by the airline’s pilots into its 14th day yesterday. Air France has been locked in negotiations with pilots over plans to create a low-cost operation, resulting in a 13-day strike which has cost it up to 20 million euros (US$25 million) a day. The company said on Saturday it would only be able to operate 45 percent of its flights yesterday, fewer than on Saturday, as more than half of its pilots would be on strike.
INVESTMENT
Citigroup make repayment
A US judge gave Argentina a minor victory in its fight against hedge fund bondholders when he lifted a block on Citigroup processing a small debt service payment for the nation before tomorrow’s deadline. New York federal court judge Thomas Griesa on Friday lifted his block on the US$5 million payment to holders of a small class of the nation’s debt, US dollar bonds issued under Argentina’s laws, avoiding the country being called into default for the second time in two months. Griesa allowed the one-off payment by Citigroup, but otherwise maintained his ban on any payments to holders of the nation’s restructured bonds unless it pays the hedge funds for the US$1.3 billion in unrestructured bonds that they hold.
BANKING
BNP chairman resigns
The chairman of BNP Paribas has resigned, three months after the French bank was hit by a record US$8.9 billion fine for violating US sanctions, the bank said. Baudoin Prot, 63, who has headed the bank since 2011, is stepping down as of Dec. 1 “for personal reasons,” the bank said in a statement following a meeting of the board late on Friday. Prot will be replaced by Jean Lemierre, 64, one of his closest advisers and a key figure in negotiating BNP Paribas’s settlement with US authorities.
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