GERMANY
Bundesbank cuts forecasts
The central bank yesterday downgraded its growth forecasts for the economy for this year, next year and 2016. The Bundesbank said in a statement it is pencilling in growth of 1.4 percent for this year, 1.0 percent for next year and 1.6 percent for 2016. Previously, it had been projecting growth of 1.9 percent, 2.0 percent and 1.8 percent for the three years respectively. Nevertheless, the economy “remains in remarkably good shape, which is not only benefiting the domestic economy, but also enabling German exporters to seize opportunities on foreign markets,” Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann said in the statement.
ARGENTINA
Government in bond offer
The government on Thursday offered to buy back US$6.7 billion in bonds due next year, saying the move proved it remains solvent, despite a damaging legal battle with two creditors. “These bonds are due in October next year. The buyback “is to demonstrate that we have the capacity and the will to pay,” Minister of the Economy Axel Kicillof said in announcing the move. Kicillof said the government was offering cash for the “Boden 2015” bonds and would pay the market price of US$0.97 on the dollar. The buyback offer, good from Wednesday to Friday next week, will be financed partly through a new 2024 bond issue worth US$3 billion. Kicillof invited bondholders who want to “invest in the country” to exchange their 2015 bonds for 2024 bonds.
PHARMACEUTICALS
GlaxoSmithKline to cut jobs
Hundreds of British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline’s 17,000 US-based employees are to lose their jobs by the end of next year under the pharmaceutical industry’s latest restructuring. GlaxoSmithKline PLC, best known for its widely used asthma inhaler Advair, is making changes worldwide that are meant to produce about US$1.6 billion in annual savings within about three years — from units including research and development, manufacturing, sales and marketing, and support functions. The restructuring plan was announced on Oct. 22, when the company reported third-quarter results that included a 13 percent drop in global sales and a 62 percent plunge in net income.
TABLETS
Nook partnership ends
US bookseller Barnes & Noble said on Thursday it had ended a partnership with Microsoft Corp for its Nook tablet computers, as the retailer prepares a spinoff of the unit. B&N said it agreed to buy back the stake from Microsoft, which in 2012 agreed to invest US$300 million in the Nook division. Nook has had a difficult time in a tablet market led by Apple Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Samsung Electronics Co, but earlier this year agreed to make a co-branded tablet with the South Korean electronics giant.
WIND POWER
Softbank investing in Altaeros
Softbank Corp is to invest US$7 million in Altaeros Energies Inc, a US company developing airborne wind turbines. Altaeros is working to commercialize technology to lift wind turbines into consistently high altitudes so they can produce more power than tower-mounted turbines, the companies said in a statement yesterday. Airborne turbines hold promise for remote islands and areas in Japan and the Asia-Pacific region, Softbank founder Masayoshi Son said in the statement. The technology also has potential to create new businesses by combining it with communication and surveillance technologies, he said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”