ARGENTINA
IBM unit fined US$9.3m
A court has slapped a US$9.3 million fine on IBM Corp’s local subsidiary for allegedly seeking to win a contract to computerize the country’s tax collection system, authorities said on Saturday. Eleven people have been charged in the case that dates back to 1988-1989. They will stand trial on March 15 next year, Ministry of Justice said. Prosecutors say IBM did not have the best offer in the government’s bidding process, yet still won. It was paid one amount, then paid another company — STI — a smaller sum to do the job and kept the difference, they say.
INVESTMENT
Canberra mulls joining AIIB
Australia expects to make a decision within weeks on whether it will seek to join the China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Saturday. He said he hoped many countries, including Japan and the US, would join the bank if was set up as a genuine multilateral institution. Britain last week said it has sought to become a founding member of the bank because it was in its “national interest,” making it the first Western nation to embrace the institution, which would finance infrastructure projects in the Asia-Pacific.
FOODSTUFFS
Heinz tallies layoffs
HJ Heinz, the ketchup maker backed by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc, has slashed about 7,400 jobs in 20 months as his partners at 3G Capital worked to boost profitability. Heinz had 24,500 full-time employees as of Dec. 28 last year, the Pittsburgh-based company said on Friday in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. That compares with 31,900 as of April 28, 2013. Buffett and 3G took the company private in June of that year. Buffett gets US$720 million annually from his US$8 billion preferred stake in the company, while 3G managers run operations.
RETAIL
Al-Raya owners mull sale
The private-equity owners of Saudi Arabian supermarket chain Al-Raya For Foodstuff Co are working with Moelis & Co as they explore a potential sale of the company, people with knowledge of the matter said. Al-Raya shareholders — The Rohatyn Group and Dubai-based Levant Capital — are seeking a buyer for their controlling stake in the company, the people said. A formal sale process is yet to begin and may draw interest from both private-equity and strategic bidders, they said. Levant Capital and Citigroup Inc’s buyout unit bought a controlling stake in Al-Raya for US$100 million in 2012, in a sign of growing interest for consumer-related investments in the kingdom. Al-Raya operated about 30 stores in Saudi Arabia as of 2012 and was planning to add new branches, according to the company’s Web site.
BANKING
Andorran banker arrested
Andorran police on Saturday said they have arrested the chief executive officer of a bank on suspicion of money laundering following US allegations that funds were laundered for groups from China, Russia and Venezuela. A police official said Joan Pau Miquel Prats of Banca Privada d’Andorra (BPA) was arrested on late on Friday and will be held pending a likely court appearance today. The arrest came five days after BPA was named a “primary money-laundering concern” by the US Department of the Treasury. Andorra suspended BPA’s board on Thursday and three members of its management team after taking over the bank and appointing temporary administrators.
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
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],”
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
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