ELECTRONICS
Toshiba to investigate fall
Toshiba Corp fell the most in more than a year after the company said it would appoint a committee to investigate possible problems with its accounting. The maker of nuclear reactors, chips, appliances and electronics dropped 4.9 percent, the most since Jan. 31, to close at ¥487 in Tokyo trading. Toshiba will form a panel to examine the “reasonableness of estimates” when using the percentage-of-completion accounting method for some projects, it said on Friday after the market closed. The effect on earnings has not been determined, the Tokyo-based firm said in a statement. “The announcement doesn’t give us a good impression of Toshiba,” SMBC Nikko Securities Inc analyst Yukihiko Shimada said. “A sense of uncertainty will spread about the credibility of the company’s accounting.” The investigation will take about a month, the company said.
BANKING
Mizuho to hire RBS staff
Mizuho Financial Group Inc plans to hire as many as 200 people from Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (RBS) in the US as part of its deal to buy loans from the British lender, a person with knowledge of the matter said. Japan’s third-biggest bank by market value is in talks to take on 130 to 200 employees from RBS’ US unit, including fixed-income and loan staff members, the person said, asking not to be named because the discussions are private. Mizuho said in February that it would buy the loans for about US$3 billion to gain access to corporate clients in North America. The portfolio consists of US$36.5 billion of loan commitments to about 200 investment-grade companies, of which US$3.2 billion has been drawn.
OIL
Indonesia to levy export tax
Indonesia, the world’s biggest palm oil producer, will impose export levies to fund biodiesel subsidies as well as replanting, research and development. Shippers will pay a levy of US$50 per tonne for palm oil and US$30 for processed products starting this month, Indonesian Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Sofyan Djalil said in Jakarta on Saturday. The government will keep the threshold for application of a separate export tax at US$750 per tonne, Djalil said. The nation boosted the mandated amount of palm blending in diesel to 10 percent from 7.5 percent in 2013, and ordered power plants to mix 20 percent last year. The biodiesel subsidy was raised in February to 4,000 rupiah (US$0.31) per liter from 1,500 rupiah and the mandated blending for diesel will increase to 15 percent.
REAL ESTATE
UK to boost first-time buyers
British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said he wants to double the number of first-time home buyers as opinion polls continued to show a tight race before the May 7 election. Osborne told the Sunday Telegraph that his Conservative Party would seek to increase the amount of first-time buyers to 500,000 per year by 2020 if it wins re-election. Osborne has sought to rejuvenate the housing market as a driver of the British economy with programs such as Help to Buy, in which the government assists those with small down payments to buy property. They would be extended to meet the new target, he said. Osborne said he also wants to boost home building. Asked if a lack of supply risked stoking a housing bubble, he said that the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee can step in to cool the market.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday obtained the government’s approval to inject an additional US$7.5 billion into its US subsidiary, the Department of Investment Review said in a statement. The department approved TSMC’s application of investing in TSMC Arizona Corp, which is engaged in the manufacturing, sales, testing and design of IC and other semiconductor devices, it said. The latest capital injection follows a US$5 billion investment for TSMC Arizona approved in June. The chipmaker has broken ground on two advanced fabs in Arizona with aggregated investments approved by the department totaling US$24 billion thus far. According to TSMC, the first Arizona
The lethal hack of Hezbollah’s Asian-branded pagers and walkie-talkies has sparked an intense search for the devices’ path, revealing a murky market for older technologies where buyers might have few assurances about what they are getting. While supply chains and distribution channels for higher-margin and newer products are tightly managed, that is not the case for older electronics from Asia where counterfeiting, surplus inventories and complex contract manufacturing deals can sometimes make it impossible to identify the source of a product, analysts and consultants say. The response from the companies at the center of the booby-trapped gadgets that killed 37
FRIENDLY TAKEOVER: While Qualcomm Inc’s proposal to buy some or all of Intel raises the prospect of other competitors, Broadcom Inc is staying on the sidelines Qualcomm Inc has approached Intel Corp to discuss a potential acquisition of the struggling chipmaker, people with knowledge of the matter said, raising the prospect of one of the biggest-ever merger and acquisition deals. California-based Qualcomm proposed a friendly takeover for Intel in recent days, said the sources, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential information. The proposal is for all of the chipmaker, although Qualcomm has not ruled out buying some parts of Intel and selling off others. It is uncertain whether the initial approach would lead to an agreement and any deal is likely to come under close antitrust scrutiny
SECURITY CONCERNS: The proposed ban on Chinese autonomous vehicle software and hardware would go into effect with the 2027 and 2030 model years respectively The US Department of Commerce today is expected to propose prohibiting Chinese software and hardware in connected and autonomous vehicles on US roads due to national security concerns, two sources said. US President Joe Biden’s administration has raised concerns about the collection of data by Chinese companies on US drivers and infrastructure as well as the potential foreign manipulation of vehicles connected to the Internet and navigation systems. The proposed regulation would ban the import and sale of vehicles from China with key communications or automated driving system software or hardware, said the two sources, who declined to be identified because the