INVESTMENT
Lazard hires Raine
Lazard Ltd, the largest independent merger-advisory firm, hired former Deutsche Bank AG executive Dale Raine as a managing director in charge of its UK healthcare team. Raine, who previously led Deutsche Bank’s healthcare investment banking business in London and New York, will start immediately, Lazard said in a statement yesterday. The healthcare group advises companies and their boards on acquisitions, capital raising and strategy.
ISRAEL
Israel to sell dollar bonds
The government is planning its first US dollar bond sale in three years, the Ministry of Finance said on Sunday. Ministry officials are scheduled to leave for the US for meetings with foreign investors in the coming days “to gauge demand in global markets,” the ministry said in a text message. The sale would depend on market conditions, it said. The government chose Barclays PLC, Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Citigroup Inc to manage the offering. The last Israeli US dollar-bond sale took place in 2013, when the government issued US$2 billion of dollar-denominated bonds in two tranches. In 2014, the government sold 1.5 billion euros of 10-year bonds. The nation is rated “A+” by Standard & Poor’s, the fifth-highest investment grade.
INDUSTRY
China buys big in Germany
China’s largest chemical company said it has bought a German maker of machinery to process rubber and plastic for US$1 billion in the largest Chinese investment to date in Germany. China National Chemical Corp (中國化工), also known as ChemChina, said yesterday that the acquisition of KraussMaffei would expand its product range. State-owned ChemChina said it would keep KraussMaffei’s headquarters in Munich and its production and research operations in Europe. The company has 4,500 employees, with 2,800 of them in Germany. ChemChina is one of China’s most active investors abroad. It has acquired companies in France, Britain and Israel and agreed last year to pay US$7.7 billion for Italian tiremaker Pirelli.
MERGER
Supermarket sale talks stall
Talks for the sale of a majority stake in Saudi Arabian supermarket chain al-Raya For Foodstuff Co to Dubai-based private equity firms Abraaj Group Ltd and Fajr Capital have stalled, three people with knowledge of the matter said. Negotiations broke down because of differences over valuation as economic growth and consumer spending slow in the nation, two of the people said. The sale could value al-Raya at as much as 1.7 billion Saudi riyals (US$453 million), three people with knowledge of the matter said in September last year. Spokespersons at Fajr and Abraaj declined to comment, while no one was immediately available to comment at al-Raya For Foodstuff..
CURRENCY
Russian stocks slumps
The Moscow stock exchange yesterday dropped by more than 4 percent as Russia’s energy-dependent economy reels from low oil prices and fluctuations on the Asian market. The US dollar-denominated RTS index had dropped by 4.16 percent as of 7:25am, while Russia’s battered ruble stood at 76 against the US dollar and more than 83 against the euro for the first time since the currency slump of December 2014.
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