RETAIL
French grocer downgraded
Casino Guichard-Perrachon shares slumped after Standard & Poor’s (S&P) said it is considering cutting the French grocer’s debt rating to junk, citing concerns about leverage and a poor environment in Brazil and Asia. S&P on Saturday said Casino’s “BBB-” long-term rating is on negative watch as its profitability is expected to continue to be fairly weak for an extended period of time and its debt levels, primarily located at the French operations, are too high. S&P said it might cut the rating as much as two levels. The agency had confirmed Casino’s rating last month, but on Thursday last week the company lowered its expectations for underlying earnings before interest and tax for last year, sending the stock to its lowest in more than two decades. Casino shares fell as much as 4.3 percent in Paris yesterday.
BANKING
NAB sets Clydesdale goal
National Australia Bank Ltd (NAB), the nation’s largest lender by assets, has valued its UK unit, Clydesdale Bank PLC, at up to A$4.3 billion (US$2.9 billion), according to initial public offering (IPO) pricing terms. The indicative pricing range was quite wide, with a A$3.2 billion valuation for the unit at the lower end. However, Bell Potter analyst TS Lim said NAB might have to settle for even less, given declines in share markets. NAB, which bought the business in 1987, said it planned to quit the 177-year-old British bank in 2014, after facing a consumer backlash over methods used to sell loan insurance. It is planning to sell 25 percent of the unit in an IPO and spin off the rest to its shareholders. The unit’s shares are slated to be listed on the London stock exchange on Feb. 2 after final pricing on the same day. Australia’s major banks are feverishly raising cash by issuing shares and selling non-core business units after new rules require them to have a greater amount of cash in reserve as a buffer for their loan books.
ENGINEERING
CEO Brikho steps down
Amec Foster Wheeler PLC on Monday said Samir Brikho, who oversaw the acquisition of Foster Wheeler AG before the crash in crude oil, has stepped down after nine years as chief executive officer of the oil engineering company. Chief financial officer Ian McHoul takes temporary charge as the company starts searching for a new chief executive, Amec foster said in a statement. McHoul is not expected to apply for the permanent position, it said. Brikho “made a significant contribution to our development over this period, including the reshaping and refocusing of the business,” chairman John Connolly said in the statement. Since the US$3.2 billion purchase of Foster Wheeler in 2014, the market value of the combined company has slumped to about US$2.2 billion.
AUTOMAKERS
Renault forecasts growth
Renault SA forecast deliveries will grow at a faster pace this year than last year as the carmaker expects more buyers to be lured by new models such as the Kadjar sport utility vehicle. Deliveries rose 3.3 percent to 2.8 million vehicles last year, bolstered by 10 percent growth in Europe, the French carmaker said yesterday in a statement. Renault forecast industry-wide demand for new vehicles will grow 1 percent to 2 percent this year. Backed by a refreshed lineup, “our growth will accelerate in 2016, and we will improve our positions in all our regions,” executive vice president for sales and marketing Thierry Koskas said in the statement.
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
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
Huawei Technologies Co’s (華為) latest smartphones carry a version of the advanced made-in-China processor it revealed last year, results from an independent analysis showed. This underscored the Chinese company’s ability to sustain production of the controversial chip. The Pura 70 series unveiled last week sports the Kirin 9010 processor, research firm TechInsights found during a teardown of the device. This is a newer version of the Kirin 9000s, made by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) for the Mate 60 Pro, which had alarmed officials in Washington who thought a 7-nanometer chip was beyond China’s capabilities. Huawei has enjoyed a resurgence since
purpose: Tesla’s CEO sought to meet senior Chinese officials to discuss the rollout of its ‘full self-driving’ software in China and approval to transfer data they had collected Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk arrived in Beijing yesterday on an unannounced visit, where he is expected to meet senior officials to discuss the rollout of "full self-driving" (FSD) software and permission to transfer data overseas, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Chinese state media reported that he met Premier Li Qiang (李強) in Beijing, during which Li told Musk that Tesla's development in China could be regarded as a successful example of US-China economic and trade cooperation. Musk confirmed his meeting with the premier yesterday with a post on social media platform X. "Honored to meet with Premier Li