AGRICULTURE
Monsanto rejects Bayer bid
Monsanto Co rejected a new acquisition proposal from Bayer AG, which was offering the same price it did last month, according to Dow Jones. Monsanto is seeking a higher offer, Dow Jones said, citing people familiar with the matter. Bayer had initially offered to pay US$122 a share on May 10 in a deal that valued Monsanto, the world’s largest seed supplier, and its debt at US$62 billion. That offer was rejected on May 24 as “incomplete and financially inadequate.” The report said Bayer is seeking access to detailed business information that Monsanto refuses to grant until it receives a higher offer.
PUBLISHING
Axel to buy EMarketer
Axel Springer SE agreed to buy market researcher EMarketer Inc for about US$250 million as the German publisher continues its push into digital businesses and English-speaking markets. The German media group is paying US$242 million for 93 percent of the shares in EMarketer, taking the company’s cash and debt into account. Two of the founders will remain invested in and continue to lead the company, Axel Springer said on Friday.
MUSIC
Spotify ‘not for sale’
Music streaming service Spotify Ltd will not ever sell out to a large US tech company, the startup’s chief executive officer and cofounder Daniel Ek said on Thursday. Speaking to reporters at a technology and music conference in Stockholm, Ek said that he sees the fact European entrepreneurs frequently sell their companies to larger US businesses as holding back the region’s technology sector, referring to King Digital Entertainment, bought by Activision Blizzard Inc for US$5.9 billion last year, and Minecraft developer Mojang, bought by Microsoft Corp for US$2.5 billion in 2014.
TURKEY
Economy grows 4.8%
The economy grew a robust 4.8 percent in the first quarter from the same period last year, continuing its resilient performance from last year, the statistics office said on Friday. The strong growth rate was helped by a 6.9 percent increase in household consumption, which has been the main driver of the country’s growth over the past few months.
RUSSIA
Central bank cuts rate
The central bank on Friday cut its key interest rate by half a percentage point, the first reduction in nearly a year on the back of fading inflation fears and a recovery by the ruble thanks to a bounce in oil. Inflation has now steadied at about 7.3 percent, its lowest level since 2014, and the central bank has marked down its inflation forecast for this year to between 5 and 6 percent, and said inflation would hit its long-term target of 4 percent by next year.
EDUCATION
China Online shares fall
China Online Education Group (中國在線教育集團), which offers online English-language training and is funded by venture capital firms, including DCM Ventures and Sequoia Capital, fell on its first day of trading in the US after raising US$46 million in an initial public offering. The American depositary receipts dropped 0.1 percent to US$18.98 in New York on Friday, after climbing as much as 10 percent.
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