ACQUISITIONS
XPEC claims flooding in
The Securities and Futures Investors Protection Center has received about 18,000 applications from shareholders of XPEC Entertainment Inc (樂陞科技) in a move to claim damages and compensations from Bai Chi Gan Tou Digital Entertainment Inc’s (百尺竿頭) failed tender offer last month. The number of the applications is close to the 20,000 shareholders who were affected by Bai Chi’s abandoned acquisition of a 25.17 percent stake in XPEC, the center said on Tuesday, adding that it would start to prepare to file a class-action lawsuit against Bai Chi and apply for court permission of provisional seizure of the company’s assets.
ACQUISITIONS
Tianjin seeks banks’ help
A Chinese container shipping firm has asked banks to join a loan backing its proposed acquisition of a US computer distributor as it tries to transform itself into a general logistics operation, according to people familiar with the matter. Tianjin Tianhai Investment Co (天津天海投資發展) has invited lenders to contribute to the US$4.27 billion loan to support its US$6 billion proposed acquisition of computer, networking and software distributor Ingram Micro Inc, the people said. Agricultural Bank of China Ltd (中國農業銀行) is coordinating the seven-year facility, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the details are private.
CHINA
Bank approves first CDS
China’s central bank has approved trading of credit-default swaps (CDS) by financial institutions in the nation’s interbank market, as it seeks to help investors tackle rising non-payment risks among the country’s borrowers, according to people familiar with the matter. The National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors, a unit of the People’s Bank of China, are likely to make an announcement soon, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is not public. This would be the first time the government is allowing CDS to be traded in China, said Xia Le (夏樂), chief Asia economist in Hong Kong at Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA.
TELECOMS
Ericsson to cut 3,000 jobs
Telecoms equipment maker Ericsson AB plans to end manufacturing in Sweden with the loss of around 3,000 jobs, Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet reported late on Wednesday. The daily said it had obtained “confidential documents” outlining a 3 billion kronor (US$350 million) cost-cutting program. According to Svenska Dagbladet, 60 percent of the savings were to be made in Sweden. Ericsson yesterday said its home country would not be excluded from a worldwide drive to cut jobs and save on costs. “We will handle this on a country-by-country basis and our employees and, where applicable, union representatives will always be informed first,” the company said.
TELECOMS
Sprint, HTC team up for Bolt
HTC Corp (宏達電) is working with Sprint Corp, one of the major telecoms providers in the US, to launch the HTC Bolt, according to tech Web site Androidtalk. In a report, Androidtalk said that the HTC Bolt is expected to hit the market on Oct. 18, exclusively for the Sprint network, as a follow-up effort after the Taiwanese vendor introduced the ThunderBolt model, which received a warm reception in the US market five years ago. However, the report said that the HTC Bolt is likely to “end up being a watered-down HTC 10 or a repackaged Desire 10.”
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