SOUTH KOREA
Lotte Group boss sought
Lotte Group yesterday said that prosecutors have requested an arrest warrant for its chairman, Shin Dong-bin, the latest twist in a sweeping criminal probe into the nation’s fifth-largest conglomerate. A prosecution source with direct knowledge of the matter said the warrant has been sought as part of an investigation into suspected embezzlement and breach of trust. Lotte Group did not say why the arrest warrant was requested, and did not say where Shin is.
AVIATION
MRJ aircraft flies to US
Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp said a test aircraft took off yesterday on its third attempt to fly to the US after aborting flights twice last month due to problems with air-conditioning sensors. The Mitsubishi Regional Jet (MRJ) left Nagoya Airport at 1:28pm, said Kenichi Takemori, a Nagoya-based spokesman for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd, the parent of Mitsubishi Aircraft. He declined to say what route the plane would take. Success with the latest attempt may provide a boost to the program that is crucial for Japan’s efforts to break the regional-jet duopoly of Brazil’s Embraer SA and Canada’s Bombardier Inc.
BANKING
Deutsche Bank shares fall
Deutsche Bank AG shares yesterday dropped to a record low amid concerns that mounting legal bills, including a looming fine over its pre-crisis mortgage bond business, may force it to raise capital. The shares dropped 6.3 percent to 10.70 euros at 10:14am in Frankfurt. A potential US$14 billion bill to settle a US probe into residential mortgage-backed securities is more than twice the amount that the bank has set aside for litigation. The lender also faces inquiries into legal issues, including currency manipulation, precious metals trading and billions of dollars in transfers out of Russia, complicating CEO John Cryan’s efforts to bolster profitability and capital ratios. A German government spokesman said there was no reason to speculate about aid to the bank.
PRECIOUS METALS
Gold retreats in Singapore
Gold retreated after its biggest weekly advance in two months, as the US dollar erased losses, dimming the metal’s appeal as an alternative investment. Bullion for immediate delivery fell 0.2 percent to US$1,334.70 an ounce by 2:42pm in Singapore after a 2.1 percent gain last week, the most since the period to July 29, according to Bloomberg generic pricing. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index, which tracks the greenback against 10 major peers, pared an intraday decline of 0.2 percent to trade little changed.
BANKING
France seeks UBS data
French tax authorities have asked Switzerland to hand over client information for about 45,000 bank accounts as part of a probe into alleged tax fraud, Le Parisien daily said yesterday. Banking giant UBS in July said that the Swiss authorities had asked it to provide client information following a French request for international administrative assistance in May. The demand concerns former and current clients living in France, based on data from 2006 to 2008. Le Parisien yesterday published extracts from a letter dated May 11 from French authorities. The assets of those listed totaled more than 11 billion Swiss francs (US$11 billion), the report said. France opened a probe into UBS after former employees blew the whistle over its alleged system of setting up dual accounts to hide the movement of capital into Switzerland. UBS denies the accusations.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the