PUERTO RICO
Fiscal deadline postponed
A federal control board is giving Puerto Rico’s government more time to figure out how to confront its financial crisis. Saturday’s action gives the territorial government a little more time to negotiate with creditors and stave off possible lawsuits. The deadline for presenting a fiscal plan moves to Feb. 28 instead of Jan. 15. And the moratorium on lawsuits now extends to May 31 instead of Feb. 15. The US Congress created the board last year to oversee efforts to overcome an estimated US$70 billion debt that has expanded during a decade-long recession. The board has said Puerto Rico should raise revenues and cut costs.
INVESTMENT
Abraaj plans US$8bn fund
Buyout firm Abraaj Group is planning to raise about US$5 billion to US$8 billion from investors this year, people familiar with the matter said, in what would be the emerging-market-focused investor’s largest fund. The Dubai-based firm, which invests across markets from Asia to Latin America, is planning to raise the money from a pool of regional and international investors by the end of this year, the people said. The plans are in early stages, they said. A spokeswoman of Abraaj, which manages about US$10 billion in assets, declined to comment.
COFFEE SHOPS
Starbucks raises boss’ pay
Starbucks Corp boosted chief executive officer Howard Schultz’s compensation 8.6 percent to US$21.8 million for fiscal 2016, his last full year on the job, after the company posted record revenue and earnings. Schultz received a US$1.5 million salary and US$3.19 million cash incentive tied to adjusted net revenue and adjusted operating income for the year ended on Oct. 2, according to a proxy statement filed on Friday. He also got equity awards worth US$16.9 million. Schultz is set to step down as CEO in April to hand the reins to chief operating officer Kevin Johnson. He’ll remain executive chairman.
AVIATION
United eyes LA expansion
United Continental Holdings Inc is targeting a major expansion at Los Angeles International Airport in an effort to reverse a slide that has left the airline languishing behind its biggest rivals at the busiest West Coast hub, said people familiar with the plans. President Scott Kirby discussed his vision for Los Angeles at a meeting of the Air Line Pilots Association in Rosemont, Illinois, earlier this month. He said the company needs more space and is studying plans to claim most or all of a future terminal, according to the people. Kirby did not discuss a timetable, the people said.
FOOD PROCESSING
Associated wants Weetabix
Associated British Foods PLC is considering a bid for Weetabix, the cereal brand controlled by China’s Bright Food Group Co (光明食品), people familiar with the matter said. ABF could seek to combine the brand with its UK cereals business, the people said. Baring Private Equity Asia Ltd bought a 40 percent stake in Weetabix in 2015 in a deal that valued the brand at about £1.3 billion (US$1.6 billion). Bright Food owns the remaining 60 percent. Italy’s Barilla Holding SpA may also consider a bid, one of the people said. US breakfast cereal giant Kellogg Co could make an offer as well, though they may face competition issues, another person said. No final decisions have been made, sources said.
STOCKS
TAIEX passes 9,000 points
The TAIEX closed above the 9,000-point mark at the end of the Year of the Monkey for the fourth time in a lunar year since 2000, according to the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE). On Tuesday last week, the last trading day of the Year of the Monkey, the index closed at 9,447.95 points, up 1,384.95, or 17.18 percent, from Feb. 3 last year, the last trading day of the Year of the Goat. Due to the strong showing in the Year of the Monkey, market capitalization of the local main board rose about NT$4.17 trillion (US$133 billion), or 17.57 percent, from a year earlier to NT$27.89 trillion. Trading on the local main board is scheduled to resume on Thursday, the sixth day of the Year of the Rooster.
TECHNOLOGY
Apple joins AI partnership
A technology industry alliance devoted to making sure smart machines do not turn against humanity said on Friday that Apple Inc has signed on and will have a seat on the board. Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc, Google, Facebook Inc, IBM Corp and British AI firm DeepMind last year established the non-profit organization, called Partnership on AI, which will have its inaugural board meeting in San Francisco on Friday. Apple “has been involved and collaborating with the partnership since before it was first announced and is thrilled to formalize its membership,” the alliance said. Major technology firms joined forces in the group, with stated aims including cooperation on “best practices” for AI and using the technology “to benefit people and society.”
REAL ESTATE
HK housing starts up 80%
Hong Kong’s construction of private residential units reached a 16-year high last year, a year that the city’s leaders stepped up efforts to cool the world’s costliest property market. Developers started building a total of 25,500 private apartments last year, up 80 percent from 2015, the Transport and Housing Bureau said in a release on Friday. That was the highest since 2000, when housing starts were at 30,100 units. About 94,000 units will become available to buyers in the next three to four years, according to the bureau.
AVIATION
American Q4 earnings drop
American Airlines Group Inc said on Friday it sees a strong market for ticket sales as it reported lower fourth-quarter earnings but a rise in a closely watched industry benchmark. Net income in the fourth quarter was US$289 million, down from US$3.3 billion in the year-ago period. The fourth quarter of 2015 was boosted by US$3 billion in tax allowances. Revenues were US$9.8 billion, up 1.7 percent from the year-ago period. Chief executive Doug Parker cited a 1.3 percent rise in the ratio of revenue per available seat mile during the quarter.
INVESTMENT
JPMorgan fattens bonus pool
It is a good time to be a rates trader on Wall Street. JPMorgan Chase & Co, the world’s biggest investment bank by revenue, last year boosted its bonus pool for traders dealing in government bonds, swaps and other assets tied to interest rates by about 20 percent, according to people with knowledge of the matter. At Morgan Stanley, the bonus pool for rates traders climbed more than 10 percent, and at Bank of America Corp the average bonus for those employees increased more than 10 percent, other people said. Rates traders outperformed most of their peers in fixed income.
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