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.
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
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
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],”
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