Saudi arabia
Pipeline leak kills contractor
A contractor was killed and three other workers were injured in a pipeline leak, state-owned oil giant Aramco said yesterday. Aramco tweeted that the leak occurred at the Abqaiq facility, 60km southwest of the company’s main Dhahran compound. The two contractors have since been discharged from hospital. The country is looking to diversify its oil-dependent economy and plans to list Aramco on the stock market in 2018. The kingdom has announced budget cutbacks after its 2015 deficit snowballed to US$97 billion.
AUSTRALIA
Tax cut to include big banks
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has rejected calls from some lawmakers to exclude the nation’s four big banks from a planned company tax cut. “A company tax rate has got to really go across all corporations,” Turnbull said on Saturday in Queenstown, New Zealand. “Distinguishing between one sector and another is not a practical measure. I’m not aware of that ever being done in any other jurisdiction.” Some backbench lawmakers from the ruling Liberal-National coalition have called for big banks to be cut out of the government’s US$48.7 billion plan to reduce the company tax rate to 25 percent from 30 percent, according to the Australian newspaper.
AUSTRALIA
Accenture to hire in US
Technology consulting and services company Accenture Ltd on Friday announced plans to boost its US workforce by 30 percent in the coming three years. The company said it will create “15,000 highly skilled new jobs” in the US, increasing the size of its overall workforce in the country to more than 65,000 by the end of 2020. The hiring would come with the creation of 10 new “innovation hubs” and an investment of US$1.4 billion in training employees “leading-edge capabilities” for doing their jobs. “Today marks a key moment for Accenture to help our clients play an even bigger part in the nation’s growth and innovation agenda,” Accenture chief executive officer Julie Sweet said.
BANKING
BofA head to get US$20m
Bank of America Corp (BofA) chief executive officer Brian Moynihan is getting a big pay raise this year. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank on Friday said that its board of directors awarded Moynihan a pay package of US$20 million for last year, up from his package of US$16 million for his work in 2015. Most of that pay package is to come in the form of stock, about US$18.5 million, compared with Moynihan’s US$1.5 million base salary. The board said the pay was reflective of the big jump in profits the bank experienced last year. The bank last year earned US$17.9 billion in full-year profits, up 13 percent from 2015.
ENTERTAINMENT
Paramount eyes new leader
Viacom Inc is in discussions with Paramount Pictures chief Brad Grey about a change in leadership at the studio after a string of box office duds, according to a person familiar with the talks. Changes could be announced next week, the person said. Grey, 59, has been chairman and chief executive officer of Paramount since 2005, the longest tenure of any current studio head. The film business initially thrived under his direction, but its performance dropped precipitously more recently. The studio lost US$445 million on sales of US$2.66 billion last year.
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
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
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
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure