BANKING
BOE to boost fees on Brexit
The Bank of England (BOE) plans to boost fees on British banks to recover £5.4 million (US$6.7 million) of regulatory costs associated with Brexit. The British Prudential Regulation Authority on Friday said that the nation’s withdrawal from the EU “will require a significant amount of work” to review rules and respond to industry questions. The central bank said the industry might need to pay more money in the future if further costs are identified. It included the new fee in its proposed levies on the industry for 2017-2018.
RUSSIA
Central bank cuts key rate
The central bank on Friday cut its key rate for the first time in six months and said more cuts were coming, offering a welcome boost to the country’s struggling economy. Falling inflation gave the central bank the leeway to shave a quarter-point off its headline rate and promise more easing down the road. The central bank announced the cut to 9.75 percent after a regular monetary policy meeting.
FINANCIAL SERVICES
Credit Suisse hikes bonuses
Credit Suisse Group AG increased its bonus pool 6 percent, defying a trend toward smaller payouts at many of its peers in an effort to prevent an exodus of talent from its investment banking and Asian operations. The bank awarded 3.09 billion Swiss francs (US$3.1 billion) in incentive pay for last year, an annual report released on Friday showed, even as charges tied to legal settlements pushed it to a second consecutive annual loss. The bank last year posted a loss of 2.7 billion francs as it absorbed charges from a US$5.3 billion settlement with the US Department of Justice over its pre-crisis mortgage securities business.
FOOD MAKERS
Kraft Heinz lays off 200
Kraft Heinz Co has laid off 200 white-collar workers in Canada and the US. The company is realigning its administrative functions to be more efficient, Kraft Heinz senior vice president of corporate and government affairs Michael Mullen said on Friday. The company did not say where the layoffs occurred. Kraft Heinz has about 41,000 employees worldwide. The workers being laid off have all been notified and Mullen said the company appreciates their contributions.
MINING
US court voids most of suit
Brazilian miner Vale SA on Friday said the US District Court for the Southern District of New York annulled nearly all parts of a class-action lawsuit against the company and executives over the collapse of a tailings dam in Brazil in 2015. The only parts of the case that remain ongoing are linked to specific statements made by Vale in 2013 and 2014 and a conference call in November 2015, the company said.
INTERNET
Baidu to expand in the US
Baidu Inc (百度) is to double its footprint in Silicon Valley with a second research and development facility, seeking to gain an edge in artificial intelligence technology. China’s largest search engine provider is to add 150 employees, it said in a statement on Friday. Baidu has about 200 people at its existing site in Sunnyvale, California, with about 1,300 engineers working on the technology in China and the US.
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