BANKING
Mizuho seeks foreign income
Mizuho Financial Group Inc wants to grow its business managing overseas corporate money by US$100 billion this fiscal year, as it seeks new ways to boost international earnings at a time of negative interest rates at home. “We’re expanding with a focus on the cross-border transactions of non-Japanese corporations doing business in Asia,” Zenichi Tanakamaru, a senior vice president in Mizuho’s global corporate department, said in an interview. He hopes the push into transaction businesses — which include cash management and trade finance services for corporate clients —will help to boost the volume of foreign exchange Mizuho handles by 20 percent in the year to March 31, from US$500 billion in the previous fiscal year.
BANKING
Morgan Stanly JP profits rise
Morgan Stanley beat Goldman Sachs Group Inc to become the most profitable foreign securities firm in Japan last fiscal year after it boosted structured-product sales and managed the two biggest initial public offerings. Net income at Morgan Stanley MUFG Securities Co rose 32 percent to ¥29 billion (US$264 million) in the year that ended on March 31, the most among 10 large global banks, according to regulatory filings seen by Bloomberg. The venture with Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc and controlled by the New York-based firm posted its biggest revenue in three years as Japan’s introduction of negative interest rates prompted clients to seek assets with better returns than government bonds. It also underwrote the debut share sales of Kyushu Railway Co and Line Corp, the largest in Japan last year.
AUTOMAKERS
VW to offer huge discounts
Volkswagen on Tuesday said it would offer cash incentives of up to 10,000 euros (US$11,740) to trade in old diesel cars, as Germany struggles to reduce harmful emissions following a cheating scandal. The brand said it would offer buyers trading in an old diesel a discount on cars meeting the latest Euro 6 emissions standard, ranging from 2,000 euros on its compact cars to 10,000 euros for a Touareg SUV. The carmaker also proposed an additional discount of between 1,000 and 2,380 euros for those buying more environmentally friendly hybrid, all-electric or natural-gas-powered vehicles.
COMMODITIES
Cocoa traders arrested
Three former executives of a major cocoa company were arrested on Tuesday on charges that they defrauded lenders out of hundreds of millions of dollars by lying repeatedly about the company’s financial condition. Acting Manhattan US Attorney Joon Kim announced the arrests of executives of Transmar Commodity Group Ltd, saying evidence against the men included e-mails in which they discussed using fake financial records to maintain a US$250 million to US$400 million line of credit from banks.
UNITED STATES
Duties put on aluminium foil
The US Department of Commerce on Tuesday announced that it was imposing preliminary duties ranging from 16.5 to 81 percent on aluminum foil imports from China after finding they were subsidized. The department “will instruct US Customs and Border Protection to collect cash deposits from importers of aluminium foil from China based on these preliminary rates,” it quoted US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross as saying. The move follows an anti-dumping investigation announced in spring, with a final decision to be made on Oct. 24.
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