BEVERAGES
Britvic closing Norwich site
British soft drinks group Britvic PLC yesterday said it would close its Norwich manufacturing site, resulting in 242 job losses. The company said it would transfer the production of its Robinsons and Fruit Shoot brands from the Norwich site, which is co-owned with Unilever, to sites in East London, Leeds and Rugby. Britvic said the plant will close by the end of 2019. It said the proposed closure would not affect its financial forecast. The job cuts come at a time when the company and its rivals face an impending British government tax on sugar-sweetened fizzy drinks.
MANUFACTURING
Ferguson profit up 25%
Heating and plumbing products supplier Ferguson reported a near 25 percent rise in full-year trading profit from ongoing business, as a strong US performance offset weak British growth. The group, which changed its name from Wolseley this year, said trading profit from ongoing business rose to £1.03 billion (US$1.36 billion) in the year to July 31, from £827 million a year earlier. The company said it would buy back shares worth £500 million over the next 12 months. Revenue from ongoing business grew 18.3 percent to £14.87 billion, up 6 percent on a like-for-like basis. The company has increasingly banked on growth in its US business to drive results, against challenging market conditions in the UK and parts of Europe, which has prompted a planned exit from the Nordic region.
DIGITAL CURRENCIES
Goldman Sachs mulls entry
Goldman Sachs is exploring whether to launch a trading venture in bitcoin in response to client demand, a person familiar with the matter said on Monday. Goldman’s consideration of the digital currency could give bitcoin a boost at a time when it is under criticism in China and by some large banks. Goldman is looking at establishing a team that could trade bitcoin and other digital currencies, said a person familiar with the bank’s thinking. The venture might resemble other Goldman teams that trade euros or Treasury bonds. Goldman has received interest from a variety of parties, including investment funds, insurers and corporate clients. The study is at an early stage and may not yield a decision to proceed with such a venture, the person said.
ENGINEERING
Flannery takes over GE
General Electric (GE) on Monday said that director and chairman Jeffrey Immelt had stepped down nearly three months earlier than expected. The board named CEO John Flannery as chairman and president, effective immediately, the company said in a statement. Flannery had taken over Immelt’s role as CEO at the start of August, but Immelt had been expected to stay on as president and chairman until the end of the year. However, Monday’s statement said Immelt believed the transition had gone smoothly and that Flannery was now ready to succeed him.
AUTOMAKERS
GM eyes 20 all-electric cars
General Motors (GM) on Monday announced plans to launch 20 all-electric cars by 2023, part of a push to an “all-electric” fleet. It said it would introduce two models within 18 months built on the learnings of the all-electric Chevrolet Bolt, which was launched in December last year. “General Motors believes in an all-electric future,” executive vice president Mark Reuss said. “Although that future won’t happen overnight, GM is committed to driving increased usage and acceptance of electric vehicles through no-compromise solutions that meet our customers’ needs.”
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