ENERGY
Aramco shares plans shift
Saudi Arabia plans to sell shares of oil company Saudi Aramco on a local exchange and may scuttle entirely an earlier plan for an overseas listing, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. Aramco had previously discussed an initial public offering in the latter half of this year and had been eyeing a listing on New York or another international exchange. However, the oil giant is now contemplating listing on a domestic stock exchange, viewing the legal risks of listing in New York as considerable, said the Journal, which cited unnamed officials as well as some public comments from top Saudi Arabian officials. The report also said the earliest a listing could take place would be April next year. The report comes as Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman yesterday prepared to meet with US President Donald Trump, who has publicly lobbied for a US Aramco listing.
TECHNOLOGY
Uber to take bigger loan
Uber Technologies Inc is borrowing more than it originally planned in the US leveraged loan market, where a decision by the ride-haling company to halt autonomous vehicle tests following a fatality is not deterring investor demand. The ride-hailing company on Monday said it is boosting the size of a proposed loan that would fuel growth plans from US$1.25 billion to US$1.5 billion. Uber also tightened a deadline due tomorrow for lenders to commit to the loan to today, according to people with knowledge of the matter. While Uber is tapping a very receptive loan market, where investors are eager to buy new deals, it is also luring lenders with an almost US$54 billion valuation, which makes it the biggest venture-backed technology enterprise without a stock listing.
CANADA
Uninsured mortgage market up
The nation’s uninsured mortgage market reached an eight-year high in January, as government steps to reduce taxpayer exposure to the housing market gain traction, data from the country’s banking regulator showed. Mortgages that do not require homeowner insurance surged 19 percent from a year ago, accounting for about 53 percent of the C$1.13 trillion (US$864 billion) of home loans at Canada’s federally regulated banks, data from the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions show. Insured home loans fell 6.5 percent from a year ago. Uninsured mortgages have taken an increasing share of the nation’s housing loans since 2012. Still, the slowdown of residential mortgage volumes continues, with banks posting a 5.3 percent increase from January last year, down from a recent high of 6.6 percent in May, the data show.
GERMANY
Berlin heads off US trade war
Berlin is making headway in its efforts to avoid a trade war with the US, as it seeks a breakthrough before US President Donald Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum go into effect at the end of this week. Minister of Economic Affairs and Energy Peter Altmaier, a close confidante of Chancellor Angela Merkel, said his talks with US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross took place in a “very good and constructive atmosphere” that opened the door to a solution that avoids serious trade conflict. Altmaier’s trip to the US capital is part of two-pronged approach, with Minister of Finance Olaf Scholz exchanging views with US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin at a meeting of G20 finance chiefs in Buenos Aires.
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