UNITED STATES
Durable goods rebound
Led by a surge in demand for commercial aircraft, orders for long-lasting manufactured goods rebounded last month, reversing a January drop, to rise at the fastest pace since June last year. The Department of Commerce on Friday said that orders for durable goods — items meant to last at least three years — rose 3.1 percent, handily beating economist expectations. Excluding the volatile transportation sector, orders rose 1.2 percent. A category that tracks business investment — orders for non-defense capital goods, excluding aircraft — rose 1.8 percent after dipping in January.
MEXICO
Airport IPO raises hopes
The group behind Mexico City’s new airport on Friday raised US$1.6 billion in an initial public offering (IPO) of Fibra E shares — the local version of a publicly traded limited partnership — providing another buffer against threats to shut the endeavor down. Grupo Aeroportuario de la Ciudad de Mexico sold 300 million of the securities at 100 pesos (US$5.40) each to raise 30 billion pesos, including an overallotment option known as a greenshoe, a person with knowledge of the deal said. It was the biggest-ever sale of Fibra E securities in the nation.
TUNISIA
IMF disburses US$257m
The IMF on Friday released an additional US$257 million in funds for the nation as part of its four-year, US$3 billion loan agreement. The IMF board approved the second review of the nation’s economic performance under the financial aid package that was initially approved in May 2016. With the latest installment, the IMF has lent the country nearly US$1 billion, even though the board acknowledged that the government had failed to meet some of its economic benchmarks. The fund also approved the nation’s request to move up the reviews and payments to a quarterly schedule rather than twice a year.
GAMBLING
Nevada to probe Wynn sale
The Nevada Gaming Control Board is to look into Galaxy Entertainment Group after the Hong Kong-based casino company’s purchase of a stake in Wynn Resorts Ltd. “As is its ordinary course, the Nevada Gaming Control Board engages in a due diligence process for any shareholder approaching a reporting requirement,” board chairwoman Becky Harris said on Friday. Individuals owning more than 10 percent of a casino must meet suitability requirements in the state, while a 5 percent stake triggers reporting rules for the board. Galaxy’s 4.9 percent share falls short, but the agency has discretion over whether to examine investors with less.
AUTOMAKERS
VW head defends salary
Volkswagen AG (VW) CEO Matthias Mueller on Friday defended his 10 million euro (US$12.4 million) salary by saying it made up for the risk of having “one foot in jail.” In an interview with weekly Der Spiegel, Matthias Mueller said he did not understand the fuss in Germany about chief executives’ pay packets. Mueller was only Germany’s fifth best-paid CEO last year, a study released on Friday by the HKP Group consultancy found. The top earner was software giant SAP’s CEO Bill McDermott at just more than 21 million euros, followed by Daimler chairman Dieter Zetsche, who took home 13 million euros.
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