MINING
Merger to create gold giant
Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold Corp has bought Africa-focused rival Randgold Resources Ltd to create a global industry champion worth US$18.3 billion, the pair said yesterday. The blockbuster all-share deal was described as a merger, but is effectively a takeover, because Barrick investors are to own a majority 66.6-percent stake. Randgold shareholders will hold the rest. The enlarged company, keeping the Barrick name, is to be traded in New York and Toronto. Randgold’s London listing is to be canceled. The group would have total annual revenues of about US$9.7 billion.
MINING
Australia to see mega-IPO
Coronado Global Resources Inc, a miner backed by private equity firm Energy & Minerals Group, and current investors are seeking to raise as much as A$1.4 billion (US$1.02 billion) in what would be Australia’s largest coal initial public offering (IPO). The company and existing holders are offering Chess Depository Interests at A$4 to A$4.80 each, a prospectus lodged with the nation’s regulator yesterday said. That would give Coronado, the biggest US metallurgical coal producer, an enterprise value of as much as A$4.4 billion. Trading is scheduled to start on Oct. 23 on the Australian Securities Exchange, it said in a statement.
METALS
UAE firm pulls initial listing
A planned share sale in the United Arab Emirates might be the latest casualty of US President Donald Trump’s trade policies. US tariffs on aluminum imports have prompted Emirates Global Aluminium, which produces about 4 percent of the metal globally, to delay an initial public offering, people with knowledge of the matter said. The company confirmed the decision, but said it had canceled the listing due to unfavorable market conditions. The company exports about 90 percent of its output and considers the US a “key market,” it said. The company reiterated its plans to sell shares publicly, but said that market conditions “may not improve until later” next year.
AUTOMAKERS
Porsche touts end of diesel
Porsche chief executive Oliver Blume said the sports car maker would not produce any new diesel models in the wake of parent company Volkswagen’s diesel emissions scandal. Blume told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that, although Porsche itself never developed and produced diesel engines, its image has suffered from the scandal that erupted in 2015. He said the company wants to concentrate on “what we can do particularly well,” citing high-performance gasoline models, hybrids and, from next year, electric cars. “That also means that there will be no more diesels from Porsche in the future,” Blume added.
TECHNOLOGY
Firms to help UN halt famine
Technology giants Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc and Google are joining forces with international organizations to help identify and head off famines in developing nations by using data analysis and artificial intelligence, as part of a new initiative unveiled on Sunday. Rather than waiting to respond to a famine after many lives have been lost, the tech companies “will use the predictive power of data to trigger funding” to take action before situations fevelop into to a crisis, the World Bank and UN said in a joint statement.
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
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure