TECHNOLOGY
Royal Philips shares fall
Shares in Royal Philips NV tumbled the most in more than seven years after the Dutch health technology company’s third-quarter profit missed estimates and growth in the personal-health division was disappointing. The Dutch healthcare technology company’s third-quarter adjusted earnings before interest, taxes and amortization increased to 568 million euros (US$654.88 million) from 532 million euros a year earlier, it said in a statement yesterday. Analysts expected 584 million euros. Sales advanced to 4.3 billion euros, in line with the company-compiled estimate.
INSURANCE
FWD to buy insurance arm
Billionaire Richard Li’s (李澤楷) FWD Group (富衛) is nearing an agreement to buy control of Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s (CBA) Indonesian life insurance arm, people familiar with the matter said, in a deal that would boost the tycoon’s presence in one of the fastest-growing insurance markets. A deal could be announced as soon as this week, one of the people said. A sale of the bank’s 80 percent stake in the business could fetch about US$400 million, people with knowledge of the matter said in June.
INSURANCE
Firm cuts size of share sale
The People’s Insurance Company (Group) of China Ltd (中國人民保險集團), China’s largest property insurer, cut the size of a planned first-time domestic share sale and indicated it would proceed when the market improves. The firm would offer a maximum of 1.8 billion A-shares, less than the 2.3 billion earlier approved by the Chinese securities regulator, it said in a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange yesterday. People’s Insurance would proceed at the “optimal time in light of market conditions,” the statement said.
BANKING
Marqeta expands to London
Marqeta, a US financial technology start-up that helps young companies including digital-only banks issue payment cards, has expanded into Europe, the company said on Sunday. The company plans to service the region from London, where it has hired at team of five and signed up new clients, it said. Backed by Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Visa Inc, Marqeta has developed a platform that makes payment card issuing and processing simpler and more efficient for businesses, it added.
ENGINEERING
WorleyParsons buys Jacobs
WorleyParsons Ltd agreed to buy Jacobs Engineering Group Inc’s energy, chemicals and resources business for US$3.3 billion in the Australian company’s biggest acquisition. The Sydney-based firm would pay US$2.6 billion in cash and US$700 million in shares for the business, Jacobs Engineering said in a statement yesterday. The deal would allow Jacobs to focus on higher-margin businesses such as aerospace and technology, the Dallas-based company said.
EUROPEAN UNION
Global fiscal regime mulled
German Minister of Finance Olaf Scholz said in an interview on Sunday that he backed a global minimum fiscal regime for multinationals as Europe looks to levy tax notably on US tech giants. “We need a minumum tax rate valid globally, which no state can get out of,” Scholz told the Welt am Sonntag weekly. Digital platforms “aggravate a problem that we know well from globalization and that we are trying to counter — the shifting of profits to fiscally beneficial regions,” Scholz said.
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