BREXIT
Report outlines scenarios
A no-deal Brexit would drag the UK economy to a near standstill next year, according to a new report. If Britain leaves the EU without an agreement, reverting to the WTO’s most-favored-nation status rules, GDP would increase only 0.3 percent next year, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research said on Friday. By contrast, a trade accord that preserves most of the current arrangements would mean the economy will grow 1.9 percent next year, more than the think tank’s previous forecast of 1.7 percent.
MINING
Chile approves lithium deal
Chile’s constitutional court gave the green light on Thursday to Chinese group Tianqi Lithium Corp’s (天齊鋰業) proposed acquisition of a 24 percent stake in Chile’s lithium producer SQM for US$4.1 billion. The court rejected an appeal to halt the sale by SQM’s controlling shareholder, the Pampa Group, which argued that such a deal would break competition rules as Tianqi also owns a stake in Albermarle, a direct competitor of SQM. Chile has the world’s largest reserves of lithium and alongside Australia produces about 80 percent of total global output.
CHEMISTRY
BASF confirms weak year
German chemicals giant BASF AG yesterday confirmed a full-year outlook for weaker profits after a slowdown in the third quarter, adding that one-off factors weighed especially strongly on its bottom line. Net profit at the Ludwigshafen-based group fell 10 percent year-on-year, to 1.2 billion euros (US$1.36 billion), in line with forecasts from analysts surveyed by Factset. Operating profit before special items fell 14 percent to 1.47 billion euros, although revenues were 8 percent higher at 15.6 billion as BASF raised prices and sales volumes.
CRYPTOCURRENCIES
Bitfury mulls initial listing
Cryptocurrency-mining start-up Bitfury is weighing strategic options including an initial public offering in what could be Europe’s first major listing in the industry, according to people familiar with the matter. Bitfury has reached out to global investment banks as it explores making its trading debut in Amsterdam, London or Hong Kong as early as next year, the people said, asking not to be identified, as the details are not public.
MEDIA
Czech eyes ‘Le Monde’ stake
Czech investor Daniel Kretinsky’s Czech Media Invest (CMI) is to buy a 49 percent stake in Le Nouveau Monde, the main shareholder of French daily Le Monde, a spokesman for Kretinsky said on Thursday. The spokesman declined to provide further details on the transaction. Kretinsky is the majority owner and chief executive of power and infrastructure group EPH, which owns power plants across Europe.
BANKING
RBS raises Brexit provision
Royal Bank of Scotland PLC (RBS) has taken a £100 million (US$128 million) impairment provision to account for greater economic uncertainty in the first concrete sign that Brexit is clouding the outlook of a big British bank. The provision, announced with RBS’ third-quarter results, took the bank’s impairments for the period to £240 million, up from £143 million last year. It also reported a pre-tax profit of £961 million and an attributable profit of £448 million. That was below the £507 million expected by analysts.
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