JAPAN
Factory output shoots up
The nation’s factory output expanded at its fastest pace in more than three-and-a-half years in October, but the outlook for the coming months is less certain. Industrial production jumped 2.9 percent from September, after falling in five of the previous six months, economy ministry data showed yesterday. Output increased 4.2 percent from the same period a year earlier. Separate data showed consumer prices excluding fresh food rose 1 percent last month, matching economists’ forecasts, while the jobless rate ticked up to 2.4 percent in October, with the job-applicant ratio edging down to 1.62, compared with an estimate of 1.65.
LEISURE
Hong Kong IPO for Club Med
The owner of French luxury holiday resort group Club Med yesterday launched an initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong, hoping to raise more than US$500 million. Fosun Tourism Group (復星旅遊), a unit of the sprawling Fosun Group (復星集團), said in a prospectus that it is offering 214.2 million shares for between HK$15.60 and HK$20.00, and hopes to price the deal by Friday next week with a listing a week later. It said it hopes to raise up to US$548 million. As well as the Club Med brand, which it bought for more than US$1 billion in 2015, Fosun owns the Atlantis Sanya, a high-end hotel complex on Hainan Island, a popular holiday destination in China.
UNITED STATES
Trump, tech bosses to meet
President Donald Trump is to meet with top executives from Google, Microsoft Corp, Oracle Corp and Qualcomm Inc during a White House roundtable on Thursday next week that could touch upon some of the sticking points in the increasingly prickly relationship between his administration and the technology industry. Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Oracle co-CEO Safra Catz and Qualcomm CEO Steven Mollenkopf all plan to attend the meeting. The White House had said in late September that Pichai had been invited to a tech roundtable without specifying when it would be held or who else would be asked to come.
SOFTWARE
Ex-Autonomy CEO charged
Michael Lynch, a British entrepreneur and former CEO of Autonomy Corp, has been charged with fraud by the US. Prosecutors had long identified Lynch as a coconspirator with his chief financial officer at Autonomy, Sushovan Hussain, who was found guilty in April of orchestrating an accounting fraud to arrive at the US$10.3 billion price then-Hewlett-Packard Co paid for the UK-based company in 2011. Autonomy was the UK’s second-largest software business at the time.
TRANSPORTATION
Lyft buys bike-sharing firm
Lyft Inc has completed its acquisition of Motivate, the US’ largest bike-sharing company. The deal is part of the San Francisco-based ride-hailing company’s goal of offering an array of transportation options within one app and reducing individual car ownership. Financial details were not disclosed. Motivate operates bike-share systems in New York, Washington, San Francisco and elsewhere. Last year, 80 percent of bike-share rides in the US were on Motivate bikes. Caroline Samponaro, head of bike, scooter and pedestrian policy for Lyft, said the company plans to invest US$100 million in New York to triple its bike fleet there to 40,000 and double the footprint of the system.
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