VIETNAM
FDI up 6.2 percent annually
The country received US$4.1 billion in foreign direct investments (FDI) in the first quarter of this year, up 6.2 percent from a year earlier, the Ministry of Planning and Investment said yesterday. FDI has been a key driver of the country’s economic growth. Companies with FDI account for more than 70 percent of the Southeast Asian country’s exports. FDI pledges — which indicate the size of future FDI disbursements — rose 86.2 percent in the January-to-March period from a year earlier to US$10.8 billion, the ministry said in a statement. Of the pledges, 77.7 percent would be invested in manufacturing and processing, while 7.2 percent would go to real estate, the ministry said.
RETAIL
Funds seek new board
Activist funds are launching a proxy fight to replace Bed Bath & Beyond Inc’s entire 12-person board amid concerns that the retailer is not responding well to the rise of e-commerce, people familiar with the matter said. Legion Partners Asset Management LLC, Macellum Advisors and Ancora Advisors LLC control about a 5 percent stake in the Union, New Jersey-based retailer and are seeking to replace chief executive officer Steven Temares, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing a private matter. The funds have lined up 16 director candidates, including former Gap executive Jeff Kirwan, to replace the current board.
GAMES
Nintendo rises on report
Nintendo Co rose the most in almost eight months after the Wall Street Journal reported that the company plans to introduce two new Switch console models as early as this summer. The shares climbed as much as 6.8 percent to ¥32,520 in Tokyo yesterday, the most on an intraday basis since Aug. 1 last year. One of the models would have enhanced features to cater to avid gamers, while the other version is expected to be a cheaper alternative for casual players, the Journal reported, citing unidentified Nintendo parts suppliers and software developers. The new models might be launched at the E3 video game expo in Los Angeles in June.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Xarelto case settled
A US$775 million settlement has been announced in about 25,000 lawsuits involving the blood-thinning medication Xarelto. Cases consolidated in federal court in New Orleans date back to 2014. They involved claims that users of the medication marketed by Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals LLC and Janssen Pharmaceutica were not adequately informed of risks of life-threatening complications. A statement from attorneys for the plaintiffs called the settlement a “fair and just resolution.” US District Judge Eldon Faldon presided over the cases. He issued a series of orders on Monday regarding implementation of the settlement.
TECHNOLOGY
Bitmain IPO lapses
Bitmain Technologies Ltd (比特大陸科技控股), the world’s biggest producer of cryptocurrency mining chips, has let its application for Hong Kong initial public offering (IPO) lapse. The virtual currency mining firm’s listing application, which was filed in September last year, expired yesterday, according to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange’s Web site. The Beijing-based company was targeting to raise as much as US$3 billion, Bloomberg News has reported. The company said in a statement that it would restart the listing application work at an appropriate time.
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
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the