LOGISTICS
FedEx issues profit warning
FedEx Corp on Tuesday posted weak quarterly results in its core express business and warned that its profit in the year ahead would be hurt by slowing growth in the world economy and the decision to drop a contract with retail giant Amazon.com Inc. In the fiscal fourth quarter, which ended on May 31, FedEx reported a loss of US$1.97 billion, compared with profit of US$1.13 billion a year earlier. Adjusted profit excluding various charges was US$5.01 per share, FedEx said. While down from US$5.91 a year earlier, the results beat expectations.
INVESTMENT
ADFG to merge with Shuaa
Abu Dhabi Financial Group (ADFG) yesterday agreed to a reverse merger with Shuaa Capital PSC that would create an investment bank managing US$12.8 billion of assets. The deal values the Abu Dhabi firm’s equity at 1.5 billion dirhams to 1.6 billion dirhams (US$408.4 million to US$435.6), ADFG CEO Jassim Alseddiqi said. It also gives the combined entity a valuation of 2.8 billion dirhams and values Shuaa at 1.12 dirhams per share, a 21 percent premium to Tuesday’s closing price.
NEW ZEALAND
Central bank signals cuts
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand yesterday left interest rates on hold, but signaled that a cut was coming as it seeks to stimulate an economy flagging in the face of a global slowdown. The bank last month trimmed its official cash rate to a record low of 1.5 percent, as the economy grew at a sluggish 0.6 percent in the first three months of this year. The bank’s next monetary policy meeting is in August.
GERMANY
Consumer confidence drops
The public’s view of the nation’s economy heading into next month has darkened, a regular poll published yesterday found, as global trade conflicts weigh on hopes for a continuing job boom. Pollster GfK SE said that its forward-looking consumer confidence barometer, based on a survey of about 2000 people, fell 0.3 points from this month to 9.8. For next month, consumers’ view of the prospects for the whole economy ended a slide that began last year with a slight increase, but remained at “a comparatively low level,” GfK said. Readiness to buy also increased, but salary expectations “suffered a bitter blow,” the pollster found.
E-COMMERCE
Alibaba launches new portal
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) has set up a new Web site to double the number of global brands on its flagship online mall, taking an important step toward fulfilling its global ambitions. The e-commerce giant yesterday began offering an English-language portal on Tmall (天貓) to entice more merchants from around the world to sell to Chinese consumers. Alibaba is counting on the initiative to help double the number of foreign brands on Tmall Global to 40,000 in three years.
SOLAR ENERGY
Tender issued for production
India issued a new tender for solar power equipment manufacturing capacity totaling 2 gigawatts, the latest attempt to spur its domestic industry. The new tender, issued by state-owned Solar Energy Corp of India, seeks four projects for module, cell, ingot and wafer manufacturing with an annual capacity of 500 megawatts each, with each plant accompanied by up to 1.5 gigawatts of generating solar capacity.
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