JAPAN
Index flags slump risk
The government cut its formula-based assessment of the economy to indicate that economic conditions were worsening in August, an outcome signaling a higher risk that the nation could be entering a recession. The coincident economic index fell 0.4 point to 99.3 in August, the Cabinet Office reported yesterday, compared with an estimate of 99.4 by economists. The leading economic index dropped 2 points to a 10-year low of 91.7, compared with an estimate of 91.8 by economists.
GERMANY
Orders contract in August
Factory orders dropped for the second consecutive month in August — led by lower domestic demand, the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy said yesterday. Orders were 0.6 percent lower compared with the previous month, when they fell 2.1 percent, it said. Domestic orders dropped 2.6 percent, while foreign demand rose 0.9 percent. Orders from other countries in the eurozone rose 1.5 percent and those from elsewhere edged up 0.4 percent.
HOTELS
Oyo to raise US$1.5bn
Oyo Hotels and Homes is raising US$1.5 billion from founder Ritesh Agarwal, Softbank Group Corp and other investors, as the India lodging start-up expands into foreign markets, such as the US and Europe. Agarwal, 25, plans to spend US$700 million to buy new shares in the company as part of a previously reported US$2 billion plan to triple his ownership stake. Existing investors SoftBank’s Vision Fund, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Sequoia India would contribute the rest of the current round.
REAL ESTATE
PropertyGuru to list
PropertyGuru Pte, a provider of online real-estate classifieds based in Singapore, plans to raise as much as A$380.2 million (US$257 million) and list on the Australian stock exchange. The shares’ indicative price range is between A$3.70 and A$4.50, which would give it a market capitalization at the upper end of about A$1.36 billion, the company’s prospectus showed yesterday. A book build to determine the final price is to be held later this month and trading is expected to start on Oct. 25.
LIGHTING
Osram falls on failed bid
Osram Licht AG fell the most in two months after a 4 billion euro (US$4.4 billion) offer by Austrian suitor AMS AG failed to attract enough support from investors, and a pair of rival bidders are still considering whether to make a new bid. The shares dropped as much as 4.5 percent in early trading yesterday. Osram investors had tendered 51.6 percent of their shares to AMS by a deadline last week, falling short of a 62.5 percent threshold. The Apple Inc supplier has vowed to keep pursuing an acquisition, while private equity suitors Bain Capital and Advent International are inspecting the company’s books, Osram said on Friday.
ELECTRONICS
Samsung ends China work
Samsung Electronics Co on Friday said it has ended the production of smartphones in its last factory in China. Production at the Huizhou, Guangdong Province, factory ended last month, it said in an e-mail. Samsung’s market share in China has dwindled to near insignificance, as competitors like Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Xiaomi Corp (小米) got the upper hand. The South Korean company has moved a large share of its smartphone production to Vietnam and had shuttered a factory in Tianjin, China, last year.
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
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
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in
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