■ Gaming
Melco files for IPO
Melco PBL Entertainment, the casino joint venture between Australia's Publishing & Broadcasting Ltd and Hong Kong-based Melco International Development Ltd, said yesterday it has filed a registration for its US initial public offering. The joint venture, which focuses on developing casinos and resorts in Macau, has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission to float 53 million American Depositary Shares on the NASDAQ, the company said in a statement.
■ Loans
Credit co-ops' ODL down
The average overdue loan ratio of the credit cooperatives run by farmers' and fishermen's associations in Taiwan stood at 8.68 percent at the end of October, down 0.15 percentage points from the previous month's level, according to tallies released yesterday by the Bureau of Agricultural Finance. As of the end of October, the combined assets of the credit cooperatives totaled NT$1.57 trillion (US$48.46 billion), down NT$5.1 billion from the previous month. The net asset value amounted to NT$87.1 billion, up NT$500 million over the previous month. The overdue loans amounted to NT$56.8 billion at the end of October, down NT$800 million from the month-earlier level.
■ Taiwan
Consumer spending picks up
Private consumer spending in the fourth quarter will increase 2.21 percent from a year ago, the highest quarterly growth this year, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) forecast on Friday. The agency also predicted that private consumer spending for the entire year will grow 1.5 percent. The third quarter saw a mere 0.4 percent increase in private consumer spending due to credit card problems, DGBAS officials said. Business revenues generated by wholesalers, retailers and restaurants -- which form the bulk of private consumption -- totaled NT$952.1 billion (US$29.4 billion) in September.
■ Semiconductors
Patent trial postponed
Fairchild Semiconductor International Inc must wait at least five more months to press claims that cellphone chip patents held by Power Integrations Inc are invalid, a federal judge ruled. In October, a jury in Delaware ordered Fairchild to pay Power Integrations US$34 million in damages for infringing patents on semiconductors in mobile-phone power cords. A trial on the patents' validity will begin tomorrow in California-based Power Integrations, with about one-tenth of Fairchild's US$1.43 billion in sales last year, has been fighting chip imports and in August won an International Trade Commission decision barring System General Corp (品佳) of Taiwan from bringing infringing chips into the US.
■ Finance
Watchdog fails consumers
Britain's financial watchdog is failing to protect consumers five years after its inception, according to a consumer body. The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has a long way to go before it can claim consumers are property protected, according to the Which group. It said that the FSA "must try harder" in a number of areas -- from disclosing misleading advertising to ensuring financial advisers meet basic standards. The lack of action to name and shame those who fall foul of advertising rules or perform poorly in mystery shopping exercises limited the effectiveness of these tools to improve industry practices, Which said.
The Eurovision Song Contest has seen a surge in punter interest at the bookmakers, becoming a major betting event, experts said ahead of last night’s giant glamfest in Basel. “Eurovision has quietly become one of the biggest betting events of the year,” said Tomi Huttunen, senior manager of the Online Computer Finland (OCS) betting and casino platform. Betting sites have long been used to gauge which way voters might be leaning ahead of the world’s biggest televised live music event. However, bookmakers highlight a huge increase in engagement in recent years — and this year in particular. “We’ve already passed 2023’s total activity and
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) today announced that his company has selected "Beitou Shilin" in Taipei for its new Taiwan office, called Nvidia Constellation, putting an end to months of speculation. Industry sources have said that the tech giant has been eyeing the Beitou Shilin Science Park as the site of its new overseas headquarters, and speculated that the new headquarters would be built on two plots of land designated as "T17" and "T18," which span 3.89 hectares in the park. "I think it's time for us to reveal one of the largest products we've ever built," Huang said near the
China yesterday announced anti-dumping duties as high as 74.9 percent on imports of polyoxymethylene (POM) copolymers, a type of engineering plastic, from Taiwan, the US, the EU and Japan. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce’s findings conclude a probe launched in May last year, shortly after the US sharply increased tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, computer chips and other imports. POM copolymers can partially replace metals such as copper and zinc, and have various applications, including in auto parts, electronics and medical equipment, the Chinese ministry has said. In January, it said initial investigations had determined that dumping was taking place, and implemented preliminary
CUSTOMERS’ BURDEN: TSMC already has operations in the US and is a foundry, so any tariff increase would mostly affect US customers, not the company, the minister said Taiwanese manufacturers are “not afraid” of US tariffs, but are concerned about being affected more heavily than regional economic competitors Japan and South Korea, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said. “Taiwan has many advantages that other countries do not have, the most notable of which is its semiconductor ecosystem,” Kuo said. The US “must rely on Taiwan” to boost its microchip manufacturing capacities, Kuo said in an interview ahead of his one-year anniversary in office tomorrow. Taiwan has submitted a position paper under Section 232 of the US Trade Expansion Act to explain the “complementary relationship” between Taiwan and the US
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