■LIVESTOCK
Sheep sold for world record
A sheep has sold for a world record £231,000 (US$376,200) at a Scottish livestock auction, a British sheep society said. Deveronvale Perfection, a Texel breed admired by his new owner for his “great body and strong loin,” will be used for breeding. Experts are predicting the tup, the farming term for an uncastrated sheep, will prove a bargain over the long term for his new owner. “It comes down to genetics,” said British Texel Sheep Society chief executive, John Yates, on the society’s Web site. “Breeders are looking at the decades of sheep that this blood line can produce.” Graham Morrison, who owned Perfection, said the price surpassed his wildest dreams, the Web site said. Farmer Jimmy Douglas of Cairness, Scotland, who forked out the record amount, was quoted as saying Perfection was the best lamb he had ever seen.
■PROPERTY
Qatar to invest in Songbird
Qatar Holding LLC said it would become the largest shareholder in Songbird Estates PLC, the biggest landlord in London’s Canary Wharf, after the UK property company agreed on Friday to sell shares to repay loans. Qatar Holding would own 14.8 percent of Songbird by investing in the company’s preferred stock, the Doha-based arm of the Qatar Investment Authority said in a statement. Songbird agreed to sell shares to institutions, including Qatar Holding and China’s sovereign wealth fund to repay £880 million (US$1.4 billion) in bank loans. The UK’s biggest real-estate companies tapped investors for cash this year after a slump in commercial-property values threatened to make them breach the terms of their bank loans. Songbird is the largest shareholder in the company that owns 16 of the 30 office buildings that comprise Canary Wharf, an area by the River Thames covering 39 hectares.
■INVESTMENT
CIC boosts fund investment
China Investment Corp (CIC, 中投公司), China’s sovereign wealth fund, is continuing to shift its investments away from cash and shifting billions to hedge funds and private-equity funds, chairman Lou Jiwei (樓繼偉) said. China Investment has invested “many times” the US$500 million that CIC was reported to have placed in hedge funds and private-equity firms in June, Lou said in an interview in Beijing yesterday. He said China Investment was also investing in fund-of-funds. Lou said Beijing-based CIC’s performance this year “has not been bad” following last year’s 2.1 percent decline in its global investments. He didn’t elaborate. China Investment had US$297.5 billion in assets and 87.4 percent of its global portfolio invested in cash and cash equivalents at the end of last year, the fund reported earlier this month.
■FINANCE
Shin Kong to raise funds
Shin Kong Financial Holding Co (新光金控) said on Friday that its board had approved another NT$5 billion (US$151.9 million) fund-raising plan by issuing new shares, it said in a press statement. The new shares will first be open to the company’s shareholders for subscription before being released to the company chairman or via private placement, the statement said without providing details, including a timetable. Along with the earlier US$375 million fund raised via the issuance of global depositary receipts late last month, the new funds will be used to boost the capital adequacy ratio of the firm’s life insurance subsidiary, Shin Kong Life Insurance Co (新光人壽), Taiwan’s third-largest life insurer.
SEEKING CLARITY: Washington should not adopt measures that create uncertainties for ‘existing semiconductor investments,’ TSMC said referring to its US$165 billion in the US Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) told the US that any future tariffs on Taiwanese semiconductors could reduce demand for chips and derail its pledge to increase its investment in Arizona. “New import restrictions could jeopardize current US leadership in the competitive technology industry and create uncertainties for many committed semiconductor capital projects in the US, including TSMC Arizona’s significant investment plan in Phoenix,” the chipmaker wrote in a letter to the US Department of Commerce. TSMC issued the warning in response to a solicitation for comments by the department on a possible tariff on semiconductor imports by US President Donald Trump’s
‘FAILED EXPORT CONTROLS’: Jensen Huang said that Washington should maximize the speed of AI diffusion, because not doing so would give competitors an advantage Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) yesterday criticized the US government’s restrictions on exports of artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China, saying that the policy was a failure and would only spur China to accelerate AI development. The export controls gave China the spirit, motivation and government support to accelerate AI development, Huang told reporters at the Computex trade show in Taipei. The competition in China is already intense, given its strong software capabilities, extensive technology ecosystems and work efficiency, he said. “All in all, the export controls were a failure. The facts would suggest it,” he said. “The US
The government has launched a three-pronged strategy to attract local and international talent, aiming to position Taiwan as a new global hub following Nvidia Corp’s announcement that it has chosen Taipei as the site of its Taiwan headquarters. Nvidia cofounder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Monday last week announced during his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei that the Nvidia Constellation, the company’s planned Taiwan headquarters, would be located in the Beitou-Shilin Technology Park (北投士林科技園區) in Taipei. Huang’s decision to establish a base in Taiwan is “primarily due to Taiwan’s talent pool and its strength in the semiconductor
French President Emmanuel Macron has expressed gratitude to Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) for its plan to invest approximately 250 million euros (US$278 million) in a joint venture in France focused on the semiconductor and space industries. On his official X account on Tuesday, Macron thanked Hon Hai, also known globally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), for its investment projects announced at Choose France, a flagship economic summit held on Monday to attract foreign investment. In the post, Macron included a GIF displaying the national flag of the Republic of China (Taiwan), as he did for other foreign investors, including China-based
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