CHINA
IPO valuations fall
The average price of initial public offerings fell to about 20 times earnings early this month after the government acted to curb insider trading and speculation, the nation’s top regulator said. IPO valuations are now more in line with the secondary market after falling from a ratio of more than 30 in the first quarter and 47 last year, China Securities Regulatory Commission Chairman Guo Shuqing (郭樹清) said, according to statement on Friday on the watchdog’s Web site. The regulator is studying the possibility of excluding non-recurring items from net income to make its delisting policy more effective, according to the statement.
PETROLEUM
Russia seeks cooperation
Russian Vice Premier Igor Sechin is dropping hints he would welcome greater international cooperation to explore for oil in his country. He was referring to a new partnership between Russian oil and gas company Rosneft and its US rival ExxonMobil. The agreement with ExxonMobil is “quite special, but there will be others” Sechin told the Wall Street Journal during a visit to the US last week. In the interview published on Saturday, Sechin described the Exxon-Rosneft agreement as “a long-term collaboration, which would be extended for decades — 30, 40 or 50 years.”
JAPAN
Plant blast kills worker
A blast at a chemical plant in the west killed one worker and injured at least 15 others yesterday, police said. The accident occurred at a factory operated by comprehensive chemical manufacturer Mitsui Chemicals in Yamaguchi Prefecture, about 700km southwest of Tokyo, an official at the Yamaguchi prefectural police said. The deceased was a 22-year-old male employee, police said, with Jiji Press identifying him as Shota Sunakawa. Nine other company employees and workers for subcontract companies were severely or slightly injured, while at least four residents in the neighborhood were slightly injured, police said. The plant had been manufacturing materials to make adhesives, he said.
FINANCE
BofA settlement challenged
A recently proposed US$20 million settlement of shareholder claims by Bank of America Corp (BofA) over its 2009 acquisition of Merrill Lynch is being challenged by a separate group of shareholders as too small. A federal judge in New York has ordered the Bank of America directors who were sued over the deal to defend the settlement in court on May 4, along with the lead shareholders they settled with. The US$20 billion takeover deal was forged on the same September 2008 weekend that Lehman Brothers collapsed. The deal came into question later after Bank of America disclosed that Merrill would post US$27.6 billion in losses that year.
TIRES
Michelin recalling bus tires
Michelin is recalling more than 77,000 bus tires because sidewall defects can cause them to lose air rapidly, increasing the risk of a crash. The Michelin XZU2, XZU3 and XM505 tires involved in the recall were produced from 2005 to fall 2011 at Michelin’s plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Michelin North America Inc says its lease fleet customers complained that some of the tires had lost air rapidly during use as retreads over the past two years, prompting a company investigation. It did not cite any instances of crashes.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in server chips, expects revenue to decline this year due to sagging demand for 5-nanometer artificial intelligence (AI) chips from a North America-based major customer, a company executive said yesterday. That would be the first contraction in revenue for Alchip as it has been enjoying strong revenue growth over the past few years, benefiting from cloud-service providers’ moves to reduce dependence on Nvidia Corp’s expensive AI chips by building their own AI accelerator by outsourcing chip design. The 5-nanometer chip was supposed to be a new growth engine as the lifecycle
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