STEEL
Tata optimistic despite EU
Tata Steel forecast improving global demand in spite of European woes, as the world’s No.7 steelmaker reported a bigger-than-expected drop in quarterly profit after being squeezed by weak prices, lower volume and higher input costs. The company, whose European operations account for two-thirds of its global capacity of about 28 million tonnes, reported that consolidated net profit for its fiscal fourth quarter plunged 90 percent. In the same period last year, a one-off gain had boosted earnings. “We expect global steel consumption to improve but production may dip again,” finance chief Koushik Chatterjee said. “Steel demand in emerging countries like India and China is growing, but in Europe it is expected to drop.”
TECHNOLOGY
Yahoo mulls Alibaba sale
Yahoo! Inc. may sell half of its 40 percent stake in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴集團) back to the Chinese Internet company for US$7 billion and consider a dividend payment, AllThingsD Web site reported. The deal values China’s biggest e-commerce operator at US$35 billion, and the closely held company is in the midst of raising funds to buy back the stake, the technology blog site reported today. Yahoo’s board is meeting today to review the transaction, it said. Alibaba stepped up efforts to repurchase stock held by Yahoo in September, when the US company fired former chief executive officer Carol Bartz, who opposed a transaction. Yahoo board member Daniel Loeb is expected to approve the transaction with Alibaba, according to the AllThingsD report.
FINANCE
EBRD elects UK president
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) shareholders on Friday elected senior civil servant Suma Chakrabarti as the bank’s first British president, in a process lauded for its open selection. Chakrabarti replaces Germany’s Thomas Mirow, president since 2008. Previous EBRD presidents have always been French or German. Chakrabarti, who was elected for a four-year term, is currently permanent secretary — the most senior civil servant — at Britain’s Ministry of Justice. He previously ran Britain’s Department for International Development where he worked closely with economies undergoing substantial reform in eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and the Middle East and North Africa. “The success of a British candidate to lead this important European institution shows the strength of and support for Britain’s influence in Europe and around the world,” British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said.
POLITICS
Ireland says no second vote
Ireland’s government denied on Friday that it would stage a second referendum if voters decide this month to reject the EU fiscal treaty, as has happened the last two times the Irish put a complex EU pact to their people. Government leaders scrambled to limit damage to their campaign for a yes vote after Enterprise Minister Richard Bruton appeared to suggest that the treaty must be ratified even if that meant telling uncooperative Irish voters to try again. That is exactly what happened when voters rejected the EU’s previous two treaties in 2001 and 2008, leading to the widely held view that the Irish governments will not take no for an answer when it comes to European accords. Rejecting the treaty in the May 31 referendum could box the country into a cash-flow crisis.
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
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
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
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
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