ECONOMY
Greece to issue bonds
Greece, at risk of crashing out of the eurozone just two years ago, was to issue its first sovereign bond in almost four years yesterday, seeking to send a strong political and economic signal that it is on the way out of its debt crisis. International banks have been mandated to sell a benchmark five-year, euro-denominated bond under British law, with the sale to be completed “in the immediate future,” the country’s finance ministry said in a statement. According to sources speaking to Reuters and Thomson Reuters news and information service IFR, pricing was set for yesterday. Greece initially priced the sale at a yield of between 5 and 5.25 percent and has already attracted more than 11 billion euros (US$15.21 billion) of investor interest.
CRIME
HP to settle over bribes
HP to Hewlett-Packard (HP) is to pay the US government US$108 million to settle charges that former employees paid bribes to officials in Russia, Mexico and Poland. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said an HP division in Russia paid US$2 million to make sure the company retained a contract with the federal prosecutors’ office there. A Mexican subsidiary paid US$1 million to secure a software sale to the country’s state-owned oil company, while US$600,000 in gifts and bribes were paid to a Polish government official to win contracts with the national police agency. The SEC says each scheme lasted for years, and that HP’s internal controls were not strong enough to stop the illegal payments.
TECHNOLOGY
Facebook moving chats
Facebook on Wednesday began pushing smartphone chats between friends to a stand-alone Messenger application. The move to make members of the world’s leading online social network resort to Messenger for text exchanges on the move comes shortly after Facebook outlined a strategy to focus on specialized “apps” for smartphones and tablets. Messenger was touted as a speedier and superior tool for chats. The switch also lets Facebook focus engineering resources on honing one application instead of dividing resources between two.
REAL ESTATE
Beijing property sold
A company controlled by the family of Asia’s richest man, Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠), has sold a landmark Beijing property for more than US$900 million, it said, adding to speculation he is cashing out of Chinese property. Pacific Century Premium Developments Ltd (盈科大衍地產) — a firm chaired by Richard Li (李澤楷), the tycoon’s younger son — signed an agreement on Tuesday to sell Pacific Century Place for US$928 million. The deal is nearly 30 percent lower than the asking price reported last year for the well-located Beijing property. The deal is the fourth Chinese property disposal by Li’s family since August, it said, adding that the sales have fetched a total of nearly 18 billion yuan (US$2.9 billion).
BANKING
JPMorgan CEO takes pay cut
JPMorgan Chase & Co chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon’s total compensation fell 37 percent last year to US$11.8 million as the largest US investment bank grappled with billions in legal costs and fines. According to regulatory documents filed on Wednesday, Dimon’s total compensation fell from US$18.7 million in 2012. Last year, JPMorgan was hit legal costs and fines stemming from the housing crisis and its US$6 billion “London Whale” trading loss.
Nissan Motor Co has agreed to sell its global headquarters in Yokohama for ￥97 billion (US$630 million) to a group sponsored by Taiwanese autoparts maker Minth Group (敏實集團), as the struggling automaker seeks to shore up its financial position. The acquisition is led by a special purchase company managed by KJR Management Ltd, a Japanese real-estate unit of private equity giant KKR & Co, people familiar with the matter said. KJR said it would act as asset manager together with Mizuho Real Estate Management Co. Nissan is undergoing a broad cost-cutting campaign by eliminating jobs and shuttering plants as it grapples
PERSISTENT RUMORS: Nvidia’s CEO said the firm is not in talks to sell AI chips to China, but he would welcome a change in US policy barring the activity Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company is not in discussions to sell its Blackwell artificial intelligence (AI) chips to Chinese firms, waving off speculation it is trying to engineer a return to the world’s largest semiconductor market. Huang, who arrived in Taiwan yesterday ahead of meetings with longtime partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), took the opportunity to clarify recent comments about the US-China AI race. The Nvidia head caused a stir in an interview this week with the Financial Times, in which he was quoted as saying “China will win” the AI race. Huang yesterday said
TEMPORARY TRUCE: China has made concessions to ease rare earth trade controls, among others, while Washington holds fire on a 100% tariff on all Chinese goods China is effectively suspending implementation of additional export controls on rare earth metals and terminating investigations targeting US companies in the semiconductor supply chain, the White House announced. The White House on Saturday issued a fact sheet outlining some details of the trade pact agreed to earlier in the week by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that aimed to ease tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Under the deal, China is to issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of US end users and their suppliers
Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV’s China unit yesterday said that it had established sufficient inventories of finished goods and works-in-progress, and that its supply chain remained secure and stable after its parent halted wafer supplies. The Dutch company suspended supplies of wafers to its Chinese assembly plant a week ago, calling it “a direct consequence of the local management’s recent failure to comply with the agreed contractual payment terms,” Reuters reported on Friday last week. Its China unit called Nexperia’s suspension “unilateral” and “extremely irresponsible,” adding that the Dutch parent’s claim about contractual payment was “misleading and highly deceptive,” according to a statement
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