INSURANCE
Dai-ichi eyes Protective Life
Dai-ichi Life Insurance yesterday said it would buy US-based Protective Life for US$5.7 billion in a record deal. Japan’s No. 2 insurer said it would pay US$70 per share for the US firm and issue up to ￥250 billion (US$2.4 billion) in new stock to help finance the deal. Dai-ichi said the purchase of Protective Life, a mid-sized firm based in Alabama, was aimed at broadening its overseas business beyond Asia. The buyout is expected to be completed later this year or early next year.
PROPERTY
Frasers bids for Australand
Singapore-based real-estate giant Frasers Centrepoint yesterday made a surprise A$2.59 billion (US2.4 billion) cash offer for Australia’s Australand, as a bidding war broke out. Frasers offered A$4.48 per share for the property developer and office landlord, trumping a share swap bid by Australian rival Stockland last week. Australand, the owner of A$2.4 billion in residential and commercial developments, granted Frasers four weeks to exclusively complete due diligence.
RETAIL
Longchamp opens in Paris
The French designer firm Longchamp is opening its biggest European store on Paris’ high-end shopping street, the Champs-Elysees, the firm said on Tuesday. The brand, which makes women’s handbags, shoes and travel bags, reported sales of 462 million euros (US$630 million) last year, a figure it hopes would top 500 million euros this year thanks to the new flagship store and successes in the Asian market. Chief executive Jean Cassegrain said he hoped the new 500m2 store would attract not only Parisians, but also tourists, especially Asian shoppers.
AUTOMAKERS
GM backs Barra in lawsuit
General Motors Co (GM) officials increasingly believe that chief executive Mary Barra will be cleared of wrongdoing in the recall crisis after a three-month internal investigation, the New York Times reported. GM hired two law firms in March to look into its recall of millions of cars following 13 deaths related to faulty ignition switches. The internal probe, led by Jenner & Block chairman Anton “Tony” Valukas, is expected to name executives, employees and departments within GM responsible for the delayed recall, and recommend broad corporate and personnel changes at the company.
MINING
Iluka plans mine with Vale
Australia’s Iluka Resources yesterday said it had signed agreements with iron ore major Vale to evaluate and potentially develop a large titanium deposit in Brazil. The first phase of the study of the deposit in Minas Gerais state would include geological and technical evaluations, a market assessment and a pilot design for a plant, the Australian firm said. Subsequent phases — including constructing a pilot plant and eventually a commercial scale plant — are dependent on these results.
RETAIL
Tesco Q1 sales decline
Supermarket group Tesco, Britain’s biggest retailer, yesterday reported sliding first-quarter sales, hit by intense competition from foreign-owned outlets and restructuring costs. Total sales, including gasoline, slid 3.7 percent in the three months to May 24, compared with a year earlier, Tesco said in a trading update, hit by a 2 percent drop in Britain. On a like-for-like basis, which strips out the impact of new stores, British sales excluding gasoline sank 3.7 percent.
COMPETITION: AMD, Intel and Qualcomm are unveiling new laptop and desktop parts in Las Vegas, arguing their technologies provide the best performance for AI workloads Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD), the second-biggest maker of computer processors, said its chips are to be used by Dell Technologies Inc for the first time in PCs sold to businesses. The chipmaker unveiled new processors it says would make AMD-based PCs the best at running artificial intelligence (AI) software. Dell has decided to use the chips in some of its computers aimed at business customers, AMD executives said at CES in Las Vegas on Monday. Dell’s embrace of AMD for corporate PCs — it already uses the chipmaker for consumer devices — is another blow for Intel Corp as the company
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday said it is teaming up with Nvidia Corp to develop a new chip for artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputers that uses architecture licensed from Arm Holdings PLC. The new product is targeting AI researchers, data scientists and students rather than the mass PC market, the company said. The announcement comes as MediaTek makes efforts to add AI capabilities to its Dimensity chips for smartphones and tablets, Genio family for the Internet of Things devices, Pentonic series of smart TVs, Kompanio line of Arm-based Chromebooks, along with the Dimensity auto platform for vehicles. MeidaTek, the world’s largest chip designer for smartphones
BRAVE NEW WORLD: Nvidia believes that AI would fuel a new industrial revolution and would ‘do whatever we can’ to guide US AI policy, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Tuesday said he is ready to meet US president-elect Donald Trump and offer his help to the incoming administration. “I’d be delighted to go see him and congratulate him, and do whatever we can to make this administration succeed,” Huang said in an interview with Bloomberg Television, adding that he has not been invited to visit Trump’s home base at Mar-a-Lago in Florida yet. As head of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, Huang has an opportunity to help steer the administration’s artificial intelligence (AI) policy at a moment of rapid change.
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