BANKING
Standard Chartered fined
New York State’s banking regulator hit Standard Chartered Bank with a US$300 million fine and restrictions on its dollar-clearing business on Tuesday for not detecting possible money laundering. The New York Department of Financial Services said the British bank’s internal compliance systems had failed to detect or act on a large number of “potentially high-risk transactions” mostly originating from Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates. The new punishment came two years after the bank paid US regulators US$667 million to settle charges it violated US sanctions by handling thousands of money transactions involving Iran, Myanmar, Libya and Sudan.
MACROECONOMICS
Japan’s trade deficit rises
Japan’s trade deficit rose last month from June to a wider than expected ￥964 billion (US$9.4 billion), though exports were higher for the first time in three months. It was the 25th straight month of deficits for the world’s third-largest economy, due mainly to an increase in imports of oil and gas to compensate for idled nuclear reactors following the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear disaster in 2011. Exports rose 3.9 percent from a year earlier to ￥6.19 trillion, slightly outpacing a 2.3 percent increase in imports, to ￥7.15 trillion. Japan recorded an ￥822 billion deficit in June. Japan’s demand for imports has moderated in recent months as business activity slowed following an increase in the national sales tax.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Allergan eyes Salix
Botox maker Allergan has approached Salix Pharmaceuticals about a potential takeover that could scuttle Valeant Pharmaceuticals’ hostile bid for Allergan, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. Allergan contacted Salix and at least one other pharmaceutical company about a potential deal, the report said, citing unnamed sources. Valeant first bid for Allergan in April, offering US$45.6 billion before raising its bid twice. Allergan has rejected all three bids. Valeant last week extended its latest offer of US$53.5 billion until the end of this year.
SOUTH AFRICA
Banks’ rating downgraded
Moody’s downgraded the credit rating of four top South African banks on Tuesday after the government bailed out a troubled lender, in a move that sent ripples across Africa’s most developed economy. The ratings agency downgraded financial giants Standard Bank, First National Bank, Nedbank and Barclays Africa Group by one notch to “Baa1,” raising more questions about the health of the vital sector. The Reserve Bank earlier this month bought up roughly US$700 million of bad loans from faltering African Bank. Moody’s said the terms of African Bank’s recent rescue showed that investors in other larger banks were less likely to be fully bailed out if they hit trouble.
BREWING INDUSTRY
Heineken’s profits dip
Heineken NV, the Amsterdam-based brewer, has reported first-half earnings showing a small drop in both revenues and profits — but says its underlying performance was good. Net profit was 631 million euros (US$840 million), from 639 million euros in the same period a year ago. Sales were down 1.4 percent to 1.2 billion euros, which Heineken, the largest brewer by sales within Europe, said was due to the strong euro. The company said its operations grew on a like-for-like basis in almost all regions in the first half but warned that growth in underlying profit and revenues would moderate in the second half.
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
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.
TARIFF SURGE: The strong performance could be attributed to the growing artificial intelligence device market and mass orders ahead of potential US tariffs, analysts said The combined revenue of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange for the whole of last year totaled NT$44.66 trillion (US$1.35 trillion), up 12.8 percent year-on-year and hit a record high, data compiled by investment consulting firm CMoney showed on Saturday. The result came after listed firms reported a 23.92 percent annual increase in combined revenue for last month at NT$4.1 trillion, the second-highest for the month of December on record, and posted a 15.63 percent rise in combined revenue for the December quarter at NT$12.25 billion, the highest quarterly figure ever, the data showed. Analysts attributed the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) quarterly sales topped estimates, reinforcing investor hopes that the torrid pace of artificial intelligence (AI) hardware spending would extend into this year. The go-to chipmaker for Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc reported a 39 percent rise in December-quarter revenue to NT$868.5 billion (US$26.35 billion), based on calculations from monthly disclosures. That compared with an average estimate of NT$854.7 billion. The strong showing from Taiwan’s largest company bolsters expectations that big tech companies from Alphabet Inc to Microsoft Corp would continue to build and upgrade datacenters at a rapid clip to propel AI development. Growth accelerated for
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