AUTOMOBILES
Hyundai bid plunges shares
Hyundai Motor and two listed affiliates did not seek board clearance for the size of their record US$10 billion bid for a plot of land in Seoul, more than triple its appraised value, four board members of the companies have told Reuters. Thursday’s winning bid for the land sent shares in Hyundai Motor, Kia Motors and Hyundai Mobis plunging, wiping out US$8 billion in shareholder value, and sparked howls of protest from investors, rekindling worries about corporate governance at South Korea’s conglomerates, or chaebol. While boards of the three firms discussed and approved bidding for the plot in the capital’s high-end Gangnam district to house a headquarters complex, hotel and automotive theme park, the bid price was not shared with directors as it was deemed to be confidential, three of the directors said.
AVIATION
Air France strike extended
Air France pilots have voted to extend for another week a strike over their airline’s push to develop a low-cost subsidiary they fear will undermine their jobs, their main union said on Saturday. The stoppage, which has already run for nearly a week, is already the longest suffered by Air France in 16 years. More than half of the company’s flights have been scrapped, disrupting the travel plans of tens of thousands of passengers. The airline says it is losing up to 15 million euros (US$19 million) per day. The industrial action is to protest Air France’s focus on its budget subsidiary, Transavia, launched to compete with no-frills airlines the likes of EasyJet.
TECHNOLOGY
New VR headset unveiled
Oculus has unveiled a new prototype of its virtual reality headset. Yet the VR company still is not ready to release a consumer edition. The new headset intended for creators of VR experiences is nicknamed Crescent Bay and features a higher resolution and refresh rate, integrated headphones and 360-degree head tracking. Oculus’ headset covers a user’s eyes and can create immersive worlds that react to head movement. The original prototype of the Oculus Rift headset was unveiled in 2012 and has received considerable attention from film and video game makers. Oculus released a second prototype headset to developers earlier this year. Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe said 100,000 development kits have been shipped to 130 countries. The Irvine, California-based Oculus VR Inc was acquired by Facebook earlier this year for US$2 billion. Iribe said Oculus’ staff has doubled in the six months since the acquisition.
TAXATION
US to tackle tax avoidance
US Secretary of the Treasury Jacob Lew said the department is finishing work to limit the benefits companies gain from moving their addresses overseas even if his action will not be enough to stop the practice known as inversion. Lew, speaking to reporters yesterday after a G20 finance ministers and central bankers meeting in Cairns, Australia, reiterated that while US President Barack Obama’s administration wants to revamp the broader US corporate tax code, “there is one loophole that should be shut down immediately — inversions.” The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and G20 economies are working on plans for a global exchange of information to stop tax-avoidance strategies used by companies. Multinational companies hold an estimated US$2 trillion in low-tax jurisdictions, OECD secretary- general Angel Gurria told reporters on Saturday.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) is expected to share his views about the artificial intelligence (AI) industry’s prospects during his speech at the company’s 37th anniversary ceremony, as AI servers have become a new growth engine for the equipment manufacturing service provider. Lam’s speech is much anticipated, as Quanta has risen as one of the world’s major AI server suppliers. The company reported a 30 percent year-on-year growth in consolidated revenue to NT$1.41 trillion (US$43.35 billion) last year, thanks to fast-growing demand for servers, especially those with AI capabilities. The company told investors in November last year that
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) forecast that its wafer shipments this quarter would grow up to 7 percent sequentially and the factory utilization rate would rise to 75 percent, indicating that customers did not alter their ordering behavior due to the US President Donald Trump’s capricious US tariff policies. However, the uncertainty about US tariffs has weighed on the chipmaker’s business visibility for the second half of this year, UMC chief financial officer Liu Chi-tung (劉啟東) said at an online earnings conference yesterday. “Although the escalating trade tensions and global tariff policies have increased uncertainty in the semiconductor industry, we have not
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