UNITED STATES
Cuomo to lead Cuba mission
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo will lead one of the first trade missions to Cuba from the US since the Obama administration loosened travel and trade restrictions on the Communist-ruled Caribbean island, his office confirmed on Saturday. The Democratic governor will be promoting an initiative which seeks to attract foreign investment to New York State, spokeswoman Melissa DeRosa said. Cuomo will be among the first high-profile US politicians to visit Cuba since last month’s policy shift. Details of the trip will be released “at the appropriate time,” his office said. Separately, the US and Cuba are holding high-level talks in Havana next week on normalizing ties.
ENTERTAINMENT
Disney bumps CEO’s pay
Walt Disney Co’s board handed chairman and CEO Bob Iger a 35 percent pay increase for delivering a record profit and stock price last year. Iger, who runs the world’s largest entertainment company, was already one of the US’ highest-paid executives. His compensation rose 35 percent to US$46.5 million last year, according to a filing on Friday. Disney stock has more than quadrupled in Iger’s nine years as CEO, and the board has twice extended his tenure. Iger, 63, received US$2.5 million in salary, unchanged from the previous year, according to the filing. He received a US$22.8 million bonus and US$17.3 million in stock, plus other items worth US$3.9 million. His pay dropped 15 percent in fiscal 2013 after the company failed to beat internal targets by as much as in the prior year.
MADAGASCAR
IMF urges economic reform
Madagascar’s economy showed early signs of recovery last year with growth estimated at 3 percent, which could rise to 5 percent this year, but political instability, weak institutions and weak governance are hurting prospects, the IMF said. The Indian Ocean island’s economy was battered after a 2009 coup that drove away donors and investors. A peaceful 2013 election has brought back some aid, but the nation is still struggling to impose stable government and economic reforms. However, the IMF said weak tax revenue meant spending on vital areas such as health and education was constrained, adding that funding fuel subsidies and the under-funded civil service pension fund were also imposing budgetary pressures. The IMF called for “an acceleration of economic and structural reforms to unleash Madagascar’s significant potential,” a demand that will be difficult to meet as long as politicians are haggling over who will be in the next cabinet.
PETROLEUM
SABIC net income plummets
Falling global oil prices dragged down the net income of Saudi petrochemical giant Saudi Basic Industries Corp (SABIC) by 29 percent in the fourth quarter, the company said yesterday. SABIC, the largest publicly traded firm in the Persian Gulf, reported net profit of 4.36 billion riyals (US$1.16 billion) for the three-month period ended last month. That compared with 6.16 billion riyals in the same quarter a year earlier. “The decrease in net income is mainly attributable to lower average sales prices, partially offset by lower costs for certain feedstocks [raw materials],” SABIC said in a statement. The result was lower than the mean estimate of 5.39 billion riyals forecast by seven analysts, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Full year net profit was 23.43 billion riyals, a drop of seven percent from the 25.28 billion reported the previous year.
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
VERTICAL INTEGRATION: The US fabless company’s acquisition of the data center manufacturer would not affect market competition, the Fair Trade Commission said The Fair Trade Commission has approved Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s (AMD) bid to fully acquire ZT International Group Inc for US$4.9 billion, saying it would not hamper market competition. As AMD is a fabless company that designs central processing units (CPUs) used in consumer electronics and servers, while ZT is a data center manufacturer, the vertical integration would not affect market competition, the commission said in a statement yesterday. ZT counts hyperscalers such as Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc and Google among its major clients and plays a minor role in deciding the specifications of data centers, given the strong bargaining power of
INDUSTRY LEADER: INDUSTRY LEADER: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
RSS