ELECTRONICS
Apple to build data centers
Apple Inc plans to invest 1.7 billion euros (US$1.9 billion) in new data centers in Ireland and Denmark to help run services such as iTunes and maps for users of its devices. The centers, located in County Galway, Ireland, and Denmark’s central Jutland, will be powered by renewable energy, Cupertino, California-based Apple said in a statement yesterday. The investment represents Apple’s biggest-ever project in Europe, with the facilities set to begin operations in 2017. Apple joins rivals including Google Inc and Facebook Inc in building data centers in northern Europe, whose chilly climate helps save on equipment cooling costs.
JAPAN
Rengo seeks raises
The country’s peak body for labor unions said it will seek the biggest increase in monthly wages in more than two decades as it makes inflation the key point in annual spring pay negotiations. The Japanese Trade Union Confederation, known as Rengo, will call for a bump of more than 4 percent in monthly pay, excluding overtime and bonuses, said the group’s president, Nobuaki Koga. More than 2 percent of this figure will be for base pay, with the remainder linked to seniority or time served at a company, Koga said. “We know our request is ambitious, but Japanese society will be thrown into chaos unless people’s incomes rise by that much,” he said in an interview on Feb. 20 in Tokyo. Salaries adjusted for inflation have dropped for 18 straight months as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda pump record stimulus to reflate the economy and spur price gains.
PETROLEUM
Oil slips to US$60
Oil traded near US$60 a barrel in London after the first weekly decline in a month as Libya restarted a crude pipeline after a fire and Oman said it will increase production by as much as possible. Futures swung between gains and losses after a 2.1 percent drop last week. Oil fields in eastern Libya resumed pumping to Hariga port after a pipeline was repaired, according to state-run National Oil Corp. Oman, the biggest Middle East producer outside of OPEC, plans to raise output to 980,000 barrels a day this year, a government official said. Rising supply is contributing to a global surplus that drove crude into a bear market last year. OPEC, whose 12 members ship about 40 percent of the world’s oil, has signaled that it is prepared to let prices fall to a level that would force record US output to slow.
FURNITURE
DFS returns to London listing
DFS Furniture Ltd will be valued at as much as about ￡654 million (US$1 billion) when the British sofa retailer returns to the London stock market for the first time in more than a decade. The company, owned by private-equity firm, Advent International Corp, will offer shares at a price of ￡0.245 to ￡0.310 apiece, it said in a statement yesterday. At the mid- point of the range, DFS will be valued at ￡585 million, according to the statement. DFS is the latest retailer seeking to sell shares in the UK, on the heels of a year when companies raised about US$6 billion from London IPOs, the most in over a decade, data compiled by Bloomberg show. DFS’ IPO will raise about ￡98 million for the company, which will be used to reduce debt and provide access to cheaper financing.
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
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,
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
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
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