SEMICONDUCTORS
Siliconware ADRs up 24.13%
American depositary receipts (ADRs) of Taiwan-based integrated circuit packaging and testing services provider Siliconware Precision Industries Co (SPIL, 矽品精密) jumped 24.13 percent on Wall Street overnight in the wake of an acquisition plan proposed by rival Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE, 日月光半導體). ASE’s ADRs added 5.33 percent amid hopes that such a tie-up will further burnish the suitor’s global standing. ASE ranks as the world’s largest IC packaging and testing services provider and SPIL, the third-largest.
CHINA
US presses for reforms
US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew pressed the country to continue with economic and financial reforms on Friday in the wake of Beijing’s surprise devaluation of the yuan last week. Lew told Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang (汪洋) in a telephone conversation that it is critical the country continue with reforms that are necessary to move toward an economy driven primarily by household consumption rather than exports, which is in both countries’ best interests, according to a US Department of Treasury account of the call.
INTERNET
Google-Twitter deal extended
Google Inc and Twitter Inc on Friday announced their partnership placing tweets in online search results has been extended to desktop. Confirmation came in a tweeted exchange between the two US tech firms. “Hey @twitter, Search party at our place. Meet us on desktop?” Google said, to which Twitter replied: “You got it, @google. We’ll bring the Tweets.” The tie-up could help boost engagement at Twitter.
CASINOS
Ceasars, lenders reach deal
Caesars Entertainment Corp on Friday said that it had a deal with the most-senior lenders to its bankrupt unit, allowing the casino operator to focus on getting support from the last major group holding out on its restructuring plan. Caesars and its main operating subsidiary, the bankrupt Caesars Entertainment Operating Co, got lenders to agree to the reorganization plan to turn the operating unit into a real-estate investment trust from the two most-senior creditor groups, which own about US$12 billion in obligations.
GREECE
Hellas suspension slammed
The government is accusing a Canadian-run mining firm of holding the 2,000 workers in its northern Greek mines “hostage” in a dispute over alleged violations of concession terms. Vancouver-based Eldorado Gold’s Greek subsidiary, Hellas Gold, has said it will suspend most of its employees in the country for up to three months, after the government halted work at a mine in Halkidiki. It said it would have to fire workers if the permits are not reinstated.
SOFTWARE
Vision mulls selling unit
Vision Critical Communications Inc is weighing the sale of its consulting business ahead of a possible initial public offering by the Canadian marketing software firm, according to people familiar with the process. Selling the unit would make Vision Critical a pure-play cloud software company that might prove more attractive to investors if it went public, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter is private.
Napoleon Osorio is proud of being the first taxi driver to have accepted payment in bitcoin in the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency legal tender: El Salvador. He credits Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s decision to bank on bitcoin three years ago with changing his life. “Before I was unemployed... And now I have my own business,” said the 39-year-old businessman, who uses an app to charge for rides in bitcoin and now runs his own car rental company. Three years ago the leader of the Central American nation took a huge gamble when he put bitcoin
Demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips should spur growth for the semiconductor industry over the next few years, the CEO of a major supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said, dismissing concerns that investors had misjudged the pace and extent of spending on AI. While the global chip market has grown about 8 percent annually over the past 20 years, AI semiconductors should grow at a much higher rate going forward, Scientech Corp (辛耘) chief executive officer Hsu Ming-chi (許明琪) told Bloomberg Television. “This booming of the AI industry has just begun,” Hsu said. “For the most prominent
Former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) yesterday warned against the tendency to label stakeholders as either “pro-China” or “pro-US,” calling such rigid thinking a “trap” that could impede policy discussions. Liu, an adviser to the Cabinet’s Economic Development Committee, made the comments in his keynote speech at the committee’s first advisers’ meeting. Speaking in front of Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), National Development Council (NDC) Minister Paul Liu (劉鏡清) and other officials, Liu urged the public to be wary of falling into the “trap” of categorizing people involved in discussions into either the “pro-China” or “pro-US” camp. Liu,
Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) yesterday said Taiwan’s government plans to set up a business service company in Kyushu, Japan, to help Taiwanese companies operating there. “The company will follow the one-stop service model similar to the science parks we have in Taiwan,” Kuo said. “As each prefecture is providing different conditions, we will establish a new company providing services and helping Taiwanese companies swiftly settle in Japan.” Kuo did not specify the exact location of the planned company but said it would not be in Kumamoto, the Kyushu prefecture in which Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC, 台積電) has a
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