STEEL
Tata Steel deal finalized
Tata Steel Ltd yesterday said that it had completed the sale of its European piping business to British-based investment firm Greybull Capital as it sells off its loss-making UK assets. Tata, which is struggling to find a buyer for its major steelworks in South Wales, announced that a deal which had been agreed in principle in April for its “long products” has been finalized. The deal sees Greybull acquire Tata’s steelworks in Scunthorpe, as well as two mills in northeast England and other assets where steel pipes and tubes are made.
INDIA
Economy grew 7.6 percent
The government on Tuesday said the economy grew 7.6 percent in the fiscal year that ended on March 31 and a stronger 7.9 percent in the last quarter of the year, keeping its position as the world’s fastest-growing major economy. The economy grew 7.2 percent in the previous fiscal year.
SWITZERLAND
Economy slumped in Q1
The economy unexpectedly lost pace at the start of the year, as government consumption contracted. GDP increased just 0.1 percent in the first quarter from the previous three months, when it expanded 0.4 percent, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs in Bern said yesterday. Private consumption grew 0.7 percent compared with the fourth quarter, the data showed. Government expenditure decreased by 0.8 percent and exports of goods rose by 2.1 percent.
CANADA
Q1 growth reached 2.4%
The economy grew at an annualized rate of 2.4 percent in the first quarter, bolstered by a rebound in exports and domestic consumption, the government statistical agency said on Tuesday. The GDP from January to March was lower than forecast, after the Bank of Canada last week said that wildfires in Alberta would shave as much as 1.25 percentage points off growth in the second quarter.
CHINA
New home prices up 1.7%
New home prices grew at their fastest pace in more than two years last month, a survey by the China Index Academy (CIA), the research unit of real estate Web site operator SouFun Holdings Ltd (搜房). It found that new apartment prices in 100 major cities rose 1.7 percent since April and were up 10.34 percent year on year — their fastest growth in 27 months. Soufun said the average price was 11,662 yuan (US$1,770) per square meter.
SHIPBUILDING
Hyundai Heavy wins backing
South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries has received the green light for a near US$3 billion restructuring program — including asset sales and job cuts — to keep the world’s largest shipbuilder afloat. A spokesman for KEB Hana Bank, one of the company’s chief creditors, yesterday confirmed that it had approved the 3.5 trillion won (US$2.94 billion) plan, to be implemented over the next three years. Hyundai Heavy, along with Daewoo Marine and Shipbuilding, and Samsung Heavy Industries, racked up a collective loss of 8.5 trillion won last year.
CASINOS
Ex-CEO reaches settlement
Billionaire Sheldon Adelson’s casino firm is ending its long-running US lawsuit with the former head of its Chinese division. Macau-based Sands China Ltd yesterday said in a statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that it had “reached a comprehensive and confidential settlement” with ex-CEO Steven Jacobs.
PERSISTENT RUMORS: Nvidia’s CEO said the firm is not in talks to sell AI chips to China, but he would welcome a change in US policy barring the activity Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company is not in discussions to sell its Blackwell artificial intelligence (AI) chips to Chinese firms, waving off speculation it is trying to engineer a return to the world’s largest semiconductor market. Huang, who arrived in Taiwan yesterday ahead of meetings with longtime partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), took the opportunity to clarify recent comments about the US-China AI race. The Nvidia head caused a stir in an interview this week with the Financial Times, in which he was quoted as saying “China will win” the AI race. Huang yesterday said
Japanese technology giant Softbank Group Corp said Tuesday it has sold its stake in Nvidia Corp, raising US$5.8 billion to pour into other investments. It also reported its profit nearly tripled in the first half of this fiscal year from a year earlier. Tokyo-based Softbank said it sold the stake in Silicon Vally-based Nvidia last month, a move that reflects its shift in focus to OpenAI, owner of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT. Softbank reported its profit in the April-to-September period soared to about 2.5 trillion yen (about US$13 billion). Its sales for the six month period rose 7.7 percent year-on-year
Nissan Motor Co has agreed to sell its global headquarters in Yokohama for ￥97 billion (US$630 million) to a group sponsored by Taiwanese autoparts maker Minth Group (敏實集團), as the struggling automaker seeks to shore up its financial position. The acquisition is led by a special purchase company managed by KJR Management Ltd, a Japanese real-estate unit of private equity giant KKR & Co, people familiar with the matter said. KJR said it would act as asset manager together with Mizuho Real Estate Management Co. Nissan is undergoing a broad cost-cutting campaign by eliminating jobs and shuttering plants as it grapples
MORE WEIGHT: The national weighting was raised in one index while holding steady in two others, while several companies rose or fell in prominence MSCI Inc, a global index provider, has raised Taiwan’s weighting in one of its major indices and left the country’s weighting unchanged in two other indices after a regular index review. In a statement released on Thursday, MSCI said it has upgraded Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country World Index by 0.02 percentage points to 2.25 percent, while maintaining the weighting in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, the most closely watched by foreign institutional investors, at 20.46 percent. Additionally, the index provider has left Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country Asia ex-Japan Index unchanged at 23.15 percent. The latest index adjustments are to
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