RETAIL
Tesco reports sales growth
Tesco, Britain’s biggest retailer, yesterday reported a second successive quarter of UK underlying sales growth, the first time it has done so in more than five years. Tesco said sales at stores in its home market that have been open for more than a year rose 0.3 percent in the 13 weeks to May 28, its fiscal first quarter. That compared with analysts’ forecasts of flat to up 0.5 percent and built on growth of 0.9 percent in the previous quarter — its first quarter of UK underlying sales growth for more than three years.
BANKING
Former banker pleads guilty
A former Credit Suisse AG banker on Wednesday pleaded guilty in US District Court in Virginia to charges of helping US taxpayers evade income taxes, the US Department of Justice said. Michele Bergantino, 48, a citizen of Italy and resident of Switzerland, admitted that from 2002 to 2009, while working for Credit Suisse in Switzerland, he participated in a wide-ranging conspiracy to aid US taxpayers in concealing assets and income in secret Swiss bank accounts, the department said.
SHIPPING
S Korean firm seeks alliance
Hyundai Merchant Marine Co, South Korea’s second-biggest container liner, is seeking to join the world’s largest shipping alliance. The company has started talks to join a grouping known as 2M, which is led by AP Moeller-Maersk A/S and Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC), it said yesterday. Joining the alliance will help Hyundai Merchant reduce costs and improve its competitiveness, the Seoul-based company said in the statement. It will also enable Maersk and MSC to bolster their services on trans-Pacific routes, the company said.
BANKING
UBS legal fight ends
UBS Group AG has ended a legal fight with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), agreeing to hand over records on a US client’s account in Singapore as US authorities seek to move beyond Switzerland in their fight against offshore tax evasion. The IRS on Feb. 23 asked a federal judge in Miami to force UBS to produce documents on Hsiaw Ching-ye, who lives in China. UBS last month reached an agreement with the IRS and has handed over all the records sought by the US, according to a court filing.
FASHION
Mayhoola eyes fashion label
Qatari private investment company Mayhoola investment fund, owner of the Valentino brand, confirmed that it is set to acquire French luxury fashion label Balmain, the company said in a statement on Wednesday. Mayhoola gave no financial details, but sources on Tuesday said that Mayhoola would pay more than 460 million euros (US$523 million). The deal marks the end of months of negotiations between the Qataris and Balmain investors.
SINGAPORE
Inflation rate declines
Consumer prices fell more than forecast last month, extending a record slump that was triggered by falling oil and house prices. The inflation rate declined 1.6 percent from a year ago after dropping 0.5 percent in April, Statistics Singapore said yesterday. The headline inflation rate is forecast to remain negative for the rest of the year, it said. The bank’s core inflation measure, which strips out accommodation and transport costs, rose 1 percent last month.
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
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
CRESTING WAVE: Companies are still buying in, but the shivers in the market could be the first signs that the AI wave has peaked and the collapse is upon the world Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported a new monthly record of NT$367.47 billion (US$11.85 billion) in consolidated sales for last month thanks to global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Last month’s figure represented 16.9 percent annual growth, the slowest pace since February last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 11 percent. Cumulative sales in the first 10 months of the year grew 33.8 percent year-on-year to NT$3.13 trillion, a record for the same period in the company’s history. However, the slowing growth in monthly sales last month highlights uncertainty over the sustainability of the AI boom even as
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