BANKING
US probes Citigroup
Citigroup Inc said US regulators, including the US Securities and Exchange Commission, are investigating the bank’s hiring of employees with ties to foreign government officials. The lender is cooperating with the probes, New York-based Citigroup said on Friday in an annual regulatory filing. The requests involve the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which makes it a crime to pay or give other benefits to a foreign government official. In November last year, JPMorgan Chase & Co agreed to pay about US$264 million to settle US allegations that it hired children of Chinese decisionmakers to win business in violation of anti-bribery laws.
ENERGY
Shell partners with YPF
Royal Dutch Shell PLC has confirmed it will invest US$300 million to develop a shale oil and gas reserve in southern Argentina, executives said on Friday. Argentine oil company YPF said in a statement it would partner with Shell to exploit the huge Vaca Muerta reserve. Exploration of the field has yielded “excellent results,” it quoted Shell Argentina boss Teofilo Lacroze as saying. US and French firms are among the other international companies working on exploiting the 30,000km2 reserve.
TECHNOLOGY
MDA to acquire DigitalGlobe
Canadian satellite technology firm MacDonald Dettwiler & Associates Ltd (MDA) on Friday agreed to acquire DigitalGlobe Inc in a cash and stock deal worth C$3.1 billion (US$2.4 billion), doubling the company’s size and giving itself new access to lucrative US government customers. DigitalGlobe shareholders are to receive US$17.5 in cash and 0.3132 MDA shares representing a premium of about 18 percent of the company’s closing share price on Feb. 16. MDA is also to assume about C$1.6 billion of Westminster, Colorado-based DigitalGlobe’s debt.
RETAIL
JC Penney to shutter stores
JC Penney Co on Friday said it will close 130 to 140 stores, as well as two distribution centers over the next several months as it tries to improve profitability. The company said that it would also initiate a voluntary early retirement program for about 6,000 employees. The news came as JC Penney reported net income of US$192 million, or US$0.61 per share, for the fourth quarter last year, compared with a loss a year earlier. However, sales totaled US$3.96 billion in the period, down 0.9 percent from a year earlier.
UNITED KINGDOM
Home prices skyrocket
The affordability of a home in the nation’s cities is the worst in almost a decade, with the average house price about seven times annual earnings, according to Lloyds Bank. Oxford is England’s least affordable city, with property values almost 11 times wages, and Stirling, Scotland coming in first with prices 3.7 times income. While the average cost of a home in a British city rose 32 percent in the past four years to ￡224,926 (US$280,258), annual earnings have only increased 7 percent. Greater London was the second-least affordable city, even as home costs in the capital posted their largest annual drop in almost six years this month, according to Rightmove PLC.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in server chips, expects revenue to decline this year due to sagging demand for 5-nanometer artificial intelligence (AI) chips from a North America-based major customer, a company executive said yesterday. That would be the first contraction in revenue for Alchip as it has been enjoying strong revenue growth over the past few years, benefiting from cloud-service providers’ moves to reduce dependence on Nvidia Corp’s expensive AI chips by building their own AI accelerator by outsourcing chip design. The 5-nanometer chip was supposed to be a new growth engine as the lifecycle
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