FOOD AND DRINK
Devro eyes efficiency, sales
British sausage-skin maker Devro PLC yesterday announced an investment program aimed at increasing sales and manufacturing efficiency after reporting a fall in last year’s sales volumes. The maker of edible collagen casings for bratwurst, salami and chorizo said it would invest ￡7 million to ￡8 million (US$8.59 million to US$9.81 million) and expected exceptional costs of the program to be ￡10 million to ￡12 million. It expects annual benefits from the program of ￡13 to ￡16 million by 2019, Devro said. Devro reported a 14 percent rise in last year’s underlying operating profit to ￡38.1 million, helped by favorable currency movement and lower input costs. Revenue rose 4.7 percent to ￡241.1 million. However, Devro said full-year sales volumes fell 6.6 percent.
PLASTICS
Avantium upbeat on IPO
Avantium, a Dutch company that has developed technology for making plastic from sugars rather than petrochemicals, yesterday said that it hopes to raise at least 90 million euros in an initial public offering (IPO), giving it a market capitalization of 264 million euros (US$279.66 million). Avantium is selling 8.2 million shares at 11 euros per share, or a 34 percent stake post-IPO, it said in a statement, with an over-allotment possible depending on demand. It already has commitments in place from investors for two-thirds of the amount it seeks to raise. Listing is scheduled for Wednesday next week.
STOCKS
Deutsche Bank shares fall
Shares in Germany’s biggest lender Deutsche Bank fell as much as 6 percent as the Frankfurt market opened yesterday, hours after the bank announced it would raise cash by issuing new shares. Shares in the bank were down 5.4 percent to trade at 18.1 euros just before 8:15am, making Deutsche the worst performer on the DAX Index of leading German companies. Sapped by heavy losses, Deutsche on Sunday said it would deepen a long-running restructuring to focus on home market Germany and raise 8 billion euros in new capital.
COMMODITIES
Copper poised to drop
Copper is poised to drop this year as higher US interest rates and elections in Europe curb demand, according to the chairman of China’s second-largest refiner of the metal. Prices would end the year lower than where they started, Jiangxi Copper Co (江西銅業股份) chairman Li Baomin (李保民) said on Sunday in an interview in Beijing as the government announced growth plans for this year. Jiangxi Copper plans to increase production to the maximum capacity of 1.36 million tonnes, compared with about 1.2 million tonnes last year, he said. Copper would average 45,000 yuan to 46,000 yuan (US$6,528 to US$6,673) per tonne this year, Li said. Global demand still looks set to exceed production, with China’s consumption growth at 6 percent this year, Li said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Budget to target productivity
Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond is to use tomorrow’s budget to allocate more than ￡550 million from the National Productivity Fund to boost innovation and technology. The funds are to support work in areas including electric vehicles, robotics and artificial intelligence, the British Treasury said in a briefing note. Hammond is also to set out details on work to boost 5G mobile phone coverage in Britain.
AGENCIES
INTERGRATION: Jensen Huang said that every Nvidia department and function of the company should be using AI, after reportedly saying staff were ‘insane’ not to Nvidia Corp is in a “unique” position in the market, despite facing intensifying competition, chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said during a brief visit to Taiwan yesterday amid a potentially growing challenge from Google for the artificial intelligence (AI) chip market. Huang told reporters that the AI market is “extremely large” and that while there is a lot of competition, Nvidia’s “condition is very strong and our position is very unique.” Huang, who arrived in Taipei on Thursday, was responding to questions about the possible threat posed by Google. According to a report in The Information on Tuesday, Meta has been in
Charming US President Donald Trump one week, angering China the next, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has had a busy start and is riding high in the polls, all on a few hours of sleep a night. However, the honeymoon might end soon for the Margaret Thatcher-admiring leader if a spat with China escalates further and she fails to keep inflation in check. “I believe Prime Minister Takaichi will surely do what she needs to do, so I trust her,” Kozue Otsuka, 50, told reporters at a festival this week for business owners seeking good fortune. While buying a lucky kumade rake featuring
INSULATED: The company said it is less exposed to global complications, as it has built a strong footprint worldwide, and has multiple sources of rare earths and raw minerals Merck Group yesterday said it would ramp up production next year at its new flagship facility in Kaohsiung’s Lujhu District (路竹) to satisfy growing demand for advanced semiconductor materials and specialty gases, and to address supply resilience issues amid mounting geopolitical risks. Merck made the remarks during a news conference before the inauguration of its 500 million euros (US$582.1 million) facility, which is also to supply other markets in the Asia-Pacific region, it said. Merck executive board deputy chair and electronics CEO Kai Beckmann told reporters the company adopted a “local-for-local” strategy about seven years ago to address the cycle time of
TECH TITANS: Amazon’s latest chip joins Google in competing for the 90 percent market share held by Nvidia, which claims it is ‘a generation ahead of the industry’ Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Tuesday launched its in-house-built Trainium3 artificial intelligence (AI) chip, marking a significant push to compete with Nvidia Corp in the lucrative market for AI computing power. The move intensifies competition in the AI chip market, where Nvidia dominates with an estimated 80 to 90 percent market share for products used in training large language models that power the likes of ChatGPT. Google last week caused tremors in the industry when it was reported that Facebook-parent Meta Platforms Inc would employ Google AI chips in data centers, signaling new competition for Nvidia. This followed the release last month of
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