PRODUCE
Dole Food seeks US$400m
Fruit and vegetable producer Dole Food Co is seeking to raise about US$400 million in its third initial public offering, a person familiar with the matter said. Dole’s 94-year-old chairman and 100 percent owner, David Murdock, is bringing the company to market for the third time in its 166-year history. The company raised US$446.4 million the last time it went public in 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Corp and Deutsche Bank AG are leading the offering, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission last month.
RESTAURANT
Chuck E. Cheese talks sale
The owner of Chuck E. Cheese is in talks with investment firm Ares Management LP over a sale that could value the children’s pizza and arcade chain at about US$2 billion, people with knowledge of the matter said. Ares is negotiating with owner Apollo Global Management LLC over the precise valuation, the people said, adding that Bain Capital, Hellman & Friedman and Warburg Pincus dropped out of the bidding process over pricing. Apollo hired Deutsche Bank AG and Credit Suisse Group AG to run an auction process for the company, with the US$2 billion valuation equating to about nine times its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, they said.
FINANCE
Brexit may stall London
Development of London’s financial center will “stall” owing to Brexit, but is unlikely to “totally reverse,” Goldman Sachs chief executive officer Lloyd Blankfein said in an interview on Friday. “It will stall, it might backtrack a bit, it just depends on a lot of things about which we are uncertain, and I know there isn’t certainty at the moment,” he told the BBC. “I don’t think it will totally reverse.” The British government is to soon start negotiations to set the terms of its EU departure.
BANKING
India appoints new CEOs
India appointed new chief executive officers at seven state-controlled lenders, including Punjab National Bank and Bank of India. Sunil Mehta has been appointed managing director and chief executive officer of New Delhi-based Punjab National Bank, and Dinabandhu Mohapatra is to assume charge as managing director and chief executive officer of Bank of India, a statement dated on Friday said. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government announced the appointments on the same day it empowered the Reserve Bank of India to clean up as much as US$180 billion of soured loans on their balance sheets, which have been choking credit and weighing on growth.
CANADA
Airport might be for sale
The government is considering the sale of at least a minority stake in Toronto Pearson International Airport that values the nation’s busiest airport at about C$5 billion (US$3.7 billion), people familiar with the matter said. The stake sale, just one of many options laid out in a report to government prepared by Credit Suisse Group AG, would free up billions of dollars for new infrastructure projects, the people said. Selling the airports would cut costs for travelers and create opportunities for more shops and services, C.D. Howe Institute estimates said.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
POWER BUILDUP: Powered by Nvidia’s B200 Blackwell chips, the data center would support MediaTek’s computing power demand and business growth, the company said Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday launched a new artificial intelligence (AI) data center with a maximum capacity of 45 megawatts to meet its rising demand for computing power required to develop new advanced chips for AI applications. The company has completed the first-phase computing power buildup at the data center in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), providing 15 megawatts of capacity to support its research and development (R&D) capabilities, despite an industrywide shortage of key components, MediaTek said. Supply constraints have plagued a wide range of key components, including memory chips, solid-state drives, power supply units and central
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
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