BANKING
Banamex to forfeit US$97m
Banamex, the Mexican affiliate of US giant Citigroup, is to forfeit US$97.4 million after admitting to having a weak anti-money laundering program, the US Department of Justice announced on Monday. The penalty resolves a criminal probe at Banamex USA after investigators found that from 2007 through 2012, Banamex conducted fewer than 10 investigations on more than 18,000 alerts involving more than US$142 million in potentially suspicious transactions totaling more than US$142 million, the department said. The department signed a non-prosecution agreement with Banamex USA after it agreed to invest in remediation and cooperated with the criminal probe, the agency said. The penalty is on top of US$140 million in civil fines Banamex paid to US and California agencies over a separate bank secrecy act probe. In October, Citigroup announced it was renaming its Mexican unit Citibanamex and pumping US$1 billion into the business. In February 2014, Citigroup announced a one-time charge of US$235 million after uncovering fraud involving a client that borrowed US$583 million from a Banamex unit.
MANUFACTURING
Arconic board to expand
Elliott Management is to add three members to the board at Arconic Inc, with one to have a say in naming the firm’s next CEO. Elliott owns more than 13 percent in Arconic and has pushed for management changes, complaining of underperformance at the New York-based maker of aluminum parts for the aviation and automotive industries. Arconic was created after Alcoa Inc was split in two last year. As part of the agreement announced on Monday, one of Elliott’s board members will also be added to the CEO search committee. Elliott’s replacement choice — former Spirit AeroSystems CEO Larry Lawson — will be considered. Former CEO Klaus Kleinfeld resigned abruptly last month after he sent a letter containing veiled threats to Elliott founder Paul Singer. Arconic also said on Monday that three of its own nominees will be added to the board.
MORTGAGES
Paragon profit falls
British buy-to-let mortgage lender Paragon Group of Companies PLC reported a marginal fall in first-half profit, but said its buy-to-let pipeline had more than doubled, pointing to full-year lending volumes topping its expectations. Paragon, which has been diversifying its business from its core market, made a pretax profit of ￡69.4 million (US$90.1 million) in the six months to the end of March, down from ￡69.5 million the year before. The company is paying an interim dividend of ￡0.47 per share, up 9.3 percent.
STOCK MARKETS
Exchange nears deal
Singapore Exchange Ltd is nearing a deal with the city-state’s technology regulator to develop a system designed to encourage local start-ups to list on the bourse, people familiar with the matter said. According to the agreement, the bourse operator would help pair technology companies with investors with the aim of securing their listing in the city-state, the people said. SGX and Infocomm firm Media Development Authority are close to finalizing the accord, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. SGX’s tie-up with the regulator will deepen the exchange’s so-called sector approach, with four industries, including technology, the focus of its listings strategy.
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday said it would work with US chipmaker Intel Corp to jointly develop and deploy next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and intelligent computing platforms in a move to capture booming demand for AI computing systems. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康), said in a statement that the partnership would combine its global manufacturing scale, system integration expertise and AI data center deployment capabilities with Intel’s strengths in processor architecture, silicon technologies and software ecosystem. The companies said they plan to work on equipment used in AI data centers, including server racks powered by
Artificial intelligence (AI) agents would supplant smartphones as the center of people’s digital lives, fundamentally reshaping personal devices and driving a major computing upgrade cycle, Qualcomm Inc CEO Cristiano Amon said yesterday. In his keynote speech for this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei, Amon said that the rise of "agentic AI" — AI systems capable of reasoning, planning and carrying out tasks autonomously — would transform how people interact with technology across phones, PCs, vehicles and wearable devices. Describing the technology as the next major evolution in computing, Amon said that "2026 is the year of agents.” For decades, smartphones have sat
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