JAPAN
Prices see small increase
Japan’s consumer prices rose for the ninth straight month last month, but inflation remained well below the Bank of Japan’s 2 percent target, official data showed yesterday. Prices rose 0.7 percent from a year earlier after stripping out volatile prices for fresh food, buoyed by a rise in energy costs such as fuel, light and water charges, the Ministry of Internal Affairs said. However, excluding fresh food and energy, prices edged up just 0.2 percent compared to the same month the previous year.
CHINA
Industrial profits surge 28%
Chinese industrial profits jumped the most since 2011, underscoring resilience in the economy, as authorities intensify their efforts to cut excess capacity and reduce pollution. Industrial profits increased 27.7 percent last month from a year earlier to 662.2 billion yuan (US$99.54 billion), compared with a 24 percent pace a month earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday. From January to last month, total profits increased 22.8 percent year-on-year to 5.58 trillion yuan, the bureau said.
REAL ESTATE
Vietnam sees biggest IPO
Vincom Retail JSC’s existing investors raised 16.1 trillion dong (US$708 million) after pricing an initial public offering (IPO) of the Vietnamese mall operator at the top end of a marketed range. Existing shareholders, including Warburg Pincus and Credit Suisse Group AG, priced 396.5 million shares at 40,600 dong apiece, according to terms for the deal obtained by Bloomberg. The stockholders initially offered 380.2 million shares at 37,000 dong to 40,600 dong each, earlier terms for the sale show. The deal from the arm of Vietnam’s largest developer Vingroup JSC is the country’s biggest-ever first-time share sale, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
DIARY
Saputo buys Murray Goulburn
Canadian dairy giant Saputo Inc on Thursday said it had agreed to buy Australian rival Murray Goulburn Co-operative Co Ltd for C$1.3 billion (US$1.01 billion). Dairy processing cooperative Murray Goulburn has about 2,300 employees and operates 11 facilities in Australia and China. Saputo, one of the 10 largest dairy processors in the world and already active in Australia, said it would finance the acquisition through a new bank loan.
SPACE
Saudi backs Virgin Galactic
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund on Thursday announced a US$1 billion investment in British billionaire Richard Branson’s space tourism company, Virgin Galactic. Branson said the investment would enable the company to develop the next generation of satellite launches and accelerate its program for point-to-point supersonic space travel. He added that Virgin Galactic was “months away” from going into space with people on board and his other company, Virgin Orbit, placing satellites around the Earth.
LABOR
Tesla accused by union
The United Auto Workers union on Thursday said it had lodged a formal complaint against Tesla Inc, accusing it of firing and harassing employees involved in union activity. The move follows last month’s decision by the National Labor Relations Board to begin proceedings against Tesla for allegedly infringing on workers’ rights by requiring extremely broad confidentiality from employees, which could prevent complaints about working conditions and safety. Teslas denied the allegations.
DIVIDED VIEWS: Although the Fed agreed on holding rates steady, some officials see no rate cuts for this year, while 10 policymakers foresee two or more cuts There are a lot of unknowns about the outlook for the economy and interest rates, but US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signaled at least one thing seems certain: Higher prices are coming. Fed policymakers voted unanimously to hold interest rates steady at a range of 4.25 percent to 4.50 percent for a fourth straight meeting on Wednesday, as they await clarity on whether tariffs would leave a one-time or more lasting mark on inflation. Powell said it is still unclear how much of the bill would fall on the shoulders of consumers, but he expects to learn more about tariffs
Meta Platforms Inc offered US$100 million bonuses to OpenAI employees in an unsuccessful bid to poach the ChatGPT maker’s talent and strengthen its own generative artificial intelligence (AI) teams, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said. Facebook’s parent company — a competitor of OpenAI — also offered “giant” annual salaries exceeding US$100 million to OpenAI staffers, Altman said in an interview on the Uncapped with Jack Altman podcast released on Tuesday. “It is crazy,” Sam Altman told his brother Jack in the interview. “I’m really happy that at least so far none of our best people have decided to take them
PLANS: MSI is also planning to upgrade its service center in the Netherlands Micro-Star International Co (MSI, 微星) yesterday said it plans to set up a server assembly line at its Poland service center this year at the earliest. The computer and peripherals manufacturer expects that the new server assembly line would shorten transportation times in shipments to European countries, a company spokesperson told the Taipei Times by telephone. MSI manufactures motherboards, graphics cards, notebook computers, servers, optical storage devices and communication devices. The company operates plants in Taiwan and China, and runs a global network of service centers. The company is also considering upgrading its service center in the Netherlands into a
Taiwan’s property market is entering a freeze, with mortgage activity across the nation’s six largest cities plummeting in the first quarter, H&B Realty Co (住商不動產) said yesterday, citing mounting pressure on housing demand amid tighter lending rules and regulatory curbs. Mortgage applications in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung totaled 28,078 from January to March, a sharp 36.3 percent decline from 44,082 in the same period last year, the nation’s largest real-estate brokerage by franchise said, citing data from the Joint Credit Information Center (JCIC, 聯徵中心). “The simultaneous decline across all six cities reflects just how drastically the market
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