CRYPTOCURRENCY
Bitcoin extends recovery
Bitcoin yesterday extended its recovery in holiday-thinned trading, rising 10 percent to be up more than one-third from last week’s lows of below US$12,000. Bitcoin, the world’s biggest and best-known cryptocurrency, fell nearly 30 percent at one stage on Friday last week to US$11,159.93 and, despite a late recovery, had its worst week since 2013. Yesterday, it was quoted at about US$15,049 on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange. The digital currency had risen about 20-fold since the start of the year, climbing from less than US$1,000 to as high as US$19,666 on Dec. 17 on Bitstamp and to more than US$20,000 on other exchanges.
MINING
Jiangxi Copper halts output
Jiangxi Copper Co (江西銅業), China’s largest copper producer, is halting all output in the province after the local government ordered the curbs to reduce pollution, a company official said yesterday. The smelter received the order on Monday evening to stop production for at least a week before a further assessment based on local pollution levels, the official said, asking not to be identified because of company rules. The firm, which has 1.02 million tonnes of annual capacity in the southeastern province, remains in talks with the government to halt only smelting and not refining operations to minimize losses, the official said. China is intensifying its campaign against air pollution by extending its winter manufacturing curbs in 28 northern cities to other provinces. Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group Co (銅陵有色), the nation’s second-largest copper producer, said earlier this month that it is halting as much as 30 percent of smelting capacity at its main production hub in the eastern province of Anhui after a similar order.
MERGERS
Nippon shop in Europe
Nippon Paint Holdings Co is shopping for large acquisitions, including in Europe, to expand outside Japan amid a global consolidation among the biggest coatings makers. “While our expansion is centered on China and other Asian countries in line with our mid-term plan, we also aim to expand through M&A [mergers and acquisitions] in Europe and the United States,” Nippon Paint president Tetsushi Tadoh said, according to company spokeswoman Yukiko Mochida. Tadoh’s comments were published yesterday in the Nikkei newspaper. Tadoh’s confirmation that the Osaka-based paintmaker is looking to grow through acquisitions comes about a month after its offer for Axalta Coating Systems Ltd, the world’s largest maker of coatings for cars, failed to produce a deal. Philadelphia-based Axalta, with a market value of about US$8 billion, said on Dec. 15 it hopes to be a major player in the industry’s consolidation and is open to mergers and acquisitions.
REAL ESTATE
Court to auction skyscraper
A Chinese court is auctioning a skyscraper on the country’s largest e-commerce Web site — with a sky-high starting price of 553 million yuan (US$84.2 million). The 39-floor building in Taiyuan, northern Shanxi Province, along with the land on which it sits, goes on the block on Tuesday next week on Taobao (淘寶), Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s (阿里巴巴) e-commerce platform. Construction on the skyscraper began in 2006. Standing 156m high and with more than 76,000m2 of floor space, it was originally designed to be a hotel, Xinhua news agency said.
The domestic unit of the Chinese-owned, Dutch-headquartered chipmaker Nexperia BV will soon be able to produce semiconductors locally within China, according to two company sources. Nexperia is at the center of a global tug-of-war over critical semiconductor technology, with a Dutch court in February ordering a probe into alleged mismanagement at the company. The geopolitical tussle has disrupted supply chains, with some carmakers reportedly forced to cut production due to chip shortages. Local production would allow Nexperia’s domestic arm, Nexperia Semiconductors (China) Ltd (安世半導體中國), to bypass restrictions in place since October on the supply of silicon wafers — etched with tiny components to
Singapore-based ride-hailing and delivery giant Grab Holdings Ltd has applied for regulatory approval to acquire the Taiwan operations of Germany-based Delivery Hero SE's Foodpanda in a deal valued at about US$600 million. Grab submitted the filing to the Fair Trade Commission on Friday last week, with the transaction subject to regulatory review and approval, the company said in a statement yesterday. Its independent governance structure would help foster a healthy and competitive market in Taiwan if the deal is approved, Grab said. Grab, which is listed on the NASDAQ, said in the filing that US-based Uber Technologies Inc holds about 13 percent of
Taiwan is open to joining a global liquefied natural gas (LNG) program if one is created, but on the condition that countries provide delivery even in a scenario where there is a conflict with China, an energy department official said yesterday. While Taiwan’s priority is to have enough LNG at home, the nation is open to exploring potential strategic reserves in other countries such as Japan or South Korea, Energy Administration Deputy Director-General Chen Chung-hsien (陳崇憲) said. While the LNG market does not have a global reserve for emergencies like that of oil, the concept has been raised a few times —
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday received government approval to deploy its advanced 3-nanometer (3nm) process at its second fab currently under construction in Japan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a news release. The ministry green-lit the plan for the facility in Kumamoto, which is scheduled to start installing equipment and come online in 2028 with a monthly production capacity of 15,000 12-inch wafers, the ministry said. The Department of Investment Review in June 2024 authorized a US$5.26 billion investment for the facility, slated to manufacture 6- to 12nm chips, significantly less advanced than 3nm process. At a meeting with
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