INTERNET
Google to invest in Chushou
Google has joined a funding round for a Chinese game streaming service, making its second direct investment in China since largely withdrawing from the country in 2010. The company is joining a Series D investment round for Chushou (觸手), whose name translates into “Tentacle,” a Chinese mobile-centric game live-streaming platform with 90 million registered users. Google’s investment in Chushou comes after it lost out to Amazon.com Inc, which bought Twitch for US$970 million in 2014. Since then, it has attempted to launch live-streaming services for gamers via YouTube. The latest cash injection brings Chushou’s total funding to US$120 million and is to help it expand services around the world.
INTERNET
Kalanick to sell Uber shares
Uber Technologies Inc cofounder Travis Kalanick, who was ousted as CEO in June last year, is to sell nearly one-third of his shares in the ride-services company for about US$1.4 billion, a person familiar with the matter said on Thursday. Kalanick’s sale is part of a deal with a group of investors led by Softbank Group Corp, which is taking a 17.5 percent stake in Uber, mostly by buying shares from early investors and employees. Kalanick had offered to sell half of his total shares, but because there was a limit on how much Softbank will buy, he is to sell just 29 percent, the source said.
SPORTSWEAR
Boardriders to buy Billabong
US company Boardriders Inc, which owns the Quicksilver brand, has signed an agreement to acquire Australian rival Billabong International Ltd, merging two major names in sportswear. Boardriders said the combination of the two companies would create the world’s leading action sports company, adding that they would together have 630 retail stores in 28 countries and more than 7,000 retail clients in 110 countries. Under the deal, Boardriders is to buy shares of Billabong at A$1 per share, a premium of 28 percent over the stock price on Nov. 30 when the buyout bid was unveiled.
ENERGY
Westinghouse to be sold off
Financially troubled Westinghouse Electric Co on Thursday announced that it agreed to be sold to Brookfield Business Partners for US$4.6 billion, pending approval by a US bankruptcy court. Westinghouse, owned by Japan’s Toshiba Corp since 2006, has faced deep losses due to its stalled nuclear business, including canceled plants in South Carolina. As a result, the company filed for bankruptcy protection in March last year. Brookfield, which manages US$265 billion in assets and specializes in infrastructure, energy and real estate, said it would take on about US$3 billion in long-term debt to finance the transaction.
AIRLINES
LATAM ups margin forecast
LATAM Airlines Group, the largest airline in Latin America, on Thursday said that it expects an operating margin of between 7.5 percent and 9.5 percent this year, up from its estimates for last year. The Chile-based airline attributed the increase to a higher flow of passengers on international flights and domestic flights in Brazil. Last year it had projected an operating margin of between 6 percent and 8 percent. The measure is a gauge of the proportion of a company’s revenue remaining after paying wages and other variable production costs.
PERSISTENT RUMORS: Nvidia’s CEO said the firm is not in talks to sell AI chips to China, but he would welcome a change in US policy barring the activity Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company is not in discussions to sell its Blackwell artificial intelligence (AI) chips to Chinese firms, waving off speculation it is trying to engineer a return to the world’s largest semiconductor market. Huang, who arrived in Taiwan yesterday ahead of meetings with longtime partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), took the opportunity to clarify recent comments about the US-China AI race. The Nvidia head caused a stir in an interview this week with the Financial Times, in which he was quoted as saying “China will win” the AI race. Huang yesterday said
Japanese technology giant Softbank Group Corp said Tuesday it has sold its stake in Nvidia Corp, raising US$5.8 billion to pour into other investments. It also reported its profit nearly tripled in the first half of this fiscal year from a year earlier. Tokyo-based Softbank said it sold the stake in Silicon Vally-based Nvidia last month, a move that reflects its shift in focus to OpenAI, owner of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT. Softbank reported its profit in the April-to-September period soared to about 2.5 trillion yen (about US$13 billion). Its sales for the six month period rose 7.7 percent year-on-year
MORE WEIGHT: The national weighting was raised in one index while holding steady in two others, while several companies rose or fell in prominence MSCI Inc, a global index provider, has raised Taiwan’s weighting in one of its major indices and left the country’s weighting unchanged in two other indices after a regular index review. In a statement released on Thursday, MSCI said it has upgraded Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country World Index by 0.02 percentage points to 2.25 percent, while maintaining the weighting in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, the most closely watched by foreign institutional investors, at 20.46 percent. Additionally, the index provider has left Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country Asia ex-Japan Index unchanged at 23.15 percent. The latest index adjustments are to
CRESTING WAVE: Companies are still buying in, but the shivers in the market could be the first signs that the AI wave has peaked and the collapse is upon the world Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported a new monthly record of NT$367.47 billion (US$11.85 billion) in consolidated sales for last month thanks to global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Last month’s figure represented 16.9 percent annual growth, the slowest pace since February last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 11 percent. Cumulative sales in the first 10 months of the year grew 33.8 percent year-on-year to NT$3.13 trillion, a record for the same period in the company’s history. However, the slowing growth in monthly sales last month highlights uncertainty over the sustainability of the AI boom even as
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