ENERGY
Indonesia wins EU dispute
Indonesia has won an appeal against the EU in a dispute over an anti-dumping duty on biodiesel, the Ministry of Trade said in a statement yesterday. The European Court of Justice, the EU’s highest court, ruled that the bloc must do away with anti-dumping duties of between 8.8 and 23.3 percent on imports of Indonesian biodiesel products. Indonesian Foreign Trade Director-General Oke Nurwan said the elimination of duties took effect on Friday last week.
INTERNET
Phone brands vs WeChat
China’s biggest smartphone vendors are getting together for a software platform offering access to apps that can provide an alternative for WeChat’s (微信) more than 1 billion users. Huawei Technologies Co (華為), Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corp (歐珀), Vivo Communication Technology Co (維沃) and Xiaomi Corp (小米) are teaming up with six smaller brands for Quick App, which lets users access a range of services, including mobile payments. That is a direct challenge to the mini programs of WeChat, which lets users order food and rent bikes without ever leaving the app.
RETAIL
Nordstrom ends buyout talks
Department store operator Nordstrom on Tuesday said it has ended buyout talks with family members of the company’s founder. Nordstrom had rejected an offer of US$50 a share earlier this month from the family group — which includes high-level company executives — and called the price “inadequate.” The family members include copresidents Blake, Peter and Erik Nordstrom, who are descendants of John Nordstrom. Together, they have a stake of about 30 percent in the company, according to FactSet.
SOFTWARE
Salesforce buys MuleSoft
Salesforce Inc agreed to buy MuleSoft Inc for about US$6.5 billion in its largest-ever acquisition, as the market leader in customer-relationship software makes an aggressive play for new products and corporate users. San Francisco-based Salesforce is paying US$36 in cash and 0.0711 shares of its common stock for each MuleSoft share, it said in a statement.That is 36 percent more than MuleSoft’s closing share price on Monday. Salesforce said the US$6.5 billion total price represents MuleSoft’s enterprise value. The deal is scheduled to close by July 31
LUXURY GOODS
Hermes announces dividend
Hermes International, flush with cash from surging sales of US$10,000 handbags, is giving a chunk of it back to shareholders. The French luxury goods house yesterday said it would pay an annual dividend of 4.10 euros a share along with a special payout of 5 euros a share. Its cash holdings reached almost 3 billion euros (US$3.7 billion) as of Dec. 31 last year. The maker of Birkin and Kelly bags said in a statement its operating margin rose 2 percentage points to 34.6 percent.
FOOD
HelloFresh buys Green Chef
HelloFresh SE, the German meal-kit company, has agreed to buy competitor Green Chef as it seeks to challenge industry-pioneer Blue Apron for supremacy in the US. The deal was announced in a regulatory filing on Tuesday that did not include terms. Green Chef is expected to contribute about US$15 million in quarterly revenue, starting in the second quarter, according to the filing. HelloFresh said it expects to turn a profit this year and pass industry pioneer Blue Apron in US sales.
Nissan Motor Co has agreed to sell its global headquarters in Yokohama for ￥97 billion (US$630 million) to a group sponsored by Taiwanese autoparts maker Minth Group (敏實集團), as the struggling automaker seeks to shore up its financial position. The acquisition is led by a special purchase company managed by KJR Management Ltd, a Japanese real-estate unit of private equity giant KKR & Co, people familiar with the matter said. KJR said it would act as asset manager together with Mizuho Real Estate Management Co. Nissan is undergoing a broad cost-cutting campaign by eliminating jobs and shuttering plants as it grapples
TEMPORARY TRUCE: China has made concessions to ease rare earth trade controls, among others, while Washington holds fire on a 100% tariff on all Chinese goods China is effectively suspending implementation of additional export controls on rare earth metals and terminating investigations targeting US companies in the semiconductor supply chain, the White House announced. The White House on Saturday issued a fact sheet outlining some details of the trade pact agreed to earlier in the week by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that aimed to ease tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Under the deal, China is to issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of US end users and their suppliers
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
Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV’s China unit yesterday said that it had established sufficient inventories of finished goods and works-in-progress, and that its supply chain remained secure and stable after its parent halted wafer supplies. The Dutch company suspended supplies of wafers to its Chinese assembly plant a week ago, calling it “a direct consequence of the local management’s recent failure to comply with the agreed contractual payment terms,” Reuters reported on Friday last week. Its China unit called Nexperia’s suspension “unilateral” and “extremely irresponsible,” adding that the Dutch parent’s claim about contractual payment was “misleading and highly deceptive,” according to a statement
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