UNITED STATES
Durable goods rebound
Led by a surge in demand for commercial aircraft, orders for long-lasting manufactured goods rebounded last month, reversing a January drop, to rise at the fastest pace since June last year. The Department of Commerce on Friday said that orders for durable goods — items meant to last at least three years — rose 3.1 percent, handily beating economist expectations. Excluding the volatile transportation sector, orders rose 1.2 percent. A category that tracks business investment — orders for non-defense capital goods, excluding aircraft — rose 1.8 percent after dipping in January.
MEXICO
Airport IPO raises hopes
The group behind Mexico City’s new airport on Friday raised US$1.6 billion in an initial public offering (IPO) of Fibra E shares — the local version of a publicly traded limited partnership — providing another buffer against threats to shut the endeavor down. Grupo Aeroportuario de la Ciudad de Mexico sold 300 million of the securities at 100 pesos (US$5.40) each to raise 30 billion pesos, including an overallotment option known as a greenshoe, a person with knowledge of the deal said. It was the biggest-ever sale of Fibra E securities in the nation.
TUNISIA
IMF disburses US$257m
The IMF on Friday released an additional US$257 million in funds for the nation as part of its four-year, US$3 billion loan agreement. The IMF board approved the second review of the nation’s economic performance under the financial aid package that was initially approved in May 2016. With the latest installment, the IMF has lent the country nearly US$1 billion, even though the board acknowledged that the government had failed to meet some of its economic benchmarks. The fund also approved the nation’s request to move up the reviews and payments to a quarterly schedule rather than twice a year.
GAMBLING
Nevada to probe Wynn sale
The Nevada Gaming Control Board is to look into Galaxy Entertainment Group after the Hong Kong-based casino company’s purchase of a stake in Wynn Resorts Ltd. “As is its ordinary course, the Nevada Gaming Control Board engages in a due diligence process for any shareholder approaching a reporting requirement,” board chairwoman Becky Harris said on Friday. Individuals owning more than 10 percent of a casino must meet suitability requirements in the state, while a 5 percent stake triggers reporting rules for the board. Galaxy’s 4.9 percent share falls short, but the agency has discretion over whether to examine investors with less.
AUTOMAKERS
VW head defends salary
Volkswagen AG (VW) CEO Matthias Mueller on Friday defended his 10 million euro (US$12.4 million) salary by saying it made up for the risk of having “one foot in jail.” In an interview with weekly Der Spiegel, Matthias Mueller said he did not understand the fuss in Germany about chief executives’ pay packets. Mueller was only Germany’s fifth best-paid CEO last year, a study released on Friday by the HKP Group consultancy found. The top earner was software giant SAP’s CEO Bill McDermott at just more than 21 million euros, followed by Daimler chairman Dieter Zetsche, who took home 13 million euros.
Napoleon Osorio is proud of being the first taxi driver to have accepted payment in bitcoin in the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency legal tender: El Salvador. He credits Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s decision to bank on bitcoin three years ago with changing his life. “Before I was unemployed... And now I have my own business,” said the 39-year-old businessman, who uses an app to charge for rides in bitcoin and now runs his own car rental company. Three years ago the leader of the Central American nation took a huge gamble when he put bitcoin
Demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips should spur growth for the semiconductor industry over the next few years, the CEO of a major supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said, dismissing concerns that investors had misjudged the pace and extent of spending on AI. While the global chip market has grown about 8 percent annually over the past 20 years, AI semiconductors should grow at a much higher rate going forward, Scientech Corp (辛耘) chief executive officer Hsu Ming-chi (許明琪) told Bloomberg Television. “This booming of the AI industry has just begun,” Hsu said. “For the most prominent
PARTNERSHIPS: TSMC said it has been working with multiple memorychip makers for more than two years to provide a full spectrum of solutions to address AI demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it has been collaborating with multiple memorychip makers in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications for more than two years, refuting South Korean media report's about an unprecedented partnership with Samsung Electronics Co. As Samsung is competing with TSMC for a bigger foundry business, any cooperation between the two technology heavyweights would catch the eyes of investors and experts in the semiconductor industry. “We have been working with memory partners, including Micron, Samsung Memory and SK Hynix, on HBM solutions for more than two years, aiming to advance 3D integrated circuit
Former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) yesterday warned against the tendency to label stakeholders as either “pro-China” or “pro-US,” calling such rigid thinking a “trap” that could impede policy discussions. Liu, an adviser to the Cabinet’s Economic Development Committee, made the comments in his keynote speech at the committee’s first advisers’ meeting. Speaking in front of Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), National Development Council (NDC) Minister Paul Liu (劉鏡清) and other officials, Liu urged the public to be wary of falling into the “trap” of categorizing people involved in discussions into either the “pro-China” or “pro-US” camp. Liu,
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