ARGENTINA
IMF approves more funds
The IMF Executive Board approved a US$56.3 billion credit line, clearing the way for the embattled economy to receive more funding at a faster pace than originally negotiated. The board’s sign-off on Friday ratified a revised agreement announced last month. Under the new deal, Argentina is to receive about US$35.8 billion throughout the remainder of this year and all of next year, representing a nearly US$19 billion increase from the original arrangement negotiated in June. It received US$15 billion that month.
UNITED KINGDOM
Business tax cut likely
Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond is tomorrow likely to give a ￡900 million (US$1.15 billion) tax cut to small high-street retailers in his annual budget to help them compete against online competition, the UK government said late on Friday. The UK Treasury said that starting from next year, almost half-a -million small retailers would enjoy a cut of one-third to their property taxes, known as business rates.
UNITED STATES
GDP grows 3.5% in Q3
The economy grew at a robust annual rate of 3.5 percent in the July-to-September quarter as the strongest burst of consumer spending in nearly four years helped offset a sharp drag from trade. The Department of Commerce on Friday said that the third-quarter GDP growth followed an even stronger 4.2 percent rate of growth in the second quarter. The two quarters marked the strongest consecutive quarters of growth since 2014.
STEELMAKERS
Arcelor, Nippon buy Essar
Global steel giant ArcelorMittal SA and Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp on Friday said they have won a bidding war for India’s Essar Steel with a US$5.7 billion offer for their debt-laden rival. The deal is one of the biggest takeovers of a failing Indian company under India’s first bankruptcy law, passed two years ago to help clean up crippling corporate debts. While ArcelorMittal is to own a majority stake in Essar, Nippon would hold a nearly equal share, the companies said in separate statements.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Takeda talks EU settlement
Takeda Pharmaceutical Co is in talks with EU antitrust regulators about selling an experimental inflammatory bowel disease drug to help close its US$62 billion takeover of Shire PLC. In a statement released on Friday, Takeda said that it has been in discussions with the European Commission about divesting SHP647, which is in the final stages of experimental testing for the treatment of two gastrointestinal disorders: Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Takeda already markets the drug Entyvio for those conditions.
FINANCIAL CRIME
Ex-forex traders acquitted
Three former London currency traders were on Friday found not guilty of US charges that they schemed to rig benchmark exchange rates, the latest verdict in a US probe into the multitrillion-US dollar foreign exchange market. Chris Ashton, Rohan Ramchandani and Richard Usher, who worked at Barclays PLC, Citigroup Inc and JPMorgan Chase & Co respectively, were acquitted of all charges by a jury in a Manhattan federal court.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in
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