UNITED STATES
Manufacturing growth slows
Manufacturers expanded at a slower rate last month as the pace of new orders, production and employment each slipped. The Institute for Supply Management on Friday said that its manufacturing index fell to 54.2 last month, down from 56.6 in January. Readings above 50 signal growth in manufacturing. The companies surveyed for the index suggested that the nation’s economy is healthy.
EUROPE
Ministers urge cooperation
French Minister of Finance Bruno le Maire and Italian Minister of Finance Giovanni Tria are urging cooperation to make European businesses more competitive globally, seeking to mend ties after a damaging diplomatic standoff. Le Maire on Friday, said: “We need to rise above the disagreements we had in the past weeks to move forward.” He criticized nationalist politicians who claim European countries are better off on their own.
EMPLOYMENT
WeWork cuts staff
Coworking giant WeWork Cos cut about 300 employees this week, or roughly 3 percent of its workforce, in what it described as performance-related dismissals. WeWork, which operates shared office spaces around the world, said that the staff reductions were a small culling ahead of a hiring spree. A spokesman said that the company has 10,000 employees and plans to add 6,000 this year. The company has said it is open to an initial public offering in the near future.
LENDERS
Dianrong shrinks workforce
Dianrong (點融網), a Chinese peer-to-peer lender backed by Tiger Global Management and Standard Chartered PLC, is cutting thousands of staff and closing stores as it tries to reduce costs and comply with authorities’ efforts to shrink the industry, people familiar with the matter said. Shanghai-based Dianrong plans to lay off as many as 2,000 employees and is shutting about 60 of its 90 brick-and-mortar outlets, which helped verify borrowers’ identities and qualifications, one of the people said.
AUTOMAKERS
Sales miss expectations
Sales dropped 5.9 percent for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV’s lucrative Jeep Wrangler last month, driving the firm to its first total sales retreat in a year. At Ford Motor Co, sales fell 4.4 percent, worse than analysts projected, a person familiar with the results said. Those companies joined Toyota Motor Corp, Honda Motor Co and Nissan Motor Co in trailing analysts’ estimates for last month in a survey. The annualized industry sales rate slowed to 16.6 million, the worst reading in 18 months, researcher Autodata Corp said.
MEXICO
Bank bill clears hurdle
Senate majority leader Ricardo Monreal has reached an agreement with banks that allows him to move forward with his bill to regulate lenders’ fees, his aide said. The new version of the bill removes across-the-board prohibitions from the original legislation, but requires banks to offer zero-fee accounts to low-income clients, Monreal’s aide, Juan Garay, said. The proposal might be approved by the Senate as soon as March 21, Garay said in an interview.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
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