EQUITIES
STAR to debut on Monday
Less than a year after Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) first touted the project, China’s new stock venue designed for technology start-ups is to start trading on Monday. Twenty-five companies will be part of the launch of the STAR board in Shanghai, out of the more than 100 hopefuls that applied to go public on the platform. Endorsement from top officials helped generate such enthusiasm that the firms raised a combined US$5.4 billion, about 20 percent more than planned. Demand from retail investors has outstripped supply by an average 1,800 times, even as some analysts voiced concern over lofty valuations. One company priced its shares at 171 times earnings. “There’s a good chance we’ll see a rush into these stocks due to the limited supply,” Bright Smart Securities analyst Mark Huang said.
SOFTWARE
FaceApp under investigation
Poland and Lithuania on Thursday said they were looking into the potential security risks of using a Russian-made face-editing app that has triggered a viral social media trend where users post “aged” selfies. The Polish Ministry of Digital Affairs said it was “analyzing” the security risks posed by FaceApp to the personal data of its users, despite assurances by its designers that the app is safe. “Various experts point to possible risks related to inadequate protection of users’ privacy,” the ministry said in a statement on its Web site. Cybersecurity authorities in Lithuania were also investigating potential threats posed by FaceApp, which might affect users’ personal data, Lithuanian Deputy Minister of National Defense Edvinas Kerza said.
TRADE
US launches sanctions
The US on Thursday imposed sanctions on an international network of companies and their agents it said were involved in the procurement of materials for Iran’s nuclear program. “[The US Department of the Treasury] is taking action to shut down an Iranian nuclear procurement network that leverages Chinese and Belgium-based front companies to acquire critical nuclear materials and benefit the regime’s malign ambitions,” US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. The firsm acted as a procurement network for Iran’s Centrifuge Technology Co, or TESA, which plays a pivotal role in Tehran’s uranium enrichment nuclear program through the production of centrifuges used in facilities belonging to the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, the department said, adding that China-based Henan Jiayuan Aluminum Industry (河南嘉源鋁業) was contracted to sell more than US$500,000 of aluminum goods, including NSG-controlled items, to TAWU BVBA for use by TESA.
AUTOMAKERS
Oliver Zipse to lead BMW
BMW AG has promoted production chief Oliver Zipse to chief executive officer, resetting its leadership to catch up with rivals in the transition to an era of self-driving, electric cars. Zipse is to succeed Harald Krueger, 53, who stepped down after four years, following struggles to set a course for the German luxury-car maker, which consistently trailed Mercedes-Benz in sales while ceding the mantle of automotive innovator to Tesla Inc. Zipse, 55, will take charge of the Munich-based automaker on Aug. 16, succeeding Krueger, whose contract had been due to run through April 2020, the company said on Thursday, following a supervisory board meeting in the US. A BMW spokesman declined to comment on the terms of his contract.
FALLING BEHIND: Samsung shares have declined more than 20 percent this year, as the world’s largest chipmaker struggles in key markets and plays catch-up to rival SK Hynix Samsung Electronics Co is laying off workers in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand as part of a plan to reduce its global headcount by thousands of jobs, sources familiar with the situation said. The layoffs could affect about 10 percent of its workforces in those markets, although the numbers for each subsidiary might vary, said one of the sources, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. Job cuts are planned for other overseas subsidiaries and could reach 10 percent in certain markets, the source said. The South Korean company has about 147,000 in staff overseas, more than half
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated
An Indian factory producing iPhone components resumed work yesterday after a fire that halted production — the third blaze to disrupt Apple Inc’s local supply chain since the start of last year. Local industrial behemoth Tata Group’s plant in Tamil Nadu, which was shut down by the unexplained fire on Saturday, is a key linchpin of Apple’s nascent supply chain in the country. A spokesperson for subsidiary Tata Electronics Pvt yesterday said that the company would restart work in “many areas of the facility today.” “We’ve been working diligently since Saturday to support our team and to identify the cause of the fire,”
Sales RecORD: Hon Hai’s consolidated sales rose by about 20 percent last quarter, while Largan, another Apple supplier, saw quarterly sales increase by 17 percent IPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday reported its highest-ever quarterly sales for the third quarter on the back of solid global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said it posted NT$1.85 trillion (US$57.93 billion) in consolidated sales in the July-to-September quarter, up 19.46 percent from the previous quarter and up 20.15 percent from a year earlier. The figure beat the previous third-quarter high of NT$1.74 trillion recorded in 2022, company data showed. Due to rising demand for AI, Hon Hai said its cloud and networking division enjoyed strong sales
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