SUPPLEMENTS
Icahn sells Herbalife stock
Activist investor Carl Icahn has sold more than half his stake in Herbalife Nutrition Ltd for US$600 million and is planning to give up the five seats on the company’s board held by his representatives, the Wall Street Journal reported. Icahn, who had a 15.5 percent stake in Herbalife as of Sept. 30, sold about 10 percent back to the company in the past few days, the newspaper reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter. That has left him with an about 6 percent stake, worth US$400 million, in the multi-level marketing company, whose products include dietary supplements, according to the report. Icahn began buying Herbalife shares in 2013 while extolling the company and had since been its largest shareholder.
EQUITIES
Manila eyes more IPOs
The Philippine Stock Exchange is aiming for more companies to go public this year even as the economic environment “remains fragile,” president and CEO Ramon Monzon said. The stock exchange has a target for at least three companies and four real-estate investment trusts (REIT) to hold initial public offerings (IPOs) this year, Monzon said in a statement. More REITs are expected to list once the Securities and Exchange Commission approves proposed changes to the main and small enterprises boards’ IPO rules, he said. The Philippines is forecast to start growing only in the second quarter of this year, putting it among the slowest to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic that has ravaged the global economy.
GLOVE MAKERS
Top Glove hikes dividend
Malaysia’s Top Glove Corp Bhd, the world’s largest medical gloves maker, yesterday hiked its proposed dividend as its shares came under pressure from speculation that the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines could hit demand for its products. The company, whose shares rocketed last year as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, said it would pay out 70 percent of earnings for the rest of its financial year, covering its second to fourth quarters, up from the 50 percent planned previously. This was “in consideration of the good profit performance and strong cash flow, and to reward its shareholders,” it said in a statement. However, Top Glove shares fell as much as 14.5 percent to their lowest since the end of June last year, with smaller rivals Hartalega Holdings Bhd and Kossan Rubber Industries Bhd dropping as much as 14.2 percent and 13.3 percent respectively.
RATINGS FIRMS
Dagong ordered to pay up
A Chinese court ruled that a local ratings firm should help compensate some creditors for a construction firm’s 1.4 billion yuan (US$216.7 million) bond defaults three years ago, a first in the country as Beijing raises pressure on agencies to improve their due diligence. Dagong Global Credit Rating Co (大公國際信評) is responsible for repaying up to 10 percent of at least 494 million yuan of combined debt claims to more than 400 individual bondholders of Wuyang Construction Group Co (五洋建設集團), according to a ruling by Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court dated on Thursday and seen by Bloomberg News. Wuyang Construction’s legal representative and actual controller Chen Zhizhang (陳志樟), underwriter Tebon Securities Co (德邦證券), as well as an accounting company and a legal firm are also collectively responsible, the court said, citing their failures to conduct due diligence properly.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to