REAL ESTATE
Evergrande’s ratings down
Moody’s Investors Service on Wednesday lowered China Evergrande Group’s (恒大集團) credit rating by one notch to “B2,” the second downgrade by a global ratings company in less than two weeks. “Although Evergrande has been reducing its debt to improve its financial stability, the company still faces sizeable maturing debt and puttable bonds over the next 12 to 18 months,” Moody’s said. The Shenzhen-based developer said it has reduced its net debt-to-equity ratio to below 100 percent, and pared total borrowings to about 570 billion yuan (US$88.2 billion) from 717 billion yuan in December last year.
SINGAPORE
Housing boom eases
A housing boom took a breather last quarter, after a return to lockdown conditions amid a COVID-19 outbreak eased price growth. Private property values rose 0.9 percent sequentially from the previous quarter, when they rose 3.3 percent, preliminary estimates from the Urban Redevelopment Authority showed yesterday. It was the first time price growth slowed in five quarters. Fewer property launches also caused prices to slow, said Christine Sun (孫燕清), senior vice president of research and analytics at OrangeTee & Tie (橙易產業).
SWEDEN
Central bank keeps policies
The central bank yesterday kept its policy unchanged and said that the economy still needed support even as the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic fade. “The Executive Board has therefore decided to hold the repo rate unchanged at zero percent, and that during the fourth quarter the Riksbank will continue purchasing assets within the envelope” of 700 billion kronor (US$81.62 billion), it said in a statement. The Riksbank sees the economy growing 4.2 percent this year, as inflation is above the 2 percent target and housing prices have soared.
AUTOMAKERS
Ford curtails production
Ford Motor Co is halting production for two weeks at a Michigan factory that just began building its highly anticipated Bronco SUV, citing a lack of unspecified parts. The automaker is also curtailing production at eight additional factories this month and next month due to a global shortage of semiconductors that has hobbled auto production worldwide. Ford said it is diverting its scarce semiconductor supply to finish nearly completed vehicles that are awaiting chips before being sent to dealers.
FOOD
Krispy Kreme IPO falls short
Krispy Kreme Inc on Wednesday priced its US initial public offering (IPO) below a marketed range to raise US$500 million, short of the US$640 million it had sought. The company said in a statement that it sold more than 29 million shares for US$17 each. While the size of the sale was expanded from the almost 27 million shares that Krispy Kreme had planned to sell, the offer price was well below the US$21 to US$24 marketed range. Krispy Kreme is valued in the listing at about US$2.78 billion.
TECHNOLOGY
Russia tightens IT rules
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law obliging foreign information technology (IT) firms to open offices on Russian territory, a document published yesterday by the government showed. Moscow has fined IT firms for failing to delete content it says is illegal, slowing down the speed of Twitter as punishment, and on Wednesday opened a new case against Google for breaching personal data legislation.
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