INVESTMENT
Goldman pursues China plan
Goldman Sachs Group Inc won approval to take 100 percent ownership of its securities joint venture in China, a key step to expand in the country, even as growing political tension and a Beijing-led crackdown on the private sector has ratcheted up risks. The move gives the firm free rein to pursue a clearer growth strategy that includes doubling its workforce in China to 600 and ramping up in asset and wealth management. The US bank has already added 116 staff onshore this year, boosting the total to more than 400, a spokesman said.
MANUFACTURING
Philips lowers guidance
Royal Philips NV reduced its growth and earnings guidance after global supply chain disruptions weighed on sales in the third quarter. Philips now expects to deliver low single-digit sales growth for this year, down from the low-to-mid-single digit increase it forecast previously, it said in a statement yesterday. The Dutch healthcare equipment maker expects just a “modest” increase in its profit margin, compared with the 60-basis-point improvement it anticipated previously. “Supply chain volatility has intensified globally,” Philips chief executive officer Frans van Houten said, citing a shortage in electronic components. “We expect this headwind to continue in the fourth quarter.”
E-COMMERCE
THG to seek premium listing
The Hut Group (THG), a rapidly growing British online retailer and tech group that is backed by Softbank Group Corp, yesterday said that it would remove its founder’s “golden share” and pursue a premium listing after its shares plummeted last week. THG, which went public in a bumper initial public offering in September last year, was last week rocked by a 35 percent collapse in its share price following an investor presentation, forcing it to address corporate governance concerns around the group. THG said its founder and chief executive officer Matthew Moulding would cancel his special share rights that had given him control over acquisitions.
AUTOMAKERS
Ford to make EV parts in UK
Ford Motor Co plans to invest as much as £230 million (US$315.72 million) to start producing electric vehicle (EV) components at an existing plant near Liverpool after the British government pledged financial support. The Halewood facility would be retooled to start building electric power units from 2024 to gradually replace manufacturing of combustion engine transmissions and safeguard jobs at the site, Ford said yesterday. Earlier this year, the US automaker said it would sell only fully electric vehicles in Europe by 2030. Ford Europe president Stuart Rowley said the plant has about 500 workers, and employment would remain around those levels.
GAMBLING
Playtech up due to takeover
Shares in British gambling software developer Playtech PLC soared by nearly 60 percent after the company agreed to a A$5 billion (US$3.7 billion) takeover by Australian slot machine maker Aristocrat Leisure Ltd. The offer, the latest for a British company by an overseas suitor, values London-listed Playtech at £6.80 per share, a premium of about 58 percent to the company’s last closing price on Friday, Aristocrat said in a statement yesterday. Aristocrat would raise A$1.3 billion in a share sale to help fund the acquisition, the Sydney-based firm said.
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