FRANCE
Bank upbeat on economy
Economic activity is forecast to continue rising this month, despite another wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Bank of France said. Completed at the end of last week, the central bank’s monthly survey of 8,500 firms is the first indicator of how businesses in the eurozone’s second-largest economy are faring since the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 emerged. Based on their responses, the institution estimates economic activity was 0.5 percent above pre-crisis levels last month and would be 0.75 percent higher this month. That means output for the whole fourth quarter would also expand by almost 0.75 percent. The central bank, which is scheduled to announce fresh estimates on Dec. 20, in September predicted GDP would increase 6.3 percent this year.
COSMETICS
Nestle sells L’Oreal shares
Swiss food giant Nestle on Tuesday said it was reducing its stake in French cosmetics group L’Oreal, selling 8.9 billion euros (US$10 billion) of shares. Nestle said in a statement that 22.26 million of its L’Oreal shares were sold for 400 euros each, adding that it “remains fully supportive” of the French company’s “value creation strategy.” L’Oreal said in a separate statement that it would cancel the shares, which represent 4 percent of its capital. The French group’s shareholders would see their shareholdings increase due to the buyback, L’Oreal said, adding that the stake of L’Oreal’s Bettencourt Meyers family shareholders would rise from 33.3 percent to 34.7 percent.
CRYPTOCURRENCIES
Binance invests in HGX
Binance Asia Services Pte Ltd (幣安亞洲服務), the Singapore entity of Changpeng Zhao (趙長鵬), said it has invested in a regional private securities exchange called Hg Exchange (HGX) that gives it a post-money stake of 18 percent. Financial offerings in the traditional form and cryptoassets are converging, Binance Singapore CEO Richard Teng (鄧偉政) said in a statement yesterday. A post-money valuation is the firm’s worth that includes the outside investment. Binance’s stake in HGX gives the crypto firm access to a regulated market operator, as HGX has a license to trade shares in private companies, as well as tokenized assets.
AVIATION
HNA transfers unit to Fangda
China’s HNA Group Co (海航集團) said it has transferred management of its core aviation business, including Hainan Airlines Holding Co (海南航空), to strategic investor Liaoning Fangda Group Industrial Co (遼寧方大集團), effective yesterday. Fangda Group is a conglomerate involved in carbon, steel and pharmaceuticals, with listed units such as Fangda Carbon New Material Co (方大炭素新材料科技), Fangda Special Steel Technology Co (方大特鋼科技) and Northeast Pharmaceutical Group Co (東北製藥).
SOCIAL MEDIA
Meta restructures research
Meta Platforms Inc is restructuring its internal research department, bringing dozens of employees previously working on product specific teams or business units, such as WhatsApp or Instagram, into a central group to handle research for the entire firm. The restructuring would affect about 50 researchers, said Pratiti Raychoudhury, head of research at Meta who is to oversee the group. The changes would involve workers examining societal topics such as politics, well-being and health, climate, equity, and integrity-related topics like misinformation and account safety, a spokeswoman for Meta 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