CONSUMER GOODS
Reckitt might sell unit
Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC’s plan to review its infant nutrition unit and weigh options, including a potential sale, boosted shares of the maker of Lysol. The British consumer goods company is reviewing the business globally and has been informally gauging buyer interest in the operations, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the situation. The unit could be worth ￡5.5 billion (US$7.4 billion), an estimate by Jefferies showed.
INTERNET
PriceRunner sues Google
Alphabet Inc’s Google is being sued by Nordic price comparison provider PriceRunner AB for about 22 billion kronor (US$2.4 billion) at Sweden’s patent and market court. The lawsuit follows the conclusion of a legal ruling in the EU that established Google has breached antitrust laws by manipulating search results in favor of its own comparison-shopping services, PriceRunner said in a statement yesterday. It is also about job opportunities and a matter of survival for many European entrepreneurial companies, it said.
TRAVEL
Crystal Cruises ships seized
Two Crystal Cruises ships operating under a Genting Hong Kong Ltd (雲頂香港) unit have been seized in the Bahamas after a fuel supplier sought their arrest for US$4.6 million in unpaid bills, according to a video filmed by crew and the Cruise Law News Web site. The Crystal Symphony and Crystal Serenity were seized late on Friday night in Freeport in the Bahamas, said Cruise Law News, a site run by Jim Walker, a maritime lawyer based in Florida. The luxury cruise ships were anchored in Freeport on Saturday.
CUBA
New tax for food sales
Havana on Saturday announced a new 10 percent tax on retail food sales, as the nation endures economic woes marked by rampant inflation. The levy, which took effect yesterday, targets self-employed people and small and medium-sized companies in the retail food sector, said the decree published in the official government gazette. The sales were only allowed starting in August last year as part of government reforms. The nation imports 80 percent of the food it consumes.
EUROZONE
Investors bet on rate change
Investors are betting that the European Central Bank (ECB) raises the deposit rate by 25 basis points in September and takes it to zero by the end of the year, following a shift in tone at last week’s Governing Council meeting. That is more aggressive than the time line that Klaas Knot, one of the ECB’s most hawkish policymakers, laid out in a TV interview on Sunday. A first hike could come in the fourth quarter, with a second one possibly following in the spring, he said.
REAL ESTATE
Home to be sold as NFT
A home along Florida’s Gulf Coast is to be auctioned off this week as a non-fungible token (NFT) in what is believed to be among the first such transactions in the US. In the case of the four-bedroom home in Gulfport, Florida, California-based real-estate technology company Propy is to mint the property rights into a digital token and host an online auction, with bids starting at US$650,000. Minting property rights into an NFT would allow owners to sell a home as quickly as a Venmo transaction, said Leslie Alessandra, the home’s current owner.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said its materials management head, Vanessa Lee (李文如), had tendered her resignation for personal reasons. The personnel adjustment takes effect tomorrow, TSMC said in a statement. The latest development came one month after Lee reportedly took leave from the middle of last month. Cliff Hou (侯永清), senior vice president and deputy cochief operating officer, is to concurrently take on the role of head of the materials management division, which has been under his supervision, TSMC said. Lee, who joined TSMC in 2022, was appointed senior director of materials management and
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Thursday met with US President Donald Trump at the White House, days before a planned trip to China by the head of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, people familiar with the matter said. Details of what the two men discussed were not immediately available, and the people familiar with the meeting declined to elaborate on the agenda. Spokespeople for the White House had no immediate comment. Nvidia declined to comment. Nvidia’s CEO has been vocal about the need for US companies to access the world’s largest semiconductor market and is a frequent visitor to China.
Hypermarket chain Carrefour Taiwan and upscale supermarket chain Mia C’bon on Saturday announced the suspension of their partnership with Jkopay Co (街口支付), one of Taiwan’s largest digital payment providers, amid a lawsuit involving its parent company. Carrefour and Mia C’bon said they would notify customers once Jkopay services are reinstated. The two retailers joined an array of other firms in suspending their partnerships with Jkopay. On Friday night, popular beverage chain TP Tea (茶湯會) also suspended its use of the platform, urging customers to opt for alternative payment methods. Another drinks brand, Guiji (龜記), on Friday said that it is up to individual
READY TO BUY: Shortly after Nvidia announced the approval, Chinese firms scrambled to order the H20 GPUs, which the company must send to the US government for approval Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) late on Monday said the technology giant has won approval from US President Donald Trump’s administration to sell its advanced H20 graphics processing units (GPUs) used to develop artificial intelligence (AI) to China. The news came in a company blog post late on Monday and Huang also spoke about the coup on China’s state-run China Global Television Network in remarks shown on X. “The US government has assured Nvidia that licenses will be granted, and Nvidia hopes to start deliveries soon,” the post said. “Today, I’m announcing that the US government has approved for us
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