ACQUISITIONS
Amazon closes MGM deal
Amazon.com Inc said it closed the US$8.5 billion acquisition of film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) after regulators declined to challenge the deal, cementing the company’s biggest takeover in five years. The closing, announced on Thursday in a statement on Amazon’s Web site, marks the latest deal by a US technology giant to win approval despite criticism that the companies have been able to gobble up smaller firms with little pushback from competition enforcers. EU regulators signed off on the MGM deal on Tuesday after finding it posed no competition problems. The deadline for the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to challenge the deal before it closed passed without the agency taking action. The FTC still has the authority to sue to block the deal if a majority of commissioners vote to file a lawsuit.
GAMING
GameStop reports loss
GameStop Corp reported a surprise loss during the holiday quarter and said it would launch a marketplace for non-fungible tokens (NFT) by the end of the second quarter of fiscal 2022. The company reported an adjusted loss of US$1.86 per share, while analysts had projected a profit of US$0.84 per share. Net sales rose 6.2 percent to US$2.25 billion in the three months ended Jan. 29, the video game retailer said in a statement on Thursday. Analysts had projected US$2.23 billion. GameStop has suffered from a combination of supply chain issues and an opaque business strategy. The latest push into NFTs has excited investors, but there are still few details about the plan. The company said that it has hired “dozens of additional individuals with experience in areas such as blockchain gaming, ecommerce and technology, product refurbishment and operations.”
UNITES STATES
Uranium bill introduced
Senators on Thursday introduced a bill to ban imports of Russian uranium to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine. The bill comes as the administration of President Joe Biden has been weighing sanctions on Russian nuclear power company Rosatom, a major supplier of fuel and technology to power plants around the world. The administration’s ban on imports of Russian energy, such as oil and liquefied natural gas, does not yet include uranium. “Banning Russian uranium imports will further defund Russia’s war machine, help revive American uranium production and increase our national security,” said Senator John Barrasso, who introduced the bill. The nation has more than 90 nuclear reactors, more than any other country, and is heavily reliant on imported uranium. Russian uranium made up 16 percent of its purchases in 2020, Energy Information Administration data showed, with Canada and Kazakhstan each providing 22 percent.
ENERGY
India buys Russian oil
State-run Indian Oil Corp bought 3 million barrels of crude oil from Russia earlier this week to secure its energy needs, resisting Western pressure to avoid such purchases, an Indian government official said yesterday. The official said that India has not imposed sanctions against buying oil and will be looking to purchase more from Russia, despite calls not to from the US and other countries. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to talk to reporters. Indian media reports said that Russia was offering a discount on oil purchases of 20 percent below global benchmark prices.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure
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