PROPERTY
Evergrande halts trading
Troubled Chinese property developer giant China Evergrande Group (恆大集團) and all its units yesterday morning suspended trading in Hong Kong, it said in a notice to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, without giving a reason. “Accordingly, all structured products relating to the company will also be halted from trading at the same time,” the notice said. Shares of Evergrande Property Services Group Ltd (恒大物業) and China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group Ltd (恆大新能源汽車) were suspended. The suspension — the second this year — comes ahead of an expected US$2 billion repayment obligation tomorrow, and another US$1.4 billion next month.
SOFTWARE
Bing suspends auto-suggest
Microsoft Corp’s Bing, the only major foreign search engine available in China, said a “relevant government agency” has required it to suspend its auto-suggest function in China for seven days. The suspension marks the second of its kind for Bing since December, and arrives amid an ongoing crackdown on technology platforms and algorithms from Beijing. Chinese Internet users first spotted the suspension on Saturday. Bing did not specify a reason for the suspension. Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
UNITED KINGDOM
House prices hit records
UK house sellers are enjoying the strongest spring market on record, with prices at all-time highs and buyers significantly outnumbering the number of available properties. That is according to property Web site Rightmove, which said average asking prices broke through the ￡350,000 (US460,545) barrier this month for the first time after jumping 1.7 percent, the biggest increase for any March since 2004. Every part of the country — except London and Scotland — has seen values rise more than 10 percent over the past year. The surge is being driven by a worsening shortage of homes for sale. There were more than twice as many buyers as sellers this month, the biggest mismatch ever recorded by Rightmove.
MEDIA
Nielsen rejects buy offer
Nielsen Holdings PLC rejected an acquisition proposal from a private equity consortium, saying the offer “significantly” undervalued the company. The proposal had valued the company at US$25.40 per share, a price that does not “adequately compensate shareholders for Nielsen’s growth prospects,” the company said in a statement on Sunday. Windacre Partnership LLC, one of its largest shareholders, said it supported the rejection of the offer. Following the rejection of the acquisition bid, New York-based Nielsen plans to start buying back its own stock, after having earlier approved a US$1 billion share repurchase authorization, the company said.
BANKING
Credit Suisse reshuffles
Credit Suisse Group AG vice chairman Severin Schwan is stepping down from his role, along with two other members of the board of directors, as the Swiss bank continues to renew its top supervisory body following a series of scandals. Christian Gellerstad is to become vice chairman and also take over as head of the compensation committee from Kai S. Nargolwala, who like Schwan will not stand for re-election at the annual general meeting. Credit Suisse also said it intends to name Richard Meddings as chair of the risk committee and Mirko Bianchi to oversee the audit committee.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
POWER BUILDUP: Powered by Nvidia’s B200 Blackwell chips, the data center would support MediaTek’s computing power demand and business growth, the company said Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday launched a new artificial intelligence (AI) data center with a maximum capacity of 45 megawatts to meet its rising demand for computing power required to develop new advanced chips for AI applications. The company has completed the first-phase computing power buildup at the data center in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), providing 15 megawatts of capacity to support its research and development (R&D) capabilities, despite an industrywide shortage of key components, MediaTek said. Supply constraints have plagued a wide range of key components, including memory chips, solid-state drives, power supply units and central
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
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