AUTOMAKERS
European sales rise again
Auto sales in Europe last month rose for a ninth straight month as supply chains improved and automakers worked through backlogs of orders. New vehicle registrations increased 16 percent to 964,932, the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association said yesterday. While the recovery continues, deliveries during the first four months of the year remain roughly one-fifth below pre-COVID-19 levels. Automakers across the volume, premium and luxury segments have continued to post better results even as inflation remains elevated and concerns about the economic outlook deepen. Fully electric vehicles saw a nearly 50 percent increase in registrations compared with April last year, while sales of gas-fueled vehicles rose 15 percent. Orders for diesel-powered vehicles declined slightly.
BANKING
Commerzbank profit jumps
Germany’s second-biggest lender Commerzbank AG yesterday said that its net profit almost doubled in the first quarter, thanks to “a tailwind” from higher interest rates. The group said it made a bottom-line profit of 580 million euros (US$627.6 million), compared with 298 million euros over the same period a year earlier. Quarterly revenues fell slightly to just under 2.7 billion euros, from 2.8 billion euros a year earlier, Commerzbank said. The dip was partly due to charges set aside to cover legal costs at its Polish unit mBank, the lender said. “We had a very good start to 2023,” Commerzbank CEO Manfred Knof said in a statement. Looking ahead, the lender said it is aiming for a full-year net profit “well above that of 2022.”
PHARMACEUTICALS
FTC aims to halt Amgen bid
US regulators on Tuesday filed a lawsuit to block biopharmaceutical firm Amgen Inc’s proposed US$28 billion takeover of drugmaker Horizon Therapeutics PLC, saying that the transaction would harm consumers. In a suit filed in federal court, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said the deal would enable Amgen to entrench the monopoly positions of Horizon medications to treat thyroid eye disease and chronic refractory gout. In addition, Amgen has a history of granting rebates on popular medications in exchange for preferential placement of other products with insurers and pharmaceutical benefit managers, the FTC said. This practice might make it difficult, if not impossible, for smaller rivals to match the level of rebates that Amgen would be able to offer, it said.
TECHNOLOGY
Musk wrong: Microsoft CEO
Microsoft Corp is not in control of OpenAI Inc, CEO Satya Nadella said in an interview on Tuesday, disputing the allegation by Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk, who had said that Microsoft was effectively in control of the start-up. Small players very much have a chance to compete against large firms such as his and Alphabet Inc’s Google, Nadella said. The Microsoft CEO said OpenAI’s board was steering the ship, contradicting Musk, who pulled out of the start-up years ago. “OpenAI is very grounded in their mission of being controlled by a nonprofit board,” Nadella said. “We have a non-controlling interest in it, we have a great commercial partnership in it.” The ability of smaller companies to break into artificial intelligence would “depend on product-market fit,” and it is not guaranteed that Microsoft and Google would be “the only two games in town,” Nadella said.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
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