AUTOMAKERS
Hyundai eyes India IPO
Hyundai Motor Co is set to hire banks including Citigroup Inc and JPMorgan Chase & Co for an initial public offering (IPO) of its Indian unit that could raise about US$2.5 billion, people familiar with the matter said on Friday. India’s second-largest carmaker is also in talks with other banks as it pulls together a roster of advisers for the offer that might come this year, the people said. If the South Korean company does proceed with an IPO, it will use the cash raised to expand operations, Bloomberg News reported this week. India accounted for 13 percent of Hyundai’s global sales last year.
BANKING
Citi urges moderate drinking
Citigroup Inc dealmakers were told to be disciplined when consuming alcohol at client events after the bank received complaints of unruly behavior, according to people with knowledge of the matter. In calls late this week, bankers at all levels — from analysts to managing directors — were reminded to keep the firm’s reputation in mind when drinking, the people said. The senior bankers leading the calls did not put a complete curb on consumption of alcohol, noting that drinking in business settings has wide cultural acceptance, the people said. Citigroup’s management is cutting 20,000 roles, but has so far left investment banking less affected than other divisions.
REAL ESTATE
Meta frees Singapore space
Meta Platforms Inc is giving up its lease for seven floors of office space in Singapore that is set to expire at the end of September, the Business Times reported on Thursday. The Facebook parent had conveyed its decision to not renew its lease at South Beach Tower in June last year, the newspaper reported, citing Samantha Tan, general manager of developer South Beach Consortium Pte Ltd. That was just three months after a round of global layoffs by Meta in March last year. Meta started moving staff out of its 115,000-square-feet South Beach Tower offices in the first half of last year, consolidating its teams at its office in Marina One in the financial district, the report said.
OIL
Petroleos Mexicanos ‘caa3’
Petroleos Mexicanos would be near default without the Mexican government’s support, Moody’s Investors Service said, downgrading the state oil company’s debt further into junk territory. The credit rating company lowered Pemex’s corporate debt to “B3” from “B1” and maintained its “negative” outlook, according to a statement on Friday. Another measure that considers government dependence, which Moody’s calls the Baseline Credit Assessment, was cut to “ca” from “caa3,” indicating the company would be highly likely to default without backing from the state. Pemex, the world’s most indebted oil company, has seen its debt burden balloon to around US$106 billion while production lags and profits slump.
BRAIN IMPLANTS
Neuralink goes to Nevada
Elon Musk’s brain implant company, Neuralink Corp, switched the location of its business incorporation to Nevada from Delaware, according to the office of the Nevada secretary of state and a notice sent to shareholders in the company. The change, completed on Thursday, follows Musk’s outburst against Delaware after a judge there struck down his US$55 billion Tesla Inc compensation package. In a post on X, the social network he owns, Musk advised founders not to incorporate in the state.
CANADA
Jobs data raise eyebrows
A stronger-than-expected jobs report on Friday led some of Canada’s more dovish forecasters to revise their views on when they think the central bank will start cutting interest rates. The shift came after the nation’s job market on Friday reported the biggest gains in four months last month. The unemployment rate fell to 5.7 percent, the first such decline since December 2022. Capital Economics’ Stephen Brown and Desjardins Securities’ Royce Mendes joined the consensus of economists in a Bloomberg survey who see the Bank of Canada lowering its policy rate at its June 5 decision. Previously, both firms were expecting a cut in April.
CHEMICALS
BASF to shed China stakes
German chemical company BASF AG said on Friday it was speeding up the sale of stakes in two joint ventures in China after its local partner was accused in media reports of human rights abuses. BASF said in a news release that the market for the industrial chemicals made at the production sites in Korla in China’s Xinjiang region was under increased competitive pressure and oversupplied. The company said it had already begun the divestment process. However, it added that recent reports had contained “serious allegations” about activities “inconsistent with BASF’s values.” The company said it remained committed to the China market.
MUSIC
Sony buying half of Jackson
Sony Group Corp is acquiring a half interest in pop star Michael Jackson’s music catalog from the late singer’s estate for at least US$600 million, Billboard reported, saying it’s the largest such deal ever. The agreement might also include songs from other artists that are part of the Mijac publishing catalog, the music industry publication reported, citing sources it did not identify. The assets include ownership of master recordings and publishing for Jackson’s share of his songs, as well as the Mijac catalog. Jackson’s estate had earlier sold its half interest in Sony/ATV Music Publishing, a joint venture that included the Beatles songs.
TECHNOLOGY
Bezos unloads shares
Jeff Bezos unloaded 12 million shares of Amazon.com Inc this week, the first time the billionaire has sold the company’s stock since 2021. The sales took place on Wednesday and Thursday and netted just over US$2 billion, according to a filing. Amazon disclosed on Feb. 2 that Bezos plans to sell as many as 50 million shares of Amazon over the next 12 months, potentially cashing in on a stock surge that has put him within reach of becoming the world’s richest person. His fortune has climbed US$22.6 billion this year to US$199.5 billion as of Friday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
ENERGY
Mergers to ramp up: Ebel
The surge in energy industry mergers and acquisitions — marked by a series of megadeals among oil producers last year — is set to ramp up further this year as interest rates decline, Enbridge Inc chief executive officer Greg Ebel said on Bloomberg Television on Friday. “After a couple years of tightening you see a couple years of easing, and people will be looking for those growth opportunities,” Ebel said. The energy industry has seen a wave of consolidation in recent months, including Exxon Mobil Corp’s US$60 billion purchase of Pioneer Natural Resources Co and Chevron Corp’s US$53 billion takeover of Hess Corp.
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Huawei Technologies Co’s (華為) latest smartphones carry a version of the advanced made-in-China processor it revealed last year, results from an independent analysis showed. This underscored the Chinese company’s ability to sustain production of the controversial chip. The Pura 70 series unveiled last week sports the Kirin 9010 processor, research firm TechInsights found during a teardown of the device. This is a newer version of the Kirin 9000s, made by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) for the Mate 60 Pro, which had alarmed officials in Washington who thought a 7-nanometer chip was beyond China’s capabilities. Huawei has enjoyed a resurgence since
IMPROVEMENT EXPECTED: The company holds a cautiously optimistic view about this year, an official said, adding that an increase in wafer shipments is predicted United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) yesterday reported its weakest quarterly net profit in three years, which it attributed to a prolonged inventory correction. However, the company said it expects wafer shipments to grow about 3 percent this quarter as demand from communication and computer segments is to pick up from last quarter. Net profit plunged 35.4 percent to NT$10.46 billion (US$321.6 million) in the first quarter of the year, compared with NT$16.18 billion a year earlier, making it the worst quarterly performance since the first quarter of 2021. On a quarterly basis, net profit declined 20.8 percent from NT$13.2 billion, the Hsinchu-based