■ TELECOMS
CHT investing in Global
Chunghwa Telecom Co (CHT, 中華電信) will purchase an 11 percent stake in Global Mobile Corp (全球一動), one of the WiMAX license holders in Taiwan, for NT$120 million (US$3.6 million), after the nation’s telecommunications regulator reversed a March ruling to allow CHT to tap into the emerging WiMAX market, the Chinese-language Commercial Times reported yesterday, citing unnamed sources. CHT may further increase its investment in Global Mobile when the latter seeks recapitalization in future, the paper said.
■ TRANSPORT
China to extend railway
China will invest US$292 billion in its overburdened rail system as a stimulus measure aimed at blunting the impact of the global financial crisis, state media said yesterday. The investment is part of plans to extend the nation’s railway network from roughly 125,500km now to 160,000km by 2010, Shanghai’s Oriental Morning Post reported. Beijing News quoted a rail official as saying that while the network needed extending, the investment was also intended to help lift the local economy as it suffers amid the global woes.
■ INTERNET
Yahoo to invest US$100m
Yahoo Inc says it will invest at least US$100 million in a new data center and a new service center in Nebraska, creating at least 100 jobs. The announcement on Friday from the Internet company and Nebraska officials comes just days after Yahoo said it would lay off 10 percent of its employees, or 1,500 people, citing a 64 percent drop in its third-quarter profit. Asked about the creation of new jobs while company employees were being let go, Kevin Timmons, Yahoo’s vice president of operations, said the company’s infrastructure needs continue to grow.
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AUTOMOBILES
Chrysler to slash staff
As talks over the potential sale of Chrysler LLC continued, the struggling automaker told workers on Friday that it would slash 25 percent of its salaried work force and make further cuts to deal with a continued downward spiral in US auto sales. Chrysler, which has about 18,500 white-collar workers, will get rid of about 5,000 salaried workers and contract employees — those who work for other companies under contract with the automaker. Chief executive Bob Nardelli, in a memo to employees, warned that more restructuring was coming at a pace faster than before.
■ FINANCE
Authorities seize Alpha Bank
US authorities said on Friday they had seized troubled regional bank Alpha Bank, the 16th bank failure this year. The Georgia-based Alpha Bank & Trust was officially closed on Friday, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC), which insures up to US$250,000 in individual banking deposits, said in a statement. The FDIC said it would continue to insure Alpha’s deposits and that another regional bank, Stearns Bank in Minnesota, would take over the failed bank’s two branches.
■ FINANCE
Unibanco wants AIG unit
Brazilian bank Unibanco says it has made an offer to the Federal Reserve to acquire the local insurance operations of financially troubled American International Group. A spokeswoman for Uniao de Bancos Brasileiros SA says the bank is waiting for the Fed to respond to its offer. She said on Friday that the bank has a 52 percent stake in local insurance company Unibanco AIG, while AIG has a 48 percent stake.
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
VERTICAL INTEGRATION: The US fabless company’s acquisition of the data center manufacturer would not affect market competition, the Fair Trade Commission said The Fair Trade Commission has approved Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s (AMD) bid to fully acquire ZT International Group Inc for US$4.9 billion, saying it would not hamper market competition. As AMD is a fabless company that designs central processing units (CPUs) used in consumer electronics and servers, while ZT is a data center manufacturer, the vertical integration would not affect market competition, the commission said in a statement yesterday. ZT counts hyperscalers such as Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc and Google among its major clients and plays a minor role in deciding the specifications of data centers, given the strong bargaining power of
TARIFF SURGE: The strong performance could be attributed to the growing artificial intelligence device market and mass orders ahead of potential US tariffs, analysts said The combined revenue of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange for the whole of last year totaled NT$44.66 trillion (US$1.35 trillion), up 12.8 percent year-on-year and hit a record high, data compiled by investment consulting firm CMoney showed on Saturday. The result came after listed firms reported a 23.92 percent annual increase in combined revenue for last month at NT$4.1 trillion, the second-highest for the month of December on record, and posted a 15.63 percent rise in combined revenue for the December quarter at NT$12.25 billion, the highest quarterly figure ever, the data showed. Analysts attributed the