FIJI
World Bank issues warning
The country must take urgent action to reduce a debt burden that exceeds 90 percent of GDP or put at risk its recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and plans for sustainable economic development, the World Bank said yesterday. “Levels of [debt at] around 90% [of GDP] leave the country with limited buffers to address future shocks and highlight the scale and urgency of the fiscal consolidation required,” the bank said in a report. “This situation, combined with emerging global economic risks, threatens Fiji’s macro-fiscal stability, an essential foundation for sustainable economic and social development,” the report said.
PHARMACEUTICALS
GSK to buy Bellus Health
GlaxoSmithKline PLC (GSK) agreed to buy Canadian biotech Bellus Health Inc for a total equity value of about US$2 billion to bolster its pipeline of experimental medicines. The UK drugmaker is to pay US$14.75 per share in cash for Bellus, a 103 percent premium to the stock’s Monday close, it said in a statement yesterday. The takeover would bring GSK a treatment for chronic cough that has shown promising results in clinical trials and has advanced through much of the research process. Bellus’ experimental medicine camlipixant would probably launch in 2026 and the transaction would likely start boosting earnings per share in 2027, GSK said.
TECHNOLOGY
Apple offers savings account
Apple Inc introduced a long-promised high-yield savings account with Goldman Sachs Group Inc, looking to attract US financial clients with an attractive rate and the ease of its Wallet app. The new offering would let Apple Card users earn a 4.15 percent annual yield, more than 10 times the national average, the tech company said in a statement on Monday. The account has no fees, minimum deposit or balance requirements and can be set up from within the Wallet app. The move thrusts the tech company’s clout into a broader fight for depositors, potentially adding to the pressure on other financial firms that are trying to protect their funding.
SINGAPORE
MAS head to step down
Ravi Menon, the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) longest-serving managing director, is poised to leave the central bank this year, people familiar with the matter have said. Menon has been at the helm of the MAS since 2011 and his term ends on May 31. Chia Der Jiun (謝?真), one of his former deputies, is tipped to be his successor, the people said. Chia is the Ministry of Manpower’s permanent secretary for development.
TECHNOLOGY
Ericsson beats estimates
Ericsson AB reported better-than-expected first-quarter earnings, but said that a pull back in 5G spending in some of the company’s more mature markets was set to continue. The Swedish maker of mobile networks yesterday reported an adjusted earnings before interest and taxes of 4 billion kronor (US$387 million) in the quarter, more than the analysts’ estimate of 3.28 billion kronor. Revenue rose to 62.6 billion kronor, more than the expected 60.78 billion kronor. The company also gave guidance that the second-quarter earnings before interest, taxes and amortization margin would “reach mid-single-digit level” on the group level and gradually recover in the second half amid “a choppy environment during 2023 with poor visibility.”
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
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
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