Sat, May 13, 2023 page10

• World Business Quick Take

  • Agencies
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  SEMICONDUCTORS

  Softbank mulls Arm IPO

  Softbank Group Corp has started testing investor appetite for an initial public offering (IPO) of British chip designer Arm Ltd, which could raise as much as US$10 billion, people with knowledge of the matter said. The Japanese conglomerate might launch the share sale in New York as soon as September, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. The IPO is on course to be the largest globally this year, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Arm last month confidentially filed for a US listing. Goldman Sachs Group Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Barclays PLC and Mizuho Financial Group Inc were named as IPO banks in the filing, the people said. A left lead bank has not been identified yet, they said. Bankers have pitched a valuation of US$30 billion to US$70 billion for Arm, a wide range that reflects the challenges of valuing the firm against a backdrop of volatile semiconductor equity prices.

  MALAYSIA

  GDP expands 5.6% in Q1

  First-quarter economic growth beat expectations, with robust domestic demand justifying the central bank’s recent move to return borrowing costs to pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels. GDP for the January-March period rose 5.6 percent from a year earlier, data from Bank Negara Malaysia and the Department of Statistics showed yesterday. That is faster than the median estimate of 5.1 percent growth in a Bloomberg survey. On a sequential basis, GDP returned to positive territory at 0.9 percent. The economy’s resilience in the face of a global slowdown vindicates the central bank’s surprise resumption of policy tightening last week to manage inflationary pressures. It is also in line with the official forecast for growth of 4 to 5 percent this year amid a challenging world outlook.

  ENERGY

  Northvolt picks Germany

  Sweden’s Northvolt is to invest several billion euros to build a gigafactory in Germany that would supply about 1 million electric vehicles with battery cells every year, the lithium-ion battery maker and German government said in a joint statement yesterday. The federal government, as well as the Schleswig-Holstein state government, is to provide subsidies for the project in Heide, northern Germany, subject to approval by the European Commission, the statement said. If approved, the subsidies would be the first granted by Germany under the EU’s Temporary Crisis and Transition Framework, developed to support green industrial projects as Europe scrambled to provide a competitive offer to US subsidies provided by the Inflation Reduction Act. The investment would create 3,000 direct jobs in Heide.

  MACROECONOMICS

  US rates could stay high

  The US Federal Reserve would likely need to raise interest rates further and hold them higher for some time if US price pressures do not cool, and the jobs market shows no sign of slowing, Fed Board of Governors member Michelle Bowman said. “Should inflation remain high and the labor market remain tight, additional monetary policy tightening will likely be appropriate to attain a sufficiently restrictive stance of monetary policy,” Bowman said in remarks for delivery yesterday at a symposium at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, Germany. “I also expect that our policy rate will need to remain sufficiently restrictive for some time to bring inflation down and create conditions that will support a sustainably strong labor market,” Bowman said.
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