Business

Renesas Electronics, agreed yesterday to acquire Australian circuit board design tools company Altium for a USD $5.8 billion valuation, its latest bid in “​​expanding its product portfolio,” according to the company’s press release. 

Renesas, which primarily supplies chips to carmakers like Toyota and Nissan, has been aggressively attempting to broaden its business scope beyond automotives into Internet of Things (IoT) and infrastructure software. The Altium acquisition is the company’s fourth largest deal since 2017; its last acquisition was Apple’s semiconductor supplier Dialog for USD $4.9 billion in 2021. 

Japan has placed a huge bet on the semiconductor industry as a means to revitalize its stagnating economy. Japanese firms, many of which have deep cash reserves, are expanding overseas investments in a bid to capture more points of the international market share due to waning domestic demand. 

An increase in corporate savings since 2000, with earnings placed in cash holdings over investments, have given Japanese companies the ability to make large purchases at an accelerated rate. 

Some major recent acquisitions include Nippon Steel’s agreement to buy United States Steel at a 40% premium and government backed fund Japanese Investment Corp’s goal to purchase semiconductor company JSR for USD $6.3 billion. Maybe use another word for bid, its used a few times

Reneseas is purchasing Altium at a share price 31% above its all-time high. After the deal announcement, Altium’s shares shot up 30%. 

Altium’s board accepted the deal as no other superior offer had been provided and an independent expert advised that this move would be in the best interests of the shareholders. 

“Given unanimous support from the board, as well as the large premium to prior close, we would expect the transaction to be supported and go through,” E&P Capital analyst Paul Mason wrote to clients in a note. 

However, some market players are not sure about this deal’s long-term projection after Renesas’s shares lowered by 2.5% when the news broke. 

Intel unveiled last week at its first ever foundry services event that Microsoft would be utilizing its manufacturing arm to build custom 18mm chips. 

The chip manufacturing market has historically been dominated by a few players, with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC) currently owning more than 50%. In contrast, Intel holds a little over 2%. 

At the event, CEO Pat Gelsinger outlined a strategic vision that included acquiring external customers to overtake the current leader TSMC’s position in the market. 

Intel, a first mover in chipmaking, has faced increased competition in recent years, losing market share to new entrants like TSMC and Nvidia.

Now, the company is hoping to woo customers who are concerned about TSMC concentrating its most advanced chip making technology in Taiwan as geopolitical tensions with China persist. Additionally, it hopes that customers will see its long history of chip manufacturing since 1971 and organizational ability to manage multiple factories across continents as further value-adds. 

But, as countries fight over this critical technology, Intel may be poised to benefit from a move by other tech enterprises towards its own foundry services. Intel is already counting on billions in subsidies from the U.S. government to build chip factories across the country.

Experts told Reuters that Intel’s push towards broadening its chip making business is vital to its turnaround. However, they argued that it will take several years to see if the move to expand foundry services is what puts Intel back on top. 

Across the board earnings beats from the world’s largest tech companies have surprised analysts, as cloud computing and job cuts help bulwark against the bleak economic climate.

Mega cap tech stocks Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Facebook (now Meta) all exceeded Wall Street’s revenue expectations for the first quarter of 2023, driven by better-than-expected growth in cloud computing and resilience in ad sales.

The cloud market leader Amazon Web Services grew sales by 16% to $21.4 billion, while Microsoft’s Azure grew revenue by 27% to $28.5 billion. Even the lagging Google Cloud turned a profit for the first time since inception with sales growing 28% to $7.5 billion.

[Read more…] about BIG TECH HAS IT’S HEAD IN THE CLOUDS – CATCHES WALL STREET BY SURPRISE

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy has proposed legislation to raise the debt ceiling in a rebuke of the Biden Administration’s goals for the U.S. economy. Among the hundreds of sections in the GOP debt ceiling proposal are a string of repeals to Biden-era clean energy investments and tax credits that would stifle any momentum gained by the electric vehicle industry.

At a time when electric vehicle purchases are booming, due to a combination of Biden’s tax credit and the price war being waged by auto manufacturers, the GOP proposal would seriously hamper the nation’s ability to meet the bold EPA goal to increase EV sales by as much as 1,000% by 2032. 

[Read more…] about GOP Debt Ceiling Proposal May Gut the EV future

Following the announcement of USA TODAY chief editor’s resignation, staff downsizing has also been observed in other top media outlets, including BuzzFeed News and Insider.

“The economic headwinds that have hurt many of our clients and partners are also affecting us,” Barbara Peng, the president of Insider, wrote in a memo to employees that the media organization will lay off 10% of its staffers, Daily Beast reported.

“Unfortunately, to keep our company healthy and competitive, we need to reduce the size of our team,” she added.

The recent job cuts are indicative of a wider downturn in both the media and tech industries. This decline comes after the rapid growth observed in the aftermath of the pandemic, which has since significantly slowed down in tandem with a decelerating economy.

Meanwhile, via email to NBC News, Jonah Peretti, the CEO and co-founder of BuzzFeed, explained that the company’s recent job cuts were due to a 15% decrease in the workforce across several teams.

[Read more…] about BuzzFeed and Insider followed USA TODAY’s staff downsizing move

Tesla shares experienced their second-largest trading loss of the year after the first-quarter earnings of the electric vehicle giant fell short of market expectations. This has raised concerns about the impact of the repeated price cuts on the company’s profitability.

The stock slumped Thursday by 9.75% on Nasdaq to close at $162.99, marking the largest decline the company has seen since January 3rd. The current price is the cheapest in three months, and comes after the electric vehicle company’s gross margin dropped below 20% for the first time in almost three years. [Read more…] about Tesla slumps to three-month low as earnings miss estimates 

Twitter removed its iconic blue check marks from legacy verified users starting on April 20. 

The blue check marks have been removed from celebrities, journalists and public figures who haven’t signed up for subscriptions. Beyonce, Kim Kardashian, Pope Francis, Bill Gates, former president Donald Trump, and even Twitter founder Jack Dorsey lost their blue badges.  [Read more…] about Elon Musk Begins Dropping Blue Checkmarks

Although the lyrics read like a meme song, Jack Black’s “Peaches” from the Super Mario Brothers Movie made it onto the Billboard Hot 100 this week. Debuting at number 83 with more than 20 million streams, the song features Black’s Bowser singing about the titular princess. 

[Read more…] about Jack Black’s “Peaches” Debuts on Billboard Hot 100