Business
US to take 10% equity stake in Intel | The Express Tribune
WASHINGTON:
President Donald Trump said on Friday the US would take a 10% stake in Intel under a deal with the struggling chipmaker that converts government grants into an equity share — the latest extraordinary intervention by the White House in corporate America.
The deal puts Trump on better terms with Intel Chief Executive Officer Lip-Bu Tan, after the president recently said the CEO should step down due to conflicts of interest. It will ensure that the chipmaker will receive about $10 billion in funds for building or expanding factories in the US.
Under the agreement, the US will purchase a 9.9% stake in Intel for $8.9 billion, or $20.47 per share, which represents a discount of about $4 from Intel’s closing share price of $24.80 on Friday.
The purchase of 433.3 million Intel shares will be made with funding from the $5.7 billion in unpaid grants from the Biden-era CHIPS Act and $3.2 billion awarded to Intel for the Secure Enclave programme, also awarded under Trump’s predecessor, Democratic President Joe Biden. Intel’s stock rose roughly 1% in the extended session on Friday after closing up 5.5% during regular trading.
Trump met with Tan on Friday, a White House official said. That followed Trump’s August 11 meeting with the Intel CEO after the president demanded that Tan resign over his ties to Chinese firms.
“He walked in wanting to keep his job and he ended up giving us $10 billion for the United States. So we picked up $10 billion,” Trump said on Friday. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on X that Tan had struck a deal “that’s fair to Intel and fair to the American People.”
Playing catch up
The Intel investment marks the latest unusual deal with US companies, including a US government agreement allowing AI chip giant Nvidia to sell its H20 chips to China in exchange for receiving 15% of those sales.
Other recent deals include an agreement for the Pentagon to become the largest shareholder in a small mining company, MP Materials, to boost output of rare earth magnets and the US government winning a “golden share” with certain veto rights as part of a deal to allow Japan’s Nippon Steel to buy US Steel.
The federal government’s broad intervention in corporate matters has worried critics, who say Trump’s actions create new categories of corporate risk. Ahead of the US deal with Intel, Japan’s SoftBank agreed to take a $2 billion stake in the chipmaker on Monday.
Intel is getting a $2 billion capital injection from SoftBank Group in a major vote of confidence for the troubled US chipmaker in the middle of a turnaround.
The equity investment, announced by the companies, is a lifeline for the once-iconic US firm, which has struggled to compete after years of management blunders that left it with virtually no foothold in the booming artificial intelligence chip industry.
It will make SoftBank a top-10 shareholder of Intel and add to the Japanese tech investor’s ambitious bet on semiconductor and AI assets that includes the $500 billion Stargate US datacentre project.
SoftBank also held talks with Intel on buying its contract chipmaking business ahead of the investment announcement, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, citing multiple people with knowledge of the talks.
Some industry observers still question Intel’s ability to surmount its problems. Daniel Morgan, Senior Portfolio Manager at Synovus Trust, said Intel’s problems are beyond a cash infusion from SoftBank or equity interest from the government, singalling out Intel’s contract chip manufacturing business, known as its foundry unit.
“Without government support or another financially stronger partner, it will be difficult for the Intel foundry unit to raise enough capital to continue to build out more Fabs at a reasonable rate,” he said. Intel “needs to catch up with TSMC from a technological perspective to attract business,” he added.
1729471601-0/image-(8)1729471601-0-640x480.webp "Pakistan’s crisis differs from world | The Express Tribune")
Business
Stock Market Live Updates: Sensex, Nifty Hit Record Highs; Bank Nifty Climbs 60,000 For The First Time
Stock Market News Live Updates: Indian equity benchmarks opened with a strong gap-up on Monday, December 1, touching fresh record highs, buoyed by a sharp acceleration in Q2FY26 GDP growth to a six-quarter peak of 8.2%. Positive cues from Asian markets further lifted investor sentiment.
The BSE Sensex was trading at 85,994, up 288 points or 0.34%, after touching an all-time high of 86,159 in early deals. The Nifty 50 stood at 26,290, higher by 87 points or 0.33%, after scaling a record intraday high of 26,325.8.
Broader markets also saw gains, with the Midcap index rising 0.27% and the Smallcap index advancing 0.52%.
On the sectoral front, the Nifty Bank hit a historic milestone by crossing the 60,000 mark for the first time, gaining 0.4% to touch a fresh peak of 60,114.05.
Meanwhile, the Metal and PSU Bank indices climbed 0.8% each in early trade.
Global cues
Asia-Pacific markets were mostly lower on Monday as traders assessed fresh Chinese manufacturing data and increasingly priced in the likelihood of a US Federal Reserve rate cut later this month.
According to the CME FedWatch Tool, markets are now assigning an 87.4 per cent probability to a rate cut at the Fed’s December 10 meeting.
China’s factory activity unexpectedly slipped back into contraction in November, with the RatingDog China General Manufacturing PMI by S&P Global easing to 49.9, below expectations of 50.5, as weak domestic demand persisted.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped 1.6 per cent, while the broader Topix declined 0.86 per cent. In South Korea, the Kospi dropped 0.30 per cent and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was down 0.31 per cent.
US stock futures were steady in early Asian trade after a positive week on Wall Street. On Friday, in a shortened post-Thanksgiving session, the Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.65 per cent to 23,365.69, its fifth consecutive day of gains.
The S&P 500 rose 0.54 per cent to 6,849.09, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 289.30 points, or 0.61 per cent, to close at 47,716.42.
Osmond ChiaBusiness reporter
Getty ImagesSouth Korea’s largest online retailer, Coupang, has apologised for a massive data breach potentially involving nearly 34 million local customer accounts.
The country’s internet authority said that it is investigating the breach and that details from the millions of accounts have likely been exposed.
Coupang is often described as South Korea’s equivalent of Amazon.com. The breach marks the latest in a series of data leaks at major firms in the country, including its telecommunications giant, SK Telecom.
Coupang told the BBC it became aware of the unauthorised access of personal data of about 4,500 customer accounts on 18 November and immediately reported it to the authorities.
But later checks found that some 33.7 million customer accounts – all in South Korea – were likely exposed, said Coupang, adding that the breach is believed to have begun as early as June through a server based overseas.
The exposed data is limited to name, email address, phone number, shipping address and some order histories, Coupang said.
No credit card information or login credentials were leaked. Those details remain securely protected and no action is required from Coupang users at this point, the firm added.
The number of accounts affected by the incident represents more than half of South Korea’s roughly-52 million population.
Coupang, which is founded in South Korea and headquartered in the US, said recently that it had nearly 25 million active users.
Coupang apologised to its customers and warned them to stay alert to scams impersonating the company.
The firm did not give details on who is behind the breach.
South Korean media outlets reported on Sunday that a former Coupang employee from China was suspected of being behind the breach.
The authorities are assessing the scale of the breach as well as whether Coupang had broken any data protection safety rules, South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT said in a statement.
“As the breach involves the contact details and addresses of a large number of citizens, the Commission plans to conduct a swift investigation and impose strict sanctions if it finds a violation of the duty to implement safety measures under the Protection Act.”
The incident marks the latest in a series of breaches affecting major South Korean companies this year, despite the country’s reputation for stringent data privacy rules.
SK Telecom, South Korea’s largest mobile operator, was fined nearly $100m (£76m) over a data breach involving more than 20 million subscribers.
In September, Lotte Cards also said the data of nearly three million customers was leaked after a cyber-attack on the credit card firm.
Agency workers hired to cover Birmingham bin strikers will join them on picket lines on Monday, a union has said.
A rally will be held by Unite The Union at Smithfield Depot on Pershore Street, Birmingham, on Monday morning to mark the first day of strike action by agency refuse workers.
Unite said the Job & Talent agency workers had voted in favour of strike action “over bullying, harassment and the threat of blacklisting at the council’s refuse department two weeks ago”.
The union said the number of agency workers who will join the strike action is “growing daily”.
Strikes by directly-employed bin workers, which have been running since January, could continue beyond May’s local elections.
The directly-employed bin workers voted in favour of extending their industrial action mandate earlier this month.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Birmingham council will only resolve this dispute when it stops the appalling treatment of its workforce.
“Agency workers have now joined with directly-employed staff to stand up against the massive injustices done to them.
“Instead of wasting millions more of council taxpayers’ money fighting a dispute it could settle justly for a fraction of the cost, the council needs to return to talks with Unite and put forward a fair deal for all bin workers.
“Strikes will not end until it does.”
Stock Market Live Updates: Sensex, Nifty Hit Record Highs; Bank Nifty Climbs 60,000 For The First Time
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