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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: StanX Long who wrote (58679)	1/11/2002 12:21:09 AM
From: StanX Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Friday January 11, 11:12 AM British venture group seeks opportunities in chip slump By Jennifer Tan sg.news.yahoo.com SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The chip industry's notorious boom and bust cycles may be gut-wrenching to many, but for leading European venture capital firm 3i Group plc it is merely a storm in a teacup. The British private equity group, which has pumped money into two Singapore-based chip firms to date, believes in going in for the long haul and seeking opportunities even in the downturn. "It's immaterial to us whether we are at the downturn or the upturn, and some of our best investments were made during the downturn last year," 3i's Asia Pacific managing director Jane Crawford told Reuters in an interview. "There are fewer opportunities to invest in a recession, but the high value-added end of the semiconductor business is still a big growth area, unlike the commodity end, and it has been the value-added segment that has been growing through last year while the industry as a whole went down," she added. However, the venture capital firm has not remained unscathed in the face of the uncertain global economic outlook. 3i said in October it would cut 185 jobs and close seven offices as its investment returns plunged in line with the equity market downturn. The cutbacks represent 17 percent of the workforce.