■ INVESTMENT
E.Sun to buy back bonds
E.Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金控) said it would buy back US$267 million of bonds convertible into shares. E.Sun will purchase the bonds, issued in 2006, after an investor exercised the right to sell the securities, the Taipei-based company said in a filing to the stock exchange. The investor held a put option, which gives the holder of a security the right to sell under certain conditions. The terms of the bond and the identity of the seller were not provided in the statement. Temasek Holdings Pte, the Singapore government's investment company, bought the bonds in March 2006, the two companies said in a statement at that time.
■ INTERNET
'Spam king' admits guilt
A man once described as one of the world's top e-mail spammers pleaded guilty in Seattle, Washington, on Friday to federal charges of mail fraud, wire fraud, and failure to file a tax return. Robert Alan Soloway, 29, was dubbed "the spam king" by prosecutors who said he used networks of compromised computers to send out millions upon millions of junk e-mails since 2003. He was arrested last summer and charged in a 40-count indictment. He agreed to plead guilty to the three charges and the rest were dropped, including e-mail fraud, aggravated identity theft and numerous other counts of mail and wire fraud. He could face up to 20 years in prison.
■ FOOD
Venezuela buys meat chain
The Venezuelan government has bought a private chain of meatpacking plants and has its sights set on a major dairy company, President Hugo Chavez said on Friday, as the country seeks to stem sporadic shortages of food staples. Chavez said the government purchased the meat plants as part of its efforts to improve food distribution while moving toward a socialist state. He did not identify the company or give details, but said it represents a majority of the country's meatpacking and cold-storage transport facilities. "We've nationalized a great chain," Chavez said, adding that the government bought it outright without "trampling" the seller's rights.
■ ELECTRONICS
US game sales jump 34%
US sales of video game hardware and software last month jumped 34 percent to US$1.33 billion, as Sony's PlayStation 3 outsold Microsoft's Xbox 360 for the second month running. Both consoles still trailed far behind Nintendo's Wii, which sold 432,000 units, compared to the PS3's 281,000 and Xbox 360's 255,000 units, market research firm NPD said. Overall the top selling console was Nintendo's handheld DS, which sold 588,000 units. Software sales last month were up 47 percent year-on-year, while hardware sales rose 19 percent, NPD said.
■ BANKING
Dresdner to split activities
Dresdner Bank, part of the giant Allianz insurance group, will split up its investment and retail banking activities, a spokesman said on Friday. The two entities would initially remain under the control of a single holding group, the spokesman said, confirming a report in the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. No job cuts were foreseen, he said, speaking after a meeting of Dresdner Bank's supervisory board that sealed the deal. The announcement had been expected because the investment bank division, known as Dresdner Kleinwort, has posed problems for some time and has been hit hard by the US subprime home loan crisis.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
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