■FINANCE
Taiwan may sell stake
Taiwan’s government plans to sell its 3.8 percent stake in China Development Financial Holding Co (中華開發金控) next year, the Commercial Times reported yesterday, citing Minister of Finance Lee Sush-der (李述德). The Chinese-language newspaper said the government would sell the stake before China Development Financial elects a new board in the middle of next year.
■ELECTRONICS
Mediatek may invest in TMC
Mediatek Inc (聯發科), Taiwan’s biggest chip designer, and three other Taiwanese companies are evaluating a possible investment in Taiwan Memory Co (TMC, 台灣創新記憶體公司). Mediatek, China Development Financial Holding Corp (中華開發金控), King Yuan Electronics Co (京元電子) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶電腦) haven’t decided whether to invest in TMC, the four companies said in separate exchange filings on Friday. Siliconware Precision Industries Co (矽品精密) said on Thursday its board approved plans to invest up to NT$2 billion (US$61 million) in TMC.
■AUTOMOBILES
Qatar to buy more VW
Qatar Holding has announced it will acquire a 17 percent stake in Volkswagen AG, which is merging with Porsche, in a deal that will exceed US$10 billion. This comes after the Porsche and Piech families said they would sell a 10 percent stake of their shares to the Gulf company. In a statement released late on Friday, Qatar Holding said it would now be the third largest shareholder in VW, after Porsche and Lower Saxony. The purchase follows the UAE’s Aabar Investment acquisition in March of a 10 percent stake of Daimler AG.
■BANKING
Regulators close Colonial
US regulators on Friday shut down Colonial BancGroup Inc., a lender in real estate development, in the biggest US bank failure this year, and also closed four banks in Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania. The closures boosted to 77 the number of federally insured banks that have failed this year, compared with 25 last year and three in 2007. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp was appointed receiver of the banks: Montgomery, Alabama-based Colonial; Community Bank of Arizona, based in Phoenix; Union Bank, based in Gilbert, Arizona; Community Bank of Nevada, based in Las Vegas; and Dwelling House Savings and Loan Association, located in Pittsburgh.
■INVESTMENT
Berkshire reveals purchases
Billionaire Warren Buffett’s company revealed on Friday that it had bought a new stake in medical supply company Becton, Dickinson & Co and boosted its holdings in Johnson & Johnson during the second quarter. Berkshire Hathaway Inc disclosed those investments and several other changes to its roughly US$49 billion US stock portfolio in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
■OIL
Petrobas profits fall 12%
Brazil’s state-run oil company Petrobras saw profits fall 12 percent in the second quarter of this year mainly because of lower oil prices, the company said on Friday. Net income was 7.73 billion reals (US$4.2 billion) compared with 8.78 billion reals in the same quarter last year, Petroleo Brasileiro SA said in its earnings report. The decrease was caused by a 53 percent drop in oil prices, which went from an average US$109 a barrel in the first half of last year to an average US$52 a barrel in the first half of this year.
‘AL SILICON ISLAND’: Tainan is the birthplace of AMD chief executive officer Lisa Su, while TSMC is building a new fab to produce 2-nanometer chips in Kaohsiung Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) has chosen to locate its new research-and-development (R&D) centers in Tainan and Kaohsiung, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. The new facilities are part of a NT$8.64 billion (US$270.5 million) project to advance its development of cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and silicon photonics. AMD’s latest investment would help to develop Taiwan into an “AI silicon island,” the ministry said in a statement after Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) met AMD representatives led by David Wang (王啟尚), senior vice president of AMD’s graphics processing unit technologies and engineering, in Taipei yesterday. AMD did
As monsoon rains were about to break over Pakistan, 14-year-old Shamila and her 13-year-old sister Amina were married off in exchange for money, a decision their parents made to help the family survive the threat of floods. “I was happy to hear I was getting married... I thought my life would become easier,” Shamila said after her wedding to a man twice her age in hope of a more prosperous life. “But I have nothing more, and with the rain, I fear I will have even less, if that is possible.” Pakistan’s high rate of marriages for underage girls had been inching
LATE MOVE: If a deal goes ahead, upending Shin Kong Financial’s plans, CTBC Financial would be the financial conglomerate in Taiwan with the biggest assets CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金) yesterday said it is seeking regulatory approval to buy Shin Kong Financial Co (新光金) on the open market, casting a last-minute shadow over Taishin Financial Holding Co’s (台新金) bid. CTBC Financial, Taiwan’s third-largest financial conglomerate by assets, made known its intention in a stock exchange filing, just two days before Taishin Financial and Shin Kong Financial were to announce their merger through a share swap scheme. “We will supply more details over the buyout plan after the Financial Supervisory Commission [FSC] gives the go-ahead,” CTBC Financial said in the filing. The acquisition attempt, if realized, would enable CTBC
Japan has decided to apply foreign trade regulations to chipmaking equipment as part of its efforts to secure stable supply chains, the Japanese Ministry of Finance said yesterday. Foreign investors are now required to give prior notice when conducting direct investment in equipment tied to chipmaking, including when acquiring a 1 percent or bigger stake in a listed company or buying shares in an unlisted company, the ministry said in a statement. The move also aims to address the risk of technology leakage and keep commercial technologies from being used for military purposes, it said. Other products added to the list of