■INVESTMENT
Chinatrust to raise NT$44bn
Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控), Taiwan’s fourth-largest listed financial services company, plans to raise NT$44.35 billion (US$1.3 billion) in a private placement of shares. The company plans to sell 2.5 billion shares at NT$17.74 each, it said in an exchange filing on Friday. Chinatrust Financial will use the funds “to strengthen capital and financial structure, inject working capital for long-term operation and business expansion,” the company said in the filing. Chinatrust Financial and Primus Financial Holdings Ltd have placed the highest bids for Nan Shan Life Insurance Co (南山人壽), the Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported yesterday, citing unnamed sources. Chinatrust Financial has offered to pay US$2.1 billion for Nan Shan, American International Group Inc’s Taiwan unit, while Primus has placed a US$2 billion bid, the paper said.
■AUTOMAKERS
China sales expected to soar
China’s vehicle sales may rise 28 percent this year, according to the nation’s top planning agency, likely enough for the country to surpass the US as the world’s largest auto market. Full-year sales may reach as high as 12 million vehicles, Chen Bin (陳斌), chief director of the industry coordination department at the National Development and Reform Commission, said yesterday at a conference in Tianjin. US sales will likely be around 10.5 million, according to both General Motors Co and Ford Motor Co. China has boosted auto sales this year through tax cuts and subsidies as a part of a wider 4 trillion yuan (US$586 billion) stimulus that has shielded the country from the worst of the global recession.
■BEVERAGES
Coca-Cola grows in Vietnam
The Coca-Cola Company said it would double its investment in Vietnam to US$400 million. The firm said it would invest, in conjunction with its local bottler, an additional US$200 million in the country over the next three years. Since returning to Vietnam in 1994, Coca-Cola has already invested US$200 million and has three bottling plants: in the north, central and southern parts of the country, the company said in a statement on Friday. “Vietnam is a very important growth market to The Coca-Cola Company,” the firm’s chairman and chief executive officer Muhtar Kent said in the statement.
■AUTOMAKERS
Suzuki eyes new India plant
Japan’s Suzuki Motor Corp plans to build a new plant in India in 2011 in a bid to meet growing demand for cars in the country, a newspaper reported yesterday. The manufacturer of small cars and motorcycles plans to invest about ¥30 billion (US$323 million) in construction of a plant with annual production capacity of 300,000 vehicles, the Nikkei business daily said. The firm will build the plant near its production base in Manesar near New Delhi, where Suzuki has already been producing 300,000 units a year with its Indian partner, the daily’s evening edition said.
■BANKING
US failures hit 89 this year
US bank regulators closed four Midwestern banks and one in Arizona on Friday, bringing to 89 the number of US banks to fail this year as deteriorating loans continue to take their toll on financial institutions. The five failures will cost the FDIC deposit insurance fund an estimated US$401.3 million, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp said. Last year, 25 US banks were seized by officials, up from only three in 2007.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday obtained the government’s approval to inject an additional US$7.5 billion into its US subsidiary, the Department of Investment Review said in a statement. The department approved TSMC’s application of investing in TSMC Arizona Corp, which is engaged in the manufacturing, sales, testing and design of IC and other semiconductor devices, it said. The latest capital injection follows a US$5 billion investment for TSMC Arizona approved in June. The chipmaker has broken ground on two advanced fabs in Arizona with aggregated investments approved by the department totaling US$24 billion thus far. According to TSMC, the first Arizona
The lethal hack of Hezbollah’s Asian-branded pagers and walkie-talkies has sparked an intense search for the devices’ path, revealing a murky market for older technologies where buyers might have few assurances about what they are getting. While supply chains and distribution channels for higher-margin and newer products are tightly managed, that is not the case for older electronics from Asia where counterfeiting, surplus inventories and complex contract manufacturing deals can sometimes make it impossible to identify the source of a product, analysts and consultants say. The response from the companies at the center of the booby-trapped gadgets that killed 37
FRIENDLY TAKEOVER: While Qualcomm Inc’s proposal to buy some or all of Intel raises the prospect of other competitors, Broadcom Inc is staying on the sidelines Qualcomm Inc has approached Intel Corp to discuss a potential acquisition of the struggling chipmaker, people with knowledge of the matter said, raising the prospect of one of the biggest-ever merger and acquisition deals. California-based Qualcomm proposed a friendly takeover for Intel in recent days, said the sources, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential information. The proposal is for all of the chipmaker, although Qualcomm has not ruled out buying some parts of Intel and selling off others. It is uncertain whether the initial approach would lead to an agreement and any deal is likely to come under close antitrust scrutiny
SECURITY CONCERNS: The proposed ban on Chinese autonomous vehicle software and hardware would go into effect with the 2027 and 2030 model years respectively The US Department of Commerce today is expected to propose prohibiting Chinese software and hardware in connected and autonomous vehicles on US roads due to national security concerns, two sources said. US President Joe Biden’s administration has raised concerns about the collection of data by Chinese companies on US drivers and infrastructure as well as the potential foreign manipulation of vehicles connected to the Internet and navigation systems. The proposed regulation would ban the import and sale of vehicles from China with key communications or automated driving system software or hardware, said the two sources, who declined to be identified because the