■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.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors
RSS