Ting Hsin International Group (頂新集團) yesterday said it is in talks with multiple potential buyers to sell its full holdings in Taipei Financial Center Corp (TFCC, 台北金融大樓), although the food conglomerate declined to confirm if Japan’s Itochu Corp is among those participating in the negotiation.
Ting Hsin owns a 37.2 percent stake in TFCC, which operates the Taipei 101 skyscraper.
Speculations yesterday surfaced that Ting Hsin was planning to sell its TFCC shares to Itochu, a major shareholder in the food conglomerate, and was considering proposing to the board of directors to allow the Japanese retailer to complete due diligence by the end of next month at the earliest, local media reported yesterday.
Ting Hsin declined to comment on the speculation, saying only that a number of potential buyers at home and from abroad are interested in the share sale. The company has been seeking potential buyers of the TFCC shares, but nothing substantial has been reached, the company said.
In 2014, Ting Hsin had planned to sell its TFCC holdings in an attempt to entirely exit the Taiwanese market following a major food scandal over the use of substandard oil and a subsequent boycott of its products by consumers.
However, Ting Hsin has had difficulty off-loading its TFCC shares since then.
In 2015, Blackstone Group, one of the world’s largest private equity funds, approached Ting Hsin to buy all of its shares in TFCC for NT$16.4 billion (US$546 million), or NT$30 a share. The talks ended without results.
Before that, Malaysian investment company IOI Properties Group Bhd in 2014 had bid to buy all of Ting Hsin’s TFCC shares for NT$25.14 billion, or NT$45 each, but that transaction was thwarted by the Ministry of Finance, which holds the biggest stake of TFCC at 52 percent.
The ministry voted against the deal as it suspected Chinese investors were behind IOI Properties.
The Eurovision Song Contest has seen a surge in punter interest at the bookmakers, becoming a major betting event, experts said ahead of last night’s giant glamfest in Basel. “Eurovision has quietly become one of the biggest betting events of the year,” said Tomi Huttunen, senior manager of the Online Computer Finland (OCS) betting and casino platform. Betting sites have long been used to gauge which way voters might be leaning ahead of the world’s biggest televised live music event. However, bookmakers highlight a huge increase in engagement in recent years — and this year in particular. “We’ve already passed 2023’s total activity and
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) today announced that his company has selected "Beitou Shilin" in Taipei for its new Taiwan office, called Nvidia Constellation, putting an end to months of speculation. Industry sources have said that the tech giant has been eyeing the Beitou Shilin Science Park as the site of its new overseas headquarters, and speculated that the new headquarters would be built on two plots of land designated as "T17" and "T18," which span 3.89 hectares in the park. "I think it's time for us to reveal one of the largest products we've ever built," Huang said near the
China yesterday announced anti-dumping duties as high as 74.9 percent on imports of polyoxymethylene (POM) copolymers, a type of engineering plastic, from Taiwan, the US, the EU and Japan. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce’s findings conclude a probe launched in May last year, shortly after the US sharply increased tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, computer chips and other imports. POM copolymers can partially replace metals such as copper and zinc, and have various applications, including in auto parts, electronics and medical equipment, the Chinese ministry has said. In January, it said initial investigations had determined that dumping was taking place, and implemented preliminary
Intel Corp yesterday reinforced its determination to strengthen its partnerships with Taiwan’s ecosystem partners including original-electronic-manufacturing (OEM) companies such as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and chipmaker United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電). “Tonight marks a new beginning. We renew our new partnership with Taiwan ecosystem,” Intel new chief executive officer Tan Lip-bu (陳立武) said at a dinner with representatives from the company’s local partners, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the US chip giant’s presence in Taiwan. Tan took the reins at Intel six weeks ago aiming to reform the chipmaker and revive its past glory. This is the first time Tan