China Investment Corp (中國投資) is backing a potential takeover of Yum China Holdings Inc (百勝中國), which runs KFC and Pizza Hut outlets in the world’s most populous nation, people with knowledge of the matter said.
The sovereign fund and DCP Capital, an investment firm run by former KKR & Co senior executives, are part of a consortium with Hillhouse Capital Group that was considering a buyout of Yum China, the people said.
Baring Private Equity Asia has also joined the investor group, which already includes KKR, said the people, who asked for anonymity.
Yum China shares have fallen 14.5 percent this year, giving it a market value of US$13.1 billion in New York.
The consortium was considering taking Yum China private, with an eye to potentially relisting the business in Hong Kong at a later date, one of the people said.
A takeover of the company, which was spun off from Yum Brands Inc in 2016, would be the biggest-ever Chinese takeover of a consumer firm, data compiled by Bloomberg showed.
Private equity firm Primavera Capital, which owned 4.3 percent of Yum China as of June, has been weighing options for its stake in the company and could consider joining a bidding group, the people said.
No final decisions have been made and the makeup of the investment group could still change, the people added.
DCP Capital was started last year by buyout veterans including David Liu (劉海峰), the former China head and cohead of Asia private equity at KKR.
In May, it agreed to invest in Venus Medtech (杭州?明醫療), a Hangzhou, China-based developer of heart valve replacements that is backed by Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Yum China operates the country’s biggest network of fast-food restaurants, with about 8,200 outlets spread across more than 1,200 cities at the end of June, its latest results showed.
It has struggled to attract younger Chinese diners to its Pizza Hut restaurants in the face of increasing local competition and changing eating habits that favor healthier fare.
The potential takeover comes as an escalating trade war fuels speculation that China could turn to consumer boycotts as part of its pushback against US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained