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.
Taiwan’s rapidly aging population is fueling a sharp increase in homes occupied solely by elderly people, a trend that is reshaping the nation’s housing market and social fabric, real-estate brokers said yesterday. About 850,000 residences were occupied by elderly people in the first quarter, including 655,000 that housed only one resident, the Ministry of the Interior said. The figures have nearly doubled from a decade earlier, Great Home Realty Co (大家房屋) said, as people aged 65 and older now make up 20.8 percent of the population. “The so-called silver tsunami represents more than just a demographic shift — it could fundamentally redefine the
The US government on Wednesday sanctioned more than two dozen companies in China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, including offshoots of a US chip firm, accusing the businesses of providing illicit support to Iran’s military or proxies. The US Department of Commerce included two subsidiaries of US-based chip distributor Arrow Electronics Inc (艾睿電子) on its so-called entity list published on the federal register for facilitating purchases by Iran’s proxies of US tech. Arrow spokesman John Hourigan said that the subsidiaries have been operating in full compliance with US export control regulations and his company is discussing with the US Bureau of
Businesses across the global semiconductor supply chain are bracing themselves for disruptions from an escalating trade war, after China imposed curbs on rare earth mineral exports and the US responded with additional tariffs and restrictions on software sales to the Asian nation. China’s restrictions, the most targeted move yet to limit supplies of rare earth materials, represent the first major attempt by Beijing to exercise long-arm jurisdiction over foreign companies to target the semiconductor industry, threatening to stall the chips powering the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. They prompted US President Donald Trump on Friday to announce that he would impose an additional
Pegatron Corp (和碩), a key assembler of Apple Inc’s iPhones, on Thursday reported a 12.3 percent year-on-year decline in revenue for last quarter to NT$257.86 billion (US$8.44 billion), but it expects revenue to improve in the second half on traditional holiday demand. The fourth quarter is usually the peak season for its communications products, a company official said on condition of anonymity. As Apple released its new iPhone 17 series early last month, sales in the communications segment rose sequentially last month, the official said. Shipments to Apple have been stable and in line with earlier expectations, they said. Pegatron shipped 2.4 million notebook
RSS