■FINANCE
Goldman to bid for iShares
Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs is working on a bid for iShares, the asset management business being auctioned by British bank Barclays, newspaper reports said yesterday. The Financial Times said the business could be valued at up to US$6.5 billion, while the Daily Telegraph put the figure at US$5 billion. Other bidders include Bain Capital and a consortium led by buy-out firm Hellman & Friedman, they said. Barclays has fared better in the financial crisis than many of its British banking rivals, but said on March 16 it had approached “a number of potentially interested parties” about selling iShares.
■ELECTRONICS
Sanyo predicts loss
Japan’s Sanyo Electric Co said yesterday it expected a loss in the financial year ending this month, scrapping an earlier forecast that it would break even. Sanyo, which is being bought by its bigger rival Panasonic Corp, blamed the worse-than-expected performance on the cost of restructuring its businesses, in particular the ailing semiconductor division. The company now expects an annual net loss of ¥90 billion (US$918 million), compared with an earlier forecast of zero profits. It sees an operating loss of ¥30 billion, against an earlier projection of a ¥30 billion profit.
■ENERGY
Suncor to buy Petro-Canada
Suncor Energy Inc will acquire Petro-Canada for C$19.12 billion (US$15.5 billion), uniting two of Canada’s biggest oil companies as the nation’s energy industry retrenches. If the deal announced on Monday is approved, the combined company would be the largest oil company in Canada and have a market capitalization of about C$48 billion. That’s much smaller than global heavyweights such as Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips, which boast market capitalizations of US$326.6 billion and US$55.97 billion respectively, but the company would have some of the same benefits of scale.
■TRADE
South Korea, EU reach deal
South Korea and the EU have reached a tentative trade deal after almost two years of talks and will try to settle outstanding issues early next month, the two sides said yesterday. They “reached provisional agreement on almost all pending issues” during negotiations which began on Monday, Seoul’s foreign and trade ministry said in a statement. They failed to reach a deal on some contentious matters such as rules of origin for products, it said, adding final agreement would be sought at trade ministers’ talks in London on April 2. When concluded, the agreement would eliminate some 97 percent of tariffs on bilateral trade over the next five years, EU negotiator Ignacio Garcia Bercero told a press conference.
■MINING
Iron ore prices to drop
Iron ore prices are certain to fall this year, the first decline in seven years, but not by the 50 percent suggested by some steel makers, Rio Tinto said yesterday. “We need to recognise the fundamentals of the market and the market would show that it does need a downward adjustment this year,” Sam Walsh, head of Rio’s iron ore division, said on the sidelines of a mining conference. But given the potential for a recovery in industrial demand at some stage and indications from the spot ore market, prices don’t need to drop by half, Walsh said, breaking a tradition of keeping silent on price issues until talks are concluded.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
COORDINATION, ASSURANCE: Separately, representatives reintroduced a bill that asks the state department to review guidelines on how the US engages with Taiwan US senators on Tuesday introduced the Taiwan travel and tourism coordination act, which they said would bolster bilateral travel and cooperation. The bill, proposed by US senators Marsha Blackburn and Brian Schatz, seeks to establish “robust security screenings for those traveling to the US from Asia, open new markets for American industry, and strengthen the economic partnership between the US and Taiwan,” they said in a statement. “Travel and tourism play a crucial role in a nation’s economic security,” but Taiwan faces “pressure and coercion from the Chinese Communist Party [CCP]” in this sector, the statement said. As Taiwan is a “vital trading
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