Want Want China Holdings Ltd (中國旺旺控股) announced yesterday that its chairman, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), and his family had agreed to acquire financially troubled local media syndicate China Times Group (中時集團).
The China Times Group confirmed the sale in a statement late last night.
The surprise announcement came amid speculation that Hong Kong’s Next Media Group (壹傳媒) was in talks to take over the nearly six-decade-old group, one of the country’s biggest.
Want Want China is the Hong Kong-listed unit of Taiwan’s Want Want Group (旺旺集團), the nation’s biggest rice cake and flavored drinks maker. The company makes about 90 percent of its revenue by selling rice crackers, snacks and drinks such as Hot-Kid milk in China.
“The Tsai clan plans to make the investment via a holding company wholly owned by the family, rather than using company funds. It is a personal investment of the Tsai family,” Want Want China said in a statement on its Web site.
Want Want China said it had no plans to invest in the media group, nor to take over operations after the deal is completed, the statement said.
The company did not provide financial details about the acquisition. Calls to company spokesman Everett Chu’s (朱紀文) office in Shanghai went unanswered yesterday.
Shares of Want Want China dropped 1.41 percent to HK$2.78 yesterday on the Hong Kong Exchange and Clearing Ltd.
The media-purchase deal was first reported by the Chinese-language Economic Daily News yesterday, which said Want Want had inked a memorandum of understanding with the China Times Group on Sunday to take over the Taiwanese media conglomerate for about NT$20.4 billion (US$621 million).
The deal would allow Want Want to own a 51 percent stakes in the group, the report said.
On Oct. 30, the same newspaper said Next Media — controlled by Jimmy Lai (黎智英) — was negotiating to buy the China Times Group and planned to make a formal announcement on Monday, citing unnamed industry sources.
The China Times Group, headed by Albert Yu (余建新), is undergoing a restructuring to stem constant losses.
It owns the Chinese-language newspapers China Times and Commercial Times, the China Times Weekly (時報週刊) and the CTI TV (中天電視) and China Television Co (中視) networks.
Separately, Want Want said parent company Hot-Kid Holdings Ltd intended to sell Taiwan depositary receipts backed by shares in the company this year.
In the middle of last month, Hot-Kid filed a proposal to sell a maximum of 250 million of outstanding Want Want shares, or 1.89 percent, for local investors.
When an apartment comes up for rent in Germany’s big cities, hundreds of prospective tenants often queue down the street to view it, but the acute shortage of affordable housing is getting scant attention ahead of today’s snap general election. “Housing is one of the main problems for people, but nobody talks about it, nobody takes it seriously,” said Andreas Ibel, president of Build Europe, an association representing housing developers. Migration and the sluggish economy top the list of voters’ concerns, but analysts say housing policy fails to break through as returns on investment take time to register, making the
EARLY TALKS: Measures under consideration include convincing allies to match US curbs, further restricting exports of AI chips or GPUs, and blocking Chinese investments US President Donald Trump’s administration is sketching out tougher versions of US semiconductor curbs and pressuring key allies to escalate their restrictions on China’s chip industry, an early indication the new US president plans to expand efforts that began under former US president Joe Biden to limit Beijing’s technological prowess. Trump officials recently met with their Japanese and Dutch counterparts about restricting Tokyo Electron Ltd and ASML Holding NV engineers from maintaining semiconductor gear in China, people familiar with the matter said. The aim, which was also a priority for Biden, is to see key allies match China curbs the US
NOT TO WORRY: Some people are concerned funds might continue moving out of the country, but the central bank said financial account outflows are not unusual in Taiwan Taiwan’s outbound investments hit a new high last year due to investments made by contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and other major manufacturers to boost global expansion, the central bank said on Thursday. The net increase in outbound investments last year reached a record US$21.05 billion, while the net increase in outbound investments by Taiwanese residents reached a record US$31.98 billion, central bank data showed. Chen Fei-wen (陳斐紋), deputy director of the central bank’s Department of Economic Research, said the increase was largely due to TSMC’s efforts to expand production in the US and Japan. Investments by Vanguard International
STRUGGLING TO SURVIVE: The group is proposing a consortium of investors, with Tesla as the largest backer, and possibly a minority investment by Hon Hai Precision Nissan Motor Co shares jumped after the Financial Times reported that a high-level Japanese group has drawn up plans to seek investment from Elon Musk’s Tesla Inc to aid the struggling automaker. The group believes the electric vehicle (EV) maker is interested in acquiring Nissan’s plants in the US, the newspaper reported, citing people it did not identify. The proposal envisions a consortium of investors, with Tesla as the largest backer, but also includes the possibility of a minority investment by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) to prevent a full takeover by the Apple supplier, the report said. The group is
RSS