AVIATION
GE nears US$30bn deal
General Electric Co (GE) is nearing a US$30 billion-plus deal to combine its aircraft-leasing business with Ireland’s AerCap Holdings NV, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter. Details of how the deal would be structured were not immediately known, but an announcement was expected yesterday, assuming the talks do not fall apart, the Journal said. The unit, known as GE Capital Aviation Services, is one of the world’s biggest jet-leasing companies and leases passenger aircraft made by companies including Boeing Co and Airbus SE. It owns, services or has on order about 1,650 aircraft, according to its Web site.
BANKING
DBS docks CEO’s pay
DBS Holdings Group Ltd cut chief executive officer Piyush Gupta’s total compensation for last year by 24 percent after Southeast Asia’s largest lender posted its first annual drop in profit for four years. The bank slashed Gupta’s bonus by 27 percent, resulting in a 24 percent decline in his overall compensation to S$9.2 million (US$6.8 million) for the performance year, down from S$12.1 million a year earlier, DBS said in its annual report yesterday. The reduction reflects the “extremely challenging operating environment,” it said. Excluding his pay, the median decline in total remuneration and variable pay of the bank’s management committee members for 2019 and last year was 12 percent and 17 percent respectively.
BANKING
ECB watching crisis-hit firm
European Central Bank (ECB) supervisors have asked banks for details about outstanding loans to Greensill Capital and its client GFG Alliance, the Financial Times reported, citing four people familiar with the matter. Regulators are asking for the details as they try to determine whether a crisis is contained, the report said. Three more directors of Greensill Capital have resigned as the trade-finance company faces a fight for survival following the flight of its top backers. One person told the newspaper that the move was standard and did not reflect heightened concern. Apollo Global Management’s talks to acquire part of Greensill were at “full speed” over the weekend, and “a lot of technical details still need to be ironed out,” one person told the paper.
BANKING
Central banks lack diversity
Just one of the 31 central bank governors appointed last year was a woman, with Vietnam’s Nguyen Thi Hong joining a global group that now consists of 15 female central bank chiefs, according to the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum’s latest gender balance report. That means not even one in 10 central banks is headed by a woman. “While attention is on new accommodative monetary policy measures and lending operations, central banks should not fall behind on measures to correct the lack of diversity,” the forum said.
CRYPTOCURRENCY
Meitu invests in crypto
China’s Meitu Inc (美圖), taking a page from Tesla Inc, has become the latest corporation to invest in cryptocurrency as digital coin prices head into the stratosphere. Meitu, which makes an app that helps touch up user-profile pictures, on Sunday said it bought 15,000 units of ether for US$22.1 million and 379.1 bitcoins for US$17.9 million on the open market on Friday.
SELL-OFF: Investors expect tariff-driven volatility as the local boarse reopens today, while analysts say government support and solid fundamentals would steady sentiment Local investors are bracing for a sharp market downturn today as the nation’s financial markets resume trading following a two-day closure for national holidays before the weekend, with sentiment rattled by US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff announcement. Trump’s unveiling of new “reciprocal tariffs” on Wednesday triggered a sell-off in global markets, with the FTSE Taiwan Index Futures — a benchmark for Taiwanese equities traded in Singapore — tumbling 9.2 percent over the past two sessions. Meanwhile, the American depositary receipts (ADRs) of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the most heavily weighted stock on the TAIEX, plunged 13.8 percent in
A wave of stop-loss selling and panic selling hit Taiwan's stock market at its opening today, with the weighted index plunging 2,086 points — a drop of more than 9.7 percent — marking the largest intraday point and percentage loss on record. The index bottomed out at 19,212.02, while futures were locked limit-down, with more than 1,000 stocks hitting their daily drop limit. Three heavyweight stocks — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (Foxconn, 鴻海精密) and MediaTek (聯發科) — hit their limit-down prices as soon as the market opened, falling to NT$848 (US$25.54), NT$138.5 and NT$1,295 respectively. TSMC's
TARIFFS: The global ‘panic atmosphere remains strong,’ and foreign investors have continued to sell their holdings since the start of the year, the Ministry of Finance said The government yesterday authorized the activation of its NT$500 billion (US$15.15 billion) National Stabilization Fund (NSF) to prop up the local stock market after two days of sharp falls in reaction to US President Donald Trump’s new import tariffs. The Ministry of Finance said in a statement after the market close that the steering committee of the fund had been given the go-ahead to intervene in the market to bolster Taiwanese shares in a time of crisis. The fund has been authorized to use its assets “to carry out market stabilization tasks as appropriate to maintain the stability of Taiwan’s
In a small town in Paraguay, a showdown is brewing between traditional producers of yerba mate, a bitter herbal tea popular across South America, and miners of a shinier treasure: gold. A rush for the precious metal is pitting mate growers and indigenous groups against the expanding operations of small-scale miners who, until recently, were their neighbors, not nemeses. “They [the miners] have destroyed everything... The canals, springs, swamps,” said Vidal Britez, president of the Yerba Mate Producers’ Association of the town of Paso Yobai, about 210km east of capital Asuncion. “You can see the pollution from the dead fish.
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