Uni-President Group (統一集團) members Uni-President Enterprises Corp (統一企業) and President Chain Store Corp (統一超商) are seeking to take full ownership of Carrefour Taiwan (家樂福) by acquiring the remaining 60 percent stake held by the hypermarket’s French parent company.
At a news conference late on Tuesday, Uni-President Enterprises chief financial officer Chen Kuo-hui (陳國輝) said his company would spend NT$23.9 billion (US$799.4 million) to acquire a 49.5 percent stake in Carrefour Taiwan, while President Chain Store would invest NT$5.1 billion for a 10.5 percent stake, to add to the 40 percent the two companies currently hold.
The NT$29 billion offer would translate into an acquisition price of about NT$65 per share, Uni-President Group said.
Photo: CNA
After the deal, Uni-President Enterprises would hold a 70 percent stake in Carrefour Taiwan, while President Chain Store would own the remaining 30 percent, Chen said.
The two companies would file an application with the Fair Trade Commission for regulatory approval in 15 days, he said.
The transaction is expected to be completed in the middle of next year should the deal gain approval from the commission, which last week conditionally approved an NT$11.5 billion takeover by PX Mart Co (全聯實業) of hypermarket operator RT-Mart International Ltd (大潤發), a rival of Carrefour Taiwan.
Carrefour Taiwan’s 68 hypermarkets, 272 supermarkets and 129 Carrefour-owned stores would then be fully owned by the Uni-President Group, which would also retain the Carrefour brand rights in Taiwan.
In addition, the Taiwanese conglomerate would gain full rights to the property assets — logistics centers and some hypermarket stores — currently owned by the joint venture.
Uni-President Group is the largest convenience store operator in Taiwan through ownership of 6,503 7-Eleven outlets, and also runs Cosmed (康是美) health and beauty stores and Uni-Ustyle department stores (統一時代百貨) in the country.
Local data showed that revenue generated by the local hypermarket industry totaled NT$228.7 billion in 2020, with Costco Wholesale Taiwan Ltd (台灣好市多) holding a leading 42.8 percent share of the market, ahead of Carrefour Taiwan’s 32.3 percent, RT-Mart’s 11.7 percent and Far Eastern A-Mart Co’s (遠東愛買) 4.6 percent.
The acquisition is expected to help Uni-President Group cement its lead in Taiwan’s retail industry, said Wu Shih-hao (吳師豪), a professor at National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology’s marketing and distribution department.
It would give the conglomerate a comprehensive retail network in Taiwan with holdings in several distribution channels, Wu said.
Add this to its existing virtual distribution network, the conglomerate is all set to meet demand from a wide range of customers, he said.
After the transaction, France’s Carrefour SA is to withdraw from Taiwan’s retail market as part of its move to exit the Asian market.
CHIP WAR: Tariffs on Taiwanese chips would prompt companies to move their factories, but not necessarily to the US, unleashing a ‘global cross-sector tariff war’ US President Donald Trump would “shoot himself in the foot” if he follows through on his recent pledge to impose higher tariffs on Taiwanese and other foreign semiconductors entering the US, analysts said. Trump’s plans to raise tariffs on chips manufactured in Taiwan to as high as 100 percent would backfire, macroeconomist Henry Wu (吳嘉隆) said. He would “shoot himself in the foot,” Wu said on Saturday, as such economic measures would lead Taiwanese chip suppliers to pass on additional costs to their US clients and consumers, and ultimately cause another wave of inflation. Trump has claimed that Taiwan took up to
A start-up in Mexico is trying to help get a handle on one coastal city’s plastic waste problem by converting it into gasoline, diesel and other fuels. With less than 10 percent of the world’s plastics being recycled, Petgas’ idea is that rather than letting discarded plastic become waste, it can become productive again as fuel. Petgas developed a machine in the port city of Boca del Rio that uses pyrolysis, a thermodynamic process that heats plastics in the absence of oxygen, breaking it down to produce gasoline, diesel, kerosene, paraffin and coke. Petgas chief technology officer Carlos Parraguirre Diaz said that in
Japan intends to closely monitor the impact on its currency of US President Donald Trump’s new tariffs and is worried about the international fallout from the trade imposts, Japanese Minister of Finance Katsunobu Kato said. “We need to carefully see how the exchange rate and other factors will be affected and what form US monetary policy will take in the future,” Kato said yesterday in an interview with Fuji Television. Japan is very concerned about how the tariffs might impact the global economy, he added. Kato spoke as nations and firms brace for potential repercussions after Trump unleashed the first salvo of
SUPPORT: The government said it would help firms deal with supply disruptions, after Trump signed orders imposing tariffs of 25 percent on imports from Canada and Mexico The government pledged to help companies with operations in Mexico, such as iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), shift production lines and investment if needed to deal with higher US tariffs. The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday announced measures to help local firms cope with the US tariff increases on Canada, Mexico, China and other potential areas. The ministry said that it would establish an investment and trade service center in the US to help Taiwanese firms assess the investment environment in different US states, plan supply chain relocation strategies and
RSS