BANKING
Management to buy SVB unit
Healthcare investment firm SVB Securities on Sunday announced that its management team would buy out the company from parent Silicon Valley Bank, the California-based lender whose brisk collapse in March shook financial markets. SVB Securities had not been included in Silicon Valley Bank’s bankruptcy filing. “The SVB Securities management team bidder group led by CEO Jeff Leerink, and backed by The Baupost Group, today announced they have entered into a definitive agreement with SVB Financial Group to purchase SVB Securities following a competitive bidding process,” the company said in a statement. The amount of the buyout agreement was not specified. The deal is subject to final confirmation by the US Bankruptcy Court and regulators “as well as other customary closing conditions,” the statement said.
AIRLINES
Cathay to train staff on China
Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd (國泰航空) yesterday said it would launch initiatives next month to improve Mandarin language and cultural understanding, including hiring cabin staff from mainland China. The announcement said that all cabin crew would be given “culture training” and that Cathay would increase the scope of Mandarin-speaking services amongst the cabin team. The move came weeks after Cathay Pacific fired three flight attendants following passenger accusations of bias against non-English speakers, prompting criticism on Chinese state media. “Widening our crew’s Putonghua (普通話) coverage is a key objective under this initiative, given the increasing proportion of our customers who speak Putonghua,” Cathay CEO Ronald Lam (林紹波) said in the memo. Mandarin is also known as Putonghua in China.
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
Indonesia satellite launched
Indonesia and Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX yesterday launched the country’s largest telecommunication satellite from the US, in a US$540 million project intended to link up remote corners of the archipelago to the Internet. “Satellite technology will accelerate Internet access to villages in areas that cannot be reached by fiber optics in the next 10 years,” Indonesian Acting Minister of Communication and Information Technology Mahfud MD said in a statement ahead of the launch. The 4.5-tonne Satellite of the Republic of Indonesia was built by Thales Alenia Space and deployed into orbit from Florida by SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, which then returned to an offshore site in a precision landing. The satellite is to occupy the orbital slot above Indonesia’s eastern Papua region. It has a throughput capacity of 150 gigabytes per second and would provide Internet access to 50,000 public service points, the Indonesian government said.
BANKING
Nora Yeung joins DB
Deutsche Bank AG (DB) has named Credit Suisse’s Nora Yeung (楊淑婷) as its cohead of equity capital markets for Asia-Pacific. Yeung is to join the German lender in September and would be based in Hong Kong, an internal memo seen by Bloomberg News showed. She would lead the business alongside Melody Ngan, and report to Haitham Ghattas, the region’s head of capital markets. The banker worked at Credit Suisse for 12 years, most recently as cohead of equity capital markets for Asia-Pacific, the memo shows. She previously worked at Goldman Sachs Group Inc in Hong Kong and London. A spokesperson for Deutsche Bank confirmed the contents of the memo.
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
The popular Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) arbitrage trade might soon see a change in dynamics that could affect the trading of the US listing versus the local one. And for anyone who wants to monetize the elevated premium, Goldman Sachs Group Inc highlights potential trades. A note from the bank’s sales desk published on Friday said that demand for TSMC’s Taipei-traded stock could rise as Taiwan’s regulator is considering an amendment to local exchange-traded funds’ (ETFs) ownership. The changes, which could come in the first half of this year, could push up the current 30 percent single-stock weight limit
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
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