FTC OK's karoke merger
The Fair Trade Commission yesterday approved the merger between Holiday Entertainment Co (好樂迪娛樂事業) and Cash Box KTV (錢櫃), the nation's two largest karaoke chains.
Holiday announced a plan to merge with Cash Box back in early April. Holiday has 62 outlets, while Cash Box has 20. The new company, with NT$4.2 billion (US$120 million) in capital, will operate as Holiday Entertainment.
The commission warned the new company not to use its monopoly power to squeeze music distributors or to charge unreasonable prices.
Holiday and Cash Box generated NT$ 3.795 billion and NT$3.615 billion in sales last year, respectively.
China Development rating falls
China Development Financial Holding Corp's (中華開發金控) rating outlook was lowered to "negative" from "stable" by Standard & Poor's, reflecting a potential decline in profit. Its banking unit's outlook was also revised down.
S&P affirmed China Development Financial's BBB+ long-term and A-2 short-term ratings. It also affirmed China Development Industrial Bank's A- long-term and A-1 short-term ratings.
Profit at China Development Industrial Bank (開發工銀), wholly owned by China Development Financial, "is likely to decline and be more unstable over the near to medium term" and its "weaker profitability is likely to change the risk profile" of parent China Development Corp, S&P said in a statement.
"The outlook revisions reflect the difficulty China Development Industrial Bank has had in finding new investments to replace those it made in electronics companies in the late 1980s and early 1990s," it said.
CETRA reschedules shows
With the threat of SARS diminishing, the China External Trade Development Council has decided to hold three trade shows previously canceled due to the SARS outbreaks, a council official said yesterday.
The official said that the 2003 Taipei International Computer Show, one of the world's top three IT trade shows, will be held Sept. 22 to 26. The show will host 2,800 booths displaying the latest innovative products, including computers and computer software and peripherals.
The 2003 Taipei Computer Application Show will be held at the end of this month and the council plans to inform 230,000 dealers and related companies about the show.
The 2003 Taipei International Food Show from Aug. 15 to 17 will feature many foodstuffs and agricultural products from Taiwan, Japan, Canada, Germany and other countries.
First Financial to sell shares
First Financial Holding Co (第一金控), the owner of the nation's No. 4 bank by assets, aims to sell about 1 billion new shares to overseas in-vestors on July 22, a Chinese-language newspaper said, without citing the source of its information.
The company last month said it expected to raise about US$600 million from the sale.
First Financial, assisted by Citigroup Inc and Deutsche Bank AG, expects to proceed with presentations to investors in the US and Europe this month.
A successful sale would dilute the government's two-fifths stake in the lender and pave the way for offerings by state-controlled banks. First Financial's offer comes after its bank unit wrote off more than NT$70 billion (US$2 billion) of bad loans last year.
NT dollar gains
The NT dollar gained NT$0.071 against the US dollar to close at NT$34.465 Thursday on the Taipei Foreign Exchange.
A total of US$792 million changed hands.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained