■ Family Mart's 1,500th store
Family Mart Co (全家), the nation's second largest convenience store chain, has opened 262 outlets this year and is planning to open hundreds more nationwide in the next three years, company chairman Pan Jin-tin (潘進丁) said yesterday at the opening of the chain's 1,500th store in Taiwan.
"We will open new stores and close the outlets performing badly according to how the market develops ... but basically we expect a net increase of more than 150 stores each year," Pan said.
The chain also plans to expand its business to Eastern Taiwan to compete head-to-head with the President Chain Store Corp's (統一超商) 7-Eleven stores, Pan said.
"We expect to establish our first store in Hualien or Taitung next spring and eventually open more than 20 stores there next year," he said.
The company has also teamed up with the state-run Taiwan Power Co (台電) and aims to open stores at TaiPower's more than 280 business centers nationwide, Pan said.
■ Civil pension fund outsources
The Public Service Pension Fund (PSPF), run by the Ministry of Civil Service, outsourced a total of US$500 million yesterday to five international asset management firms for overseas investment.
The outsourcing is in accordance with the government's outsourcing policy and is a move to improve asset management expertise, diversify investment risk and implement asset allocation, Examination Yuan President Yao Chia-wen (姚嘉文) said yesterday.
The PSPF's Management Board inked contracts with Barclays Global Investors Ltd, State Street Bank & Trust Co, J.P. Morgan Investment Management Inc, UBS Global Asset Management (Singapore) Ltd and Allianz Dresdner Asset Management of America L.P. in a joint signing ceremony held at the Examination Yuan. It is the first government fund to undertake overseas discretionary operations.
Under the terms of the contracts, each of the five international asset management companies will be allocated an outsourcing fund of US$100 million for a tenure of two years, while Citibank has been awarded the custodian contract for overseas investment, for a tenure of four years.
■ Visa cards reach peak in China
The circulation of international Visa credit cards in China peaked at 1.08 million cards in the third quarter, Visa International said yesterday.
With a 70 percent market share, the circulation of Visa international credit cards doubled from last September to reach a record high.
The total of transactions charged to Visa cards in China also peaked at US$381 million in the third quarter -- a 144 percent growth from one year earlier, the international credit-card issuer said yesterday at a media conference in Taipei.
"The potential of China's credit-card market has showed signs of picking up," it said.
■ BenQ plans to buy back shares
BenQ Corp (明基電通), the nation's largest mobile phone maker, said it plans to buy back and cancel 30 million shares with a market value of NT$1.2 billion (US$35.3 million) to improve profit per share.
The company plans to buy back the shares between today and Feb. 15, BenQ said in a statement. The price range is to be NT$40 to NT$45, BenQ said. The shares last traded at NT$41 at the close in Taipei.
■ NT dollar higher
The NT dollar yesterday traded higher against its US counterpart, rising NT$0.013 to close at NT$34.015 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.
Turnover was US$528 million.
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