In an effort to collect letters of proxy prior to an upcoming board-reshuffling row, the government yesterday decided to side with KGI Securities Co (中信證券), the biggest shareholder in China Development Financial Holding Corp (中華開發金控) with a 6 percent stake.
"The government hopes to join forces with KGI in order to maximize the number of government-owned seats on the board," Chen Mu-tsai (
The government currently controls over 7 percent of the shares in China Development.
The decision came one day after China Development chairwoman Diana Chen (
After Chen pulled out of the deal, Minister of Finance Lin Chuan (
The state-owned Bank of Taiwan and International Commercial will take charge of negotiating with KGI tomorrow in order to come up with a new board-seat plan. After the re-allocation plan is finalized, both partners, with a combined stake of over 17 percent, will nominate candidates, Chen Mu-tsai said.
According to its previous proposal, the government hopes to secure a minimum of eight seats on the new board, one of which would have been allocated to an independent boardmember. However, after Diana Chen decided she was not satisfied with the one seat allocated to her Lilontex Corp (理隆纖維) on Wednesday, Chen Mu-tsai said that the government's chances of winning more than 10 board seats may increase.
The incumbent Diana Chen made no comment about the government's decision yesterday. Yet she seemed determined to secure her position by openly accusing the company's "new shareholders" of attempting to manipulate the yet-to-be-reshuffled board's makeup while ignoring the upcoming shareholder's meeting.
Although no names were mentioned in her letter, which was addressed to all China Development shareholders, she appeared to be pointing the finger at the company's two biggest shareholders -- the finance ministry and KGI -- in her capacity as chairwoman by running half-page advertisements on the front pages of major Chinese-language newspapers yesterday.
"New shareholders' [previous] attempts to re-allocate the new board's [21] seats were unlawful and ineffective, posing a threat to the company's stability," Chen said. "Whether I will be re-elected as the chairwoman is a decision to be made by every shareholder."
She urged the company's shareholders to respect corporate governance principles and elect the most qualified chairperson.
Benny Hu (
"I support and respect the ministry's intention [to mediate the potential conflicts]," Hu told TVBS.
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