Fubon Securities Co (
"Demand for the fund is overwhelming. Investors are lured by the steady annual returns and a chance for capital gains," company spokeswoman Teresa Cheng (
Fubon Securities, the brokerage arm of Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控), will use the proceeds to buy three properties held by companies controlled by the Tsai Wan-tsai (蔡萬才) family, Cheng said yesterday.
The fund, which is scheduled to start trading on the stock exchange in March, would generate an annual return of 4 percent on rent proceeds, Fubon said in a prospectus. The three buildings are fully occupied by tenants, it said.
Property funds "offer a more liquid channel for investors to tap the property market," said Mike Shiao (
Fubon Securities expects the fund to be a "few times" oversubscribed when the offer closes on Feb. 2, Cheng said. The company may seek government approval to create another real-estate fund to meet demand, she added.
Shares of Fubon Financial were unchanged at NT$31.30 at 12:50pm in Taipei yesterday.
The Hong Kong Housing Authority's US$2.7 billion real-estate investment trust, which was postponed after a series of legal challenges, attracted orders equal to 28 times the amount of stock on offer last month. Hong Kong residents placed a record US$36 billion of orders while institutional investors were ready to commit US$40 billion.
While there is interest in the new investment vehicle in Taiwan, some investors are not convinced.
"Investors have to evaluate if a 4 percent annual return is worth the risk of property market fluctuations," said Liu Juming, who manages the US$34 million Fund of Funds at Fuhwa Securities Investment Trust Co (復華投信) in Taipei.
"The property market had a great year in 2004, but will it last?" Liu said.
Property prices on average rose 11 percent last year on reduced capital gains taxes on land sales and as investors took advantage of low interest rates, Sinyi Realty Co (信義房屋), the largest real-estate agent company, said in a Jan. 24 report.
Parliament on Jan. 21 cut capital gains tax on land sales, extending a three-year measure to boost the property market, which had been swamped by 1.2 million excess homes built during a real-estate boom in the 1980s.
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],”
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
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