Two Japanese banking giants have announced the terms of their ?3.99 trillion (US$38 billion) merger planned for later this year that will create the world's largest bank, including job cuts and a profit target.
Two of Japan's "Big Four" banks, Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group Inc and UFJ Holdings Inc, agreed last year to merge their operations by October next year. The deal creates the world's largest bank with assets totaling nearly ?190 trillion (US$1.8 trillion).
The merger ratio will be 0.62 Mitsubishi Tokyo share to one UFJ share, both sides said in a statement on Friday.
The merger is being challenged by rival Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc, another "Big Four" bank, which is offering a one-for-one stock swap that will put a premium on UFJ shares.
Sumitomo Mitsui said in a statement late Friday it was studying the latest announcement and will soon respond.
Mitsubishi Tokyo and UFJ shareholders will be asked to approve the merger proposal at a meeting in June.
Standard & Poor's Ratings Service upgraded its long and short-term ratings on UFJ Bank and UFJ Trust Bank late Friday, citing the stronger likelihood that the merger will be approved.
"The announced integration ratio is within market expectations and more detailed information on the merger has been released," it said in a statement.
Standard & Poor's also affirmed its long-term ratings on Mitsubishi Tokyo bank and its trust banking unit, saying their credit quality will remain stable if the merger goes according to plan.
Mitsubishi Tokyo and UFJ said they plan to cut 6,000 jobs -- or about 8 percent of their current combined global work force -- in three years following the merger, including local staff.
The merged banks will aim for group net profit of ?1.1 trillion (US$10 billion) in the 2008 fiscal year.
By the fiscal year ending March 2009, the combined entity will close 170 retail outlets out of some 900 they have now. After the merger, the financial giant will go under the name Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, or MUFG, they said.
Sumitomo Mitsui has been trying to stop the Mitsubishi Tokyo-UFJ merger although management at Mitsubishi Tokyo and UFJ have repeatedly said it will go ahead.
Ryosuke Tamakoshi, UFJ Holdings president, would become chairman of MUFG, with Mitsubishi Tokyo President Nobuo Kuroyanagi becoming the president.
Tamakoshi expressed confidence that the two groups' strengths complement each other and that the merger can win shareholders' approval.
"We made the best decision," he told reporters. "I think we can gain approval."
Last year, Mitsubishi Tokyo pumped ?700 billion into UFJ Bank, the group's major banking unit, to support UFJ's battered finances and discourage a takeover by Sumitomo Mitsui.
UFJ has been losing money, is saddled with troubled borrowers and needs a strong merger partner.
But both Sumitomo Mitsui and Mitsubishi Tokyo want UFJ's extensive branch network, individual customer base and its key corporate clients such as Toyota Motor Corp. And they believe size is critical to win against international competition.
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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