A merger proposal initiated by China Development Financial Holding Corp (中華開發金控) nearly a month ago appeared to fail yesterday after Minister of Finance Lin Chuan (
"There remains a certain gap [regarding the share-swap ratio among board directors] after independent board director Cyrus Chu's (
"We don't maintain any expectations on the deal any more," Lin said.
On March 23, China Development, the nation's fifth-largest financial services company by market value, postponed a plan to merge its brokerage unit, Grand Cathay Securities Co (
Since the three-way deal looks unlikely to go forward, Lin said there was no need to wait for the board to resolve its disagreements by April 21.
The ministry on Thursday assigned Chu, a research fellow at Academia Sinica, to coordinate talks between the two groups of directors. Chu was tasked with reaching an agreement within one week.
In response to Lin's remark, China Development said last night that it would respect the fact that government-appointed directors did not agree with their proposal.
"We will continue to think about the best business model in the hopes of creating the biggest added value for shareholders in the future," Joyce Chen (
Chen, however, declined to comment on whether the financial holding firm would consider alternatives to revive the three-way merger deal, or turn efforts toward a merger -- between KGI Securities and President Securities, or between China Development and KGI Securities -- or simply get rid of Grand Cathay Securities.
China Development originally planned to buy President Securities through a 40 percent cash and 60 percent stock deal, offering NT$24 per share and a swap ratio of one share of President Securities for 1.778 shares of China Development. The swap ratio offered for KGI Securities was one share for 1.468 shares of China Development.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group