The youngest son of Hong Kong's richest man Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠) plans to fork out NT$24 billion (US$733 million) to secure a 60 percent stake in Taiwan's biggest cable TV operator China Network Systems Co (中嘉網路), according to a media report.
Showing his determination to branch out into Taiwan, Richard Li (
Macquarie Media Group, Newbridge Capital, Carlyle Group and Goldman Sachs are reportedly interested in bidding as well.
China Network currently has 1.1 million subscribers, with a 26.2 percent market share. The firm has planned to sell shares owned by Taiwan's Koos Group (
Denial
PCCW, however, denied the report yesterday, saying the company has never contacted China Network regarding the share purchase, according to the Central News Agency (CNA).
The company also refused to comment on whether the story related to a personal investment by the younger Li, the CNA said.
On July 10, Li sold a 22.66 percent stake in PCCW to Hong Kong financier Francis Leung (
A government official yesterday said there would be no problem for Hong Kong companies to invest in Taiwanese firms.
Legal
Emile Chang (張銘斌), deputy executive secretary of the Investment Commission under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, said Hong Kong investments in Taiwanese firms are deemed legal transactions according to the Provisions Governing Relations with Hong Kong and Macau (港澳關係條例).
After the bidding concludes, the commission will examine the winning firm's shareholders to make sure that there is no Chinese capital behind them, he added.
Over the past year, the nation's cable TV sector has seen dramatic changes with foreign groups entering the market.
Sydney-based Macquarie Media, Australia's biggest commercial radio operator, agreed in December to buy Taiwan Broadband Communications (
Carlyle in late June received a green light from the Fair Trade Commission to buy a majority stake in Eastern Multimedia Co (
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