■ Finance
Citigroup HK head retires
Citigroup Inc, the world's biggest financial services company, said Hong Kong chief country officer Chan Tze-ching (陳子政) would retire at the end of April, according to an internal memo sent by the New York-based bank. Chan, who joined Citigroup more than two decades ago, also heads corporate and investment banking in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. He has chosen to devote more time to his family and pursue other interests, said Robert Morse, chief executive officer of corporate and investment banking in Asia. Citigroup will announce Chan's successor during the transition period.
■ Finance
Malaysian bank sells stake
Bumiputra-Commerce Holdings Bhd (BCHB), Malaysia's No. 3 lender by market value, said yesterday it had agreed to sell a significant stake to the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd, raising US$383 million to reduce debt. The sale will only slightly dilute the stakes held in BCHB by Khazanah Nasional, Malaysia's state investment company, and the Employee's Provident Fund, the state pension fund. BCHB said in a statement it would sell 117 million new shares at US$3.26 per share to the Japanese bank, which would also get a seat on BCHB's board. The Japanese bank's stake in BCHB will rise to 4.5 percent from 1.1 percent.
■ Opto-electronics
TAITRA holds forum
The Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) will collaborate with Taiwanese opto-electronics businesses to hold a forum on the opto-electronics industry in Osaka, Japan, from April 16 to April 19, a TAITRA official said yesterday. TAITRA, in conjunction with nine firms, is planning to head for Japan to organize the 2007 Taiwan Opto-electronics Day forum, the official said. Japan is the world's largest supplier of opto-electronics, producing 41.9 percent of global output, the official said. The market was expected to increase annually by 12.3 percent between 2005 and 2025.
■ Patents
R&D `needs boost'
Taiwan should promote capitalization and securitization of intellectual property rights to boost the the biotechnology industry, a researcher with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) said on Wednesday. Lee Lien-tze (李連滋), a research fellow at ITRI's Biomedical Engineering Research Laboratory, said the R&D-oriented industry requires heavy capital investment over a long period. Citing the pharmaceutical industry, Lee said that developing and marketing a new drug could take 10 years and cost US$1 billion. The annual turnover of the global market is around US$800 billion. Sales of new products account for about US$150 billion, Lee said.
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