The government auction of The Chinese Bank (
"The sale has failed even before it started," CDIC President Johnson Chen (
The deadline for applications had been postponed several times from 5pm on Tuesday.
The auction of the troubled lender's branch network slated for next Tuesday, through which interested buyers are supposed to tender their offers, has been scrapped, Chen said.
However, sale of the bank's bad loans assets will take place as planned, as three packages of bad loans have attracted four to five bidders each, he said.
The CDIC successfully sold the Enterprise Bank of Hualien (
"The auction has failed because bidders have been deterred by thorny issues such as unresolved hidden lending to collapsed parent group members and a huge personnel burden, with staff numbering over 2,400," Chen said.
Chen said that four financial institutions, including one or two foreign banks, had conducted due diligence of The Chinese Bank, although he declined to name them.
HSBC Ltd, which has been left behind its overseas rivals in Taiwan in this round of the expansion race, and Fuhwa Financial Holding Co (
The Chinese Bank, which runs 36 outlets nationwide, was taken over in January following the collapse of parent Rebar Asia Pacific Group (
Despite the setback, the CDIC will proceed with its auction of another troubled lender, China United Trust and Investment Corp (
The lender is to be split into four parts for auction in early September: a franchise network and good assets of deposit and active outstanding loans; bad loans assets; a 15 percent stake in Taipei Financial Center Corp (台北金融大樓公司), the operator of Taipei 101; and over 30 parcels of real estate pledges, he said.
A number of interested buyers have made inquiries, especially concerning China United Trust's stake in the Taipei 101 operator, and the company is confident the sale will go smoothly, Chen said.
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