Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd (ICBC,
"ICBC will pursue a combined strategy of acquisitions and new projects in expanding overseas," Yang said yesterday at a finance conference in Beijing. "Overseas diversification is an important way for Chinese banks to spread risks against cyclical economic downturns."
Having raised US$22 billion in the world's largest share sale a year ago, ICBC, the world's biggest bank by market value, is expanding more aggressively than peers such as Bank of China Ltd (
"Overseas expansion is likely to continue as Chinese banks are seeking to build up their global presence," Bill Stacey, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Credit Suisse, said yesterday in a telephone interview, citing ICBC's forays in Indonesia and Macau.
Yang joined China Construction Bank Corp (中國建設銀行) deputy president Luo Zhefu (羅哲夫) in denying a newspaper report that their banks planned to acquire a stake in Standard Chartered Plc from Temasek Holdings Pte, the Singaporean government's investment company.
"We have no plans to buy a stake in Standard Chartered," Luo said at the Beijing conference, while Yang said the report was "just a rumor."
The Financial Times reported earlier that China's three largest banks -- ICBC, Construction Bank and Bank of China -- had approached Temasek about buying its 17 percent stake in the UK company.
The three Chinese banks had made "informal and discreet" contact with senior personnel at Temasek about the deal in recent months, the Financial Times said, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter. Temasek rejected the proposal, the newspaper said.
The Singapore state-owned investment company owns 17.2 percent of Standard Chartered, the London-based bank said on Sept. 13. Temasek has declined to comment on the Financial Times report, calling it "market speculation."
Standard Chartered's London-traded shares have gained 15 percent this year, while the Hong Kong-traded stock has risen 17 percent, lagging behind the benchmark Hang Seng Index's 33 percent gain.
Chinese banks, flush with cash after raising US$63 billion selling stock in the past two years, are seeking takeover targets. ICBC's agreement to buy a stake in Standard Bank, Africa's largest, is the company's third acquisition outside China in less than a year.
In December last year, ICBC announced its first acquisition of a foreign bank, buying 90 percent of PT Bank Halim Indonesia for 90 billion rupiah (US$9.6 billion) with an option to purchase the remaining shares after three years.
Last Month, Bangkok Bank Pcl, Thailand's biggest lender, said it may sell its stake in ACL Bank Pcl to ICBC.
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