Longreach Group, the buyout firm founded by former UBS AG investment banker Mark Chiba, will pay NT$800 million ($26 million) to raise its stake in EnTie Commercial Bank (安泰銀行) by 3 percent. EnTie shares rose by the daily limit.
Longreach will pay NT$8 apiece for 100 million shares, it said in a front-page advertisement in the Chinese-language Commercial Times and the Economic Daily News yesterday. That’s 28 percent higher than the closing price of EnTie shares yesterday, when the stock rose 6.8 percent, the most since April 7, to NT$6.25.
“Longreach may benefit from rising fee income after Taiwan relaxes travel and investment restrictions on Chinese residents,” said Eric Yao, who helps manage US$152 million in funds at Truswell Securities Investment Trust Co (富鼎投信). “Increasing its stake in existing banks is easier than Longreach setting up new branches.”
Longreach is EnTie’s biggest shareholder with a 61 percent stake, the buyout firm said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
EnTie posted a NT$933 million (US$30 million) loss in the first quarter after reporting two consecutive losses in the past two years as credit card defaults mounted.
Separately, Longreach and Carlyle Group are competing to buy a stake in Chinfon Bank (慶豐銀行) to expand their business in Taiwan, the Apple Daily reported yesterday, without saying where it got the information.
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
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