David Bonderman’s TPG Capital offered A$2.9 billion (US$2.7 billion) for Asciano Ltd, Australia’s second-biggest coal transporter, in the country’s largest leveraged buyout.
TPG and Global Infrastructure Partners offered A$4.40 a share cash for Asciano, 6 percent more than the closing price on Friday. Asciano declined to give TPG access to its finances because the offer undervalues the business, the Melbourne-based company said in a statement yesterday.
Shares of the Melbourne-based port and rail owner jumped 16 percent to A$4.83 at the close of trade in Sydney on speculation TPG will have to increase its bid. Buying Asciano will give TPG access to rising revenues from commodities transportation as Australia expands its ports and railways to meet demand from mining companies including BHP Billion Ltd and Rio Tinto Group after lifting exports.
“There’s going to be greater use of port facilities, expansions are under way, so it’s a growth area,” said Peter Rudd, a Melbourne-based analyst at Carroll, Pike & Piercy Pty. The offer will likely be raised, he said. “There’d be further upside I’d say, to bed it down.”
Asciano is the biggest provider of bulk and general stevedoring services and the second-largest coal transporter in Australia, the world’s top exporter of the commodity.
Private equity deals in the Asia-Pacific region have fallen 29 percent this year as the subprime mortgage market collapse curbed bank borrowings for acquisitions.
Exports of commodities from Australia, the world’s largest shipper of coal and iron ore, may rise to a record A$212 billion (US$198 billion) in the year ending June 30 next year, spurring demand for upgraded port and rail facilities as mining companies seek to meet China’s demand for raw materials.
Queensland Rail, Australia’s biggest rail transporter of coal, is spending A$3 billion to expand rail networks and buy more trains. Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal Pty, Australia’s second-largest export harbor of the fuel, is undergoing a A$1.3 billion expansion.
Asciano jumped as much as 19 percent to A$4.92. The stock had slumped 40 percent before yesterday’s gain, compared with the 23 percent decline in the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index.
TPG Capital, the buyout arm of Bonderman’s Fort Worth, Texas-based TPG, managed more than US$50 billion as of April.
Toll, Australia’s biggest freight company, spun off Asciano last year to expand in Asia. Asciano provides bulk haulage services to the coal and grain sectors in Australia, according to its Web site. It transports about 95 million tonnes of coal a year and has more than 600 locomotives and 14,000 wagons, it said on its Web site.
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],”
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
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