Want Want China Holdings Ltd (中國旺旺控股) announced yesterday that its chairman, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), and his family had agreed to acquire financially troubled local media syndicate China Times Group (中時集團).
The China Times Group confirmed the sale in a statement late last night.
The surprise announcement came amid speculation that Hong Kong’s Next Media Group (壹傳媒) was in talks to take over the nearly six-decade-old group, one of the country’s biggest.
Want Want China is the Hong Kong-listed unit of Taiwan’s Want Want Group (旺旺集團), the nation’s biggest rice cake and flavored drinks maker. The company makes about 90 percent of its revenue by selling rice crackers, snacks and drinks such as Hot-Kid milk in China.
“The Tsai clan plans to make the investment via a holding company wholly owned by the family, rather than using company funds. It is a personal investment of the Tsai family,” Want Want China said in a statement on its Web site.
Want Want China said it had no plans to invest in the media group, nor to take over operations after the deal is completed, the statement said.
The company did not provide financial details about the acquisition. Calls to company spokesman Everett Chu’s (朱紀文) office in Shanghai went unanswered yesterday.
Shares of Want Want China dropped 1.41 percent to HK$2.78 yesterday on the Hong Kong Exchange and Clearing Ltd.
The media-purchase deal was first reported by the Chinese-language Economic Daily News yesterday, which said Want Want had inked a memorandum of understanding with the China Times Group on Sunday to take over the Taiwanese media conglomerate for about NT$20.4 billion (US$621 million).
The deal would allow Want Want to own a 51 percent stakes in the group, the report said.
On Oct. 30, the same newspaper said Next Media — controlled by Jimmy Lai (黎智英) — was negotiating to buy the China Times Group and planned to make a formal announcement on Monday, citing unnamed industry sources.
The China Times Group, headed by Albert Yu (余建新), is undergoing a restructuring to stem constant losses.
It owns the Chinese-language newspapers China Times and Commercial Times, the China Times Weekly (時報週刊) and the CTI TV (中天電視) and China Television Co (中視) networks.
Separately, Want Want said parent company Hot-Kid Holdings Ltd intended to sell Taiwan depositary receipts backed by shares in the company this year.
In the middle of last month, Hot-Kid filed a proposal to sell a maximum of 250 million of outstanding Want Want shares, or 1.89 percent, for local investors.
Polytronics Technology Corp (聚鼎科技) yesterday announced that it is buying Henkel AG’s thermal clad dielectric material (TCLAD) business division for US$26 million as the Taiwanese firm aims to improve its technology, product portfolio and revenue performance. Polytronics, headquartered in the Hsinchu Science Park (新竹科學園區), is a supplier of protection components and heat dissipation materials. The firm entered the metallic heat-dissipation substrate market in 2007 and developed a unique solventless production process. Its board of directors approved signing an agreement with Henkel to acquire the German chemical firm’s TCLAD division in the US. The purchase includes all assets and business interests, including equipment,
ELECTRIC FARMLAND: TSMC’s proposal to clear 230 hectares of reforested land for what would become Taiwan’s largest photovoltaic solar farm has generated concerns New rules curbing solar farms built on agricultural land sparked fierce debate at a packed public hearing at the Legislative Yuan yesterday, with industry representatives saying that the new restrictions would endanger President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) green energy goals, while agricultural officials emphasized the importance of protecting farmers and the environment. The Tsai administration has set a target to generate 20 percent of the nation’s power from renewable sources by 2025, by which time it also aims to install 20 gigawatts (GW) of solar power, including 6GW from rooftop solar systems and 14GW from ground-mounted solar farms. Although rooftop solar systems are
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday posted monthly revenue that suggested second-quarter sales surpassed analysts’ estimates, underscoring how its technological lead is helping the chipmaker weather the COVID-19 pandemic and US sanctions on its second-biggest customer Huawei Technologies Co (華為). Apple Inc’s main iPhone chipmaker posted sales of NT$120.88 billion (US$4.08 billion) for last month, up 40.8 percent year-on-year and bringing its revenue for the second quarter to NT$310.7 billion, beating the NT$308.8 billion analysts expected on average. TSMC, a barometer for the industry thanks to its heft in the global supply chain, had previously lowered its revenue outlook for this
‘SENSITIVE MARKETS’: The previously unannounced project would involve the company handing over control of data to a third party to sidestep privacy concerns Google has abandoned plans to offer a major new cloud service in China and other politically sensitive countries due in part to concerns over geopolitical tensions and the COVID-19 pandemic, two employees familiar with the matter said, revealing the challenges for US tech giants to secure business in those markets. In May, the search giant shut down the initiative, known as “Isolated Region” and which sought to address nations’ desires to control data within their borders, the employees said. The action was considered a “massive strategy shift,” said one of the employees, who added that Isolated Region had involved hundreds of employees
RSS