■INSURANCE
Taiwan AIG deal approved
Bank of East Asia Ltd (東亞銀行) said it has received regulatory approval to buy American International Group Inc’s wealth management services in Taiwan. The Hong Kong-listed bank received approval from the Investment Commission under the Ministry of Economic Affairs for the acquisition, the company said in a statement. The bank said it expected the transaction to be completed by the end of this month.
■SECURITIES
President plans joint venture
President Securities Corp (統一證券) plans to set up a brokerage joint venture with Xiamen C&D Inc (廈門建發) of China, the Chinese-language Commercial Times reported yesterday, citing an unnamed official with the Fujian provincial government. President Securities opened a representative office in Xiamen in September last year. The Taiwanese brokerage said it was still discussing the plan with Xiamen C&D, the newspaper said. The joint venture will be made public only after the two sides sign memorandums of understanding on financial supervisory, the paper said.
■SECURITIES
China bans trader
China’s securities regulator permanently banned Zhang Ye (張野), a former fund manager at Rongtong Fund Management Co (融通基金), from entering the nation’s capital market after finding him guilty of illegal trading. When a fund manager, Zhang misused trading and research information from Rongtong to benefit himself and other people between 2007 and this February, the China Securities Regulatory Commission said in a statement on its Web site on Friday. Zhang will be fined 4 million yuan (US$585,100) and the 2.3 million yuan he gained from illegal trading will be confiscated, the statement said.
■TELECOMS
Nokia to buy Nortel business
Canadian telecommunications company Nortel that has been in bankruptcy protection since January announced on Friday that it will sell most of its wireless business to Nokia Siemens Networks for US$650 million. In addition, Nortel announced that it is advancing in its discussions with other parties to sell its other businesses. Nortel will apply to delist its common shares from trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange, the company said in a statement.
■AUTOMOTIVE
Objections may stall GM
A group of General Motors Corp (GM) bondholders and some of the automaker’s labor unions filed objections on Friday to GM’s plan to sell its assets to a new company that can emerge from bankruptcy protection. Their opposition, along with additional objections filed by consumer groups, a handful of states and cities, and individual retirees, shareholders and bondholders, threatens to put the brakes on what has so far been a speedy trip through the bankruptcy process.
■ENERGY
Total sacks 647 strikers
Strikes spread to energy facilities across Britain Friday after almost 650 workers were sacked at an oil refinery after they called a wildcat strike, unions said. French oil giant Total, the owner of the Lindsey refinery in Lincolnshire, eastern England, said it had sent termination letters to 647 workers, after previous reports said that 900 would be affected. The dispute deepened when talks to try to resolve it failed to take place.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the