Morgan Stanley, the sixth-largest US bank, won approval from the US Federal Reserve to increase its stake in Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控) to 9.9 percent and become the largest shareholder in the Taipei-based company.
Morgan Stanley will be allowed to purchase an additional 5.1 percent of voting shares through several asset management units, the Fed said in a statement on Friday. Morgan Stanley agreed to be a passive investor in the bank and has three months to complete the share purchase, the Fed’s statement said.
Chinatrust Financial owns Taiwan’s biggest credit-card issuer, Chinatrust Commercial Bank (中國信託商銀). Its chairman, Jeffrey Koo (辜濂松), is the biggest shareholder with 7.28 percent, Bloomberg data showed.
Chinatrust Financial and Morgan Stanley were in talks in August about possible cooperation in consumer and institutional banking, and issuing credit cards, Chinatrust financial chief investment officer Daniel Wu (吳一揆) said at the time.
Morgan Stanley’s share purchase would indirectly increase its investment in Chinatrust Bank of Torrance, California. Morgan Stanley spokesman Mark Lake declined to comment.
Morgan Stanley would purchase the shares through subsidiaries including Morgan Stanley Private Equity Asia Inc and MS Holdings Inc, the statement said.
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
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last