Mining company Teck Resources Ltd said on Friday it is selling a 17 percent stake to China Investment Corp (CIC, 中國投資公司) for C$1.74 billion (US$1.5 billion) in a bid to reduce its debt load.
The Vancouver-based company said CIC, the world’s largest commodity buyer, will buy 101.3 million class B voting shares for C$17.21 each. CIC will hold onto the stock for at least a year, the mining company said.
The proceeds from the private placement will go toward paying down nearly US$10 billion in bank debt and will also give the company a chance to forge a partnership with a major foreign investor, Teck’s chief executive said in a conference call.
“We will have a financial relationship with a very deep-pocketed investor who would potentially participate in future development projects,” CEO Don Lindsay said.
The sale, which is still subject to regulatory approval, is slated to close on July 14.
Teck has been selling assets and cutting costs to pay down the debt acquired after the US$9.8-billion purchase of Fording Canadian Coal Trust last year.
China, on the other hand, has been aggressively pursuing major acquisitions or investments in commodity companies. In the oil industry, the Chinese have become the most aggressive deal makers, taking advantage of low oil prices to help feed the country’s energy needs.
Last week, China’s Sinopec Corp (中國石化) announced it will acquire oil explorer Addax Petroleum for US$7.2 billion, in what would be the largest overseas takeover ever by a Chinese company.
Sinopec, a refiner, would gain access to substantial reserves in West Africa and the Middle East if the takeover of Addax is approved.
China National Offshore Oil Corp (中國海洋石油), meanwhile, may continue to bid for oilfields in Iraq after the Gulf country awarded a contract to its bigger rival, China National Petroleum Corp (中國石油天然氣).
“We may continue to participate in the second round,” China National Offshore president Fu Chengyu (傅成玉) said yesterday in Beijing.
Iraq plans to award contracts for oil and gas field exploration and development in a second licensing round to be held before the end of the year, Abdul Mahdy al-Ameedi, deputy director general of the Petroleum Contracts Licensing Dept, said on Thursday.
Iraq gave the development contract for Rumaila, the largest oilfield in the Middle Eastern nation, to BP Plc and China National Petroleum, and failed to award most of the contracts offered in an auction on June 30. The government aims to boost oil output to 4 million barrels a day within the next five years, from about 2.4 million barrels.
The BP-led group agreed to develop the field at a cost of US$2 a barrel after recovering investment, lower than the prices BP and Exxon initially bid, the ministry said in a statement then.
China National Offshore, the nation’s third-biggest oil explorer and the parent of Hong Kong-listed CNOOC Ltd, offered bids for different fields in the June 30 auction, Fu said.
“Our costs are higher then US$2 a barrel; we couldn’t lower that to a level that the Iraqi government can accept,” he said.
WEAKER ACTIVITY: The sharpest deterioration was seen in the electronics and optical components sector, with the production index falling 13.2 points to 44.5 Taiwan’s manufacturing sector last month contracted for a second consecutive month, with the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) slipping to 48, reflecting ongoing caution over trade uncertainties, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The decline reflects growing caution among companies amid uncertainty surrounding US tariffs, semiconductor duties and automotive import levies, and it is also likely linked to fading front-loading activity, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “Some clients have started shifting orders to Southeast Asian countries where tariff regimes are already clear,” Lien told a news conference. Firms across the supply chain are also lowering stock levels to mitigate
Six Taiwanese companies, including contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), made the 2025 Fortune Global 500 list of the world’s largest firms by revenue. In a report published by New York-based Fortune magazine on Tuesday, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), ranked highest among Taiwanese firms, placing 28th with revenue of US$213.69 billion. Up 60 spots from last year, TSMC rose to No. 126 with US$90.16 billion in revenue, followed by Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) at 348th, Pegatron Corp (和碩) at 461st, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) at 494th and Wistron Corp (緯創) at
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip assembly and testing service provider, yesterday said it would boost equipment capital expenditure by up to 16 percent for this year to cope with strong customer demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Aside from AI, a growing demand for semiconductors used in the automotive and industrial sectors is to drive ASE’s capacity next year, the Kaohsiung-based company said. “We do see the disparity between AI and other general sectors, and that pretty much aligns the scenario in the first half of this year,” ASE chief operating officer Tien Wu (吳田玉) told an
RSS