Bain Capital LLC, Morgan Stanley’s private equity unit, and Oaktree Capital Management LLC plan to bid together with Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控) for American International Group Inc’s (AIG) Taiwan unit, three people with knowledge of the matter said.
The companies would bid against Carlyle Group, which is partnering with Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) for the next round of offers scheduled for late next month, the people said, asking not to be identified because the talks are confidential.
AIG hired Morgan Stanley and Blackstone Group LP to manage the sale.
AIG’s advisers last week asked buyout firms to team up with Fubon or Chinatrust to ease regulatory concerns about the sale of the nation’s second-biggest insurer, Nan Shan Life Insurance Co (南山人壽), to private-equity firms.
AIG owns 97.57 percent of the unit and Nan Shan’s management holds the rest. Nan Shan may fetch about US$2 billion in the sale, the people said earlier.
The company has 4 million policyholders and an 11 percent market share in terms of premiums.
Primus Financial Holdings Ltd and Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控) have also been invited to put in binding bids next month, the people said.
“The regulator wants the domestic companies to be in the driving seat,” said Chuang Piyen, a Taipei-based analyst at Mega Securities Co (兆豐證券). “The buyout firms are likely to be passive investors contributing capital to help the local partner bid.”
Morgan Stanley, which owns 4.8 percent of Chinatrust, won approval last month to boost the stake to 9.9 percent through its Asia private-equity unit. The unit teaming up with Chinatrust’s investing group may conflict with Morgan Stanley’s role as AIG’s sale adviser, according two rival bidders who asked not to be identified.
Primus Financial hired The Boston Consulting Group to work on a strategic business plan for Nan Shan and plans to allocate at least 5 percent to 10 percent of the company’s shares to the management and staff should it acquire the Taiwan insurer, a bid document obtained by Bloomberg News showed.
The financial services company, which has raised more than US$1 billion this year, also plans to expand Nan Shan’s scope of services to Hong Kong and China, the letter said.
The setup of groups bidding for Nan Shan may change, the people said.
The Financial Supervisory Commission has said it wants a buyer of Nan Shan to have experience in insurance.
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
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
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],”