Mergers and acquisitions in China will remain subdued for the rest of the year after the value of deals more than halved in the first six months, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) said.
Companies announced 1,427 deals valued at US$45.8 billion in the first half, compared with 1,812 transactions worth US$101.3 billion a year earlier, PwC said.
“Confidence is seeping back into the domestic economy, but investment by foreign buyout firms or other financial investors is unlikely to reach 2008 levels until 2011,” Benjamin Ye (葉常青), a Shanghai-based partner at PwC’s Transaction Services division, told reporters in the city yesterday.
China’s GDP expanded 7.9 percent in the second quarter as the nation became the first major economy to rebound from the global recession, helping drive consolidation in industries such as steel, cement and financial services.
Ping An Insurance (Group) Co (中國平安), China’s second-biggest insurer, on June 12 agreed to pay US$3.2 billion to boost its stake in Shenzhen Development Bank Co (深圳發展銀行) to almost 30 percent from 4.68 percent, making it the biggest transaction on China this year.
Meanwhile, China’s planned small-company stock exchange received 108 applications for initial public offerings (IPO) on its first day of accepting proposals as its launch nears, a state news agency said yesterday.
The Growth Enterprise Board planned for the southern financial center of Shenzhen is meant to nurture smaller, innovative companies. The government has not said when trading will start, but analysts expect the first IPO in October or November.
The board began taking applications on Sunday, the Xinhua news agency said. It said regulators would need three months to review each application.
Authorities have promised for several years to create an exchange to help smaller and private companies that struggle to raise money in a system where state-owned banks lend mostly to big state-owned companies.
The launch comes at a time when Chinese markets are recovering from a sharp decline last year. The benchmark index has risen 80 percent this year amid government stimulus spending to counter the global downturn.
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
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
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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