■LIVESTOCK
Sheep sold for world record
A sheep has sold for a world record £231,000 (US$376,200) at a Scottish livestock auction, a British sheep society said. Deveronvale Perfection, a Texel breed admired by his new owner for his “great body and strong loin,” will be used for breeding. Experts are predicting the tup, the farming term for an uncastrated sheep, will prove a bargain over the long term for his new owner. “It comes down to genetics,” said British Texel Sheep Society chief executive, John Yates, on the society’s Web site. “Breeders are looking at the decades of sheep that this blood line can produce.” Graham Morrison, who owned Perfection, said the price surpassed his wildest dreams, the Web site said. Farmer Jimmy Douglas of Cairness, Scotland, who forked out the record amount, was quoted as saying Perfection was the best lamb he had ever seen.
■PROPERTY
Qatar to invest in Songbird
Qatar Holding LLC said it would become the largest shareholder in Songbird Estates PLC, the biggest landlord in London’s Canary Wharf, after the UK property company agreed on Friday to sell shares to repay loans. Qatar Holding would own 14.8 percent of Songbird by investing in the company’s preferred stock, the Doha-based arm of the Qatar Investment Authority said in a statement. Songbird agreed to sell shares to institutions, including Qatar Holding and China’s sovereign wealth fund to repay £880 million (US$1.4 billion) in bank loans. The UK’s biggest real-estate companies tapped investors for cash this year after a slump in commercial-property values threatened to make them breach the terms of their bank loans. Songbird is the largest shareholder in the company that owns 16 of the 30 office buildings that comprise Canary Wharf, an area by the River Thames covering 39 hectares.
■INVESTMENT
CIC boosts fund investment
China Investment Corp (CIC, 中投公司), China’s sovereign wealth fund, is continuing to shift its investments away from cash and shifting billions to hedge funds and private-equity funds, chairman Lou Jiwei (樓繼偉) said. China Investment has invested “many times” the US$500 million that CIC was reported to have placed in hedge funds and private-equity firms in June, Lou said in an interview in Beijing yesterday. He said China Investment was also investing in fund-of-funds. Lou said Beijing-based CIC’s performance this year “has not been bad” following last year’s 2.1 percent decline in its global investments. He didn’t elaborate. China Investment had US$297.5 billion in assets and 87.4 percent of its global portfolio invested in cash and cash equivalents at the end of last year, the fund reported earlier this month.
■FINANCE
Shin Kong to raise funds
Shin Kong Financial Holding Co (新光金控) said on Friday that its board had approved another NT$5 billion (US$151.9 million) fund-raising plan by issuing new shares, it said in a press statement. The new shares will first be open to the company’s shareholders for subscription before being released to the company chairman or via private placement, the statement said without providing details, including a timetable. Along with the earlier US$375 million fund raised via the issuance of global depositary receipts late last month, the new funds will be used to boost the capital adequacy ratio of the firm’s life insurance subsidiary, Shin Kong Life Insurance Co (新光人壽), Taiwan’s third-largest life insurer.
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