■INVESTMENT
Chinatrust to raise NT$44bn
Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控), Taiwan’s fourth-largest listed financial services company, plans to raise NT$44.35 billion (US$1.3 billion) in a private placement of shares. The company plans to sell 2.5 billion shares at NT$17.74 each, it said in an exchange filing on Friday. Chinatrust Financial will use the funds “to strengthen capital and financial structure, inject working capital for long-term operation and business expansion,” the company said in the filing. Chinatrust Financial and Primus Financial Holdings Ltd have placed the highest bids for Nan Shan Life Insurance Co (南山人壽), the Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported yesterday, citing unnamed sources. Chinatrust Financial has offered to pay US$2.1 billion for Nan Shan, American International Group Inc’s Taiwan unit, while Primus has placed a US$2 billion bid, the paper said.
■AUTOMAKERS
China sales expected to soar
China’s vehicle sales may rise 28 percent this year, according to the nation’s top planning agency, likely enough for the country to surpass the US as the world’s largest auto market. Full-year sales may reach as high as 12 million vehicles, Chen Bin (陳斌), chief director of the industry coordination department at the National Development and Reform Commission, said yesterday at a conference in Tianjin. US sales will likely be around 10.5 million, according to both General Motors Co and Ford Motor Co. China has boosted auto sales this year through tax cuts and subsidies as a part of a wider 4 trillion yuan (US$586 billion) stimulus that has shielded the country from the worst of the global recession.
■BEVERAGES
Coca-Cola grows in Vietnam
The Coca-Cola Company said it would double its investment in Vietnam to US$400 million. The firm said it would invest, in conjunction with its local bottler, an additional US$200 million in the country over the next three years. Since returning to Vietnam in 1994, Coca-Cola has already invested US$200 million and has three bottling plants: in the north, central and southern parts of the country, the company said in a statement on Friday. “Vietnam is a very important growth market to The Coca-Cola Company,” the firm’s chairman and chief executive officer Muhtar Kent said in the statement.
■AUTOMAKERS
Suzuki eyes new India plant
Japan’s Suzuki Motor Corp plans to build a new plant in India in 2011 in a bid to meet growing demand for cars in the country, a newspaper reported yesterday. The manufacturer of small cars and motorcycles plans to invest about ¥30 billion (US$323 million) in construction of a plant with annual production capacity of 300,000 vehicles, the Nikkei business daily said. The firm will build the plant near its production base in Manesar near New Delhi, where Suzuki has already been producing 300,000 units a year with its Indian partner, the daily’s evening edition said.
■BANKING
US failures hit 89 this year
US bank regulators closed four Midwestern banks and one in Arizona on Friday, bringing to 89 the number of US banks to fail this year as deteriorating loans continue to take their toll on financial institutions. The five failures will cost the FDIC deposit insurance fund an estimated US$401.3 million, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp said. Last year, 25 US banks were seized by officials, up from only three in 2007.
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],”