Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控) chairman Jeffrey Koo (辜濂松), along with three company executives, paid a courtesy visit to Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) Chairman Sean Chen (陳冲) yesterday to brief the financial regulator on its planned acquisition of a 30 percent stake in Nan Shan Life Insurance Co (南山人壽).
After the hours-long closed-door talk, the commission reiterated its neutral stance in the regulatory review of Chinatrust Financial’s proposed partnership with Hong Kong-based China Strategic Holdings Ltd (中策集團) and Primus Financial Holdings Ltd to overtake the life insurer, FSC vice chairman Wu Tang-chieh (吳當傑) told a press conference yesterday.
“We will conduct a comprehensive review of their application for ownership transfer once they submit one,” Wu said.
“Our ultimate goal is ensuring the stability of [Nan Shan’s] future management,” he added.
Executives from China Strategic will also pay a visit to the financial regulator this week, but Wu said that no meeting between Chen and visiting Hong Kong executives had been scheduled yet.
Last week, China Strategic — a consortium with Primus Financial — announced it had agreed on a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Chinatrust Financial to sell 30 percent of its Nan Shan shares, valued at US$660 million, to the local financial services provider. In exchange, Chinatrust Financial would sell a 9.95 percent stake worth about NT$20.8 billion (US$648 million) to China Stratetic.
Earlier yesterday, Chen said an application from China Strategic for approval of the purchase had yet to be received, adding that more than two regulatory thresholds would apply when financial authorities assess the case.
In considering China Strategic’s planned acquisition of a stake in Chinatrust Financial, Chen said that according to the Financial Holding Company Act (金融控股公司法), any shareholder holding a stake of more than 5 percent must submit documents to regulators, while those holding more than a 10 percent stake must undergo a full examination by regulators.
In addition to the commission’s Insurance Bureau, the FSC’s Securities and Futures Bureau and the Banking Bureau will also examine the transaction, as Chinatrust Financial is a listed company and a portion of its company will be bought by foreign interests via a private placement.
Regulators frowned at China Strategic’s announcement of the MOU with Chinatrust before it received approval from the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Investment Commission to buy a 97.5 percent stake in Nan Shan from American International Group Inc (AIG).
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
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],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained