The Hong Kong consortium that intends to buy Nan Shan Insurance Life Co (南山人壽) recently submitted requested information to the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) for review, officials said yesterday.
The ministry had requested that the Hong Kong consortium — comprising Primus Financial Holdings Ltd (博智金融) and China Strategic Holdings Ltd (中策集團) — supply more information to help clarify concerns on the source of its funding and the firm’s shareholding structure by the end of this month.
In October last year, the consortium announced plans to acquire Nan Shan from debt-ridden American International Group Inc for US$2.15 billion.
The planned takeover is highly controversial because of concerns of possible Chinese investment and board members’ links to the Chinese government. As a result, the consortium’s investment application was put on hold by the ministry’s Investment Commission.
The ministry said it was not possible to speculate on the outcome of the case as it has to get the green light from various government agencies, including the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC), before it is sent back to the Investment Commission.
The FSC said yesterday that the latest submission would be the last chance for the consortium to clear up any concerns about the planned acquisition. It said previously that the consortium must prove it has the ability to run and operate Nan Shan on a long-term basis.
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