General Motors Co’s (GM) main joint venture partner in China, Shanghai Automotive Industrial Corp (SAIC, 上海汽車), said it has bought an almost 1 percent stake in the US automaker through its initial public offering.
SAIC, which is owned by the Shanghai Municipal Government, said yesterday it paid US$33 a share for about 0.97 percent of GM at a total cost of almost US$500 million.
The two companies said the share purchase is meant to enhance their cooperation in the world’s biggest auto market.
“We are happy with SAIC’s decision to participate in GM’s public offering. GM has enjoyed a strong partnership with SAIC over the past 14 years,” Tim Lee, president of GM International Operations, said in a statement.
SAIC said it would raise the funds needed to finance the share purchase in the Hong Kong financial market. It did not give further details on that plan.
In related news, Ford is reducing its stake in Japanese automaker Mazda to 3.5 percent from 11 percent, giving up the position of top stakeholder it has held for 31 years.
However, Mazda Motor Corp said in a statement yesterday that its partnership with Ford Motor Co would continue in developing and marketing cars together.
Mazda did not specify which companies were buying the shares from Ford, based in Dearborn, Michigan. However, it said the buyers would be companies with which it does business.
Japanese media reports have said Mitsui Sumitomo Bank, already a major investor in Mazda, will be among the buyers as will Japanese trading conglomerate Itochu Corp.
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
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
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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