American International Group Inc (AIG) chose Bank of America Corp, Deutsche Bank AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc and -JPMorgan Chase & Co to manage the sale of the US government’s 92 percent stake in the insurer, two people familiar with the situation said on Tuesday.
AIG and the US government held a “bake off” in New York last Thursday, hosting CEOs and bankers from 10 of the world’s largest firms to pitch for the right to manage the deal.
JPMorgan and Bank of America were two of the three joint lead arrangers on AIG’s US$4.3 billion bank credit lines, while Goldman and AIG have a long-standing relationship. The Deutsche Bank connection is less clear, although AIG is expected to pitch investors aggressively for a large, global shareholder base.
The winning banks are expected to split a fee that is less than the 75 basis points of the offering value the government paid last year for the initial public offering of General Motors Co. The fee could be closer to 50 basis points, a third person said.
That is significantly less than the usual fee for a secondary offering of this size, although the banks are expected to make up for the lost revenue with the prestige of managing a marquee deal and the chance at future AIG business.
Sources have said the process likely will begin with a secondary offering in May that could be one of the 10 largest in history. The government is expected to sell at least US$15 billion in AIG shares then and the company is expected to sell another US$3 billion on top of that.
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
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