Blackstone Group LP was approved by Shanghai authorities for a program allowing it to invest money raised abroad in China without seeking permission from the foreign exchange regulator, two people with knowledge of the matter said.
Blackstone’s 5 billion yuan (US$765 million) domestic fund was approved for the Qualified Foreign Limited Partner (QFLP) program, the two people said, declining to be named because the matter is private. The New York-based firm has raised about half the fund, some of it from overseas, one of the people said.
The permit removes a hurdle in China for Blackstone, which previously needed approval from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) to change dollars into yuan for every deal it made. The Blackstone fund will still be treated as a foreign investor, the people said, keeping it at a potential disadvantage to local rivals because its acquisitions need Ministry of Commerce approval.
The QFLP rules “are not giving foreign fund managers and investors everything they want,” said Larry Sussman, a Beijing- based partner at O’Melveny & Myers LLP who advises private equity firms setting up domestic funds in China.
“They’re certainly not the silver bullet that many people were hoping for, but it’s a sign that regulatory changes are going in the right direction,” he said.
Blackstone in 2009 became the first global buyout firm to announce plans for a yuan fund in China, where private-equity investments jumped 40 percent to US$19.7 billion last year, according to the Asian Venture Capital Journal. TPG Inc and Carlyle Group followed. Together, the three firms have announced plans to raise a combined 20 billion yuan for local-currency funds.
China’s currency regulator will grant Shanghai and Beijing a US$3 billion quota each for the QFLP program, Caixin magazine reported in January. The magazine only cited an unidentified source.
The QFLP program allows private equity firms to convert foreign currency into yuan, park it with a custodian bank and then invest it without applying for SAFE approval for each deal.
“Shanghai needs world class foreign LPs to make their program work,” Sussman said. “If Blackstone can deliver that, even though the fund does not work perfectly, it may open other doors to not only benefit Blackstone as a firm, but indirectly their LP family.”
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
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