One of China’s biggest life insurers is set to raise as much as US$4 billion in a dual listing in Hong Kong and Shanghai, marking one of the region’s biggest initial public offerings (IPO) so far this year.
New China Life Insurance (新華保險) filed a request for the listing with China’s insurance regulator last week and plans to submit a request to Hong Kong’s bourse by the end of next month at the earliest, Dow Jones Newswires reported, citing a person familiar with the planned offering.
Hong Kong’s exchange would then hold hearings to approve the insurer’s listing.
The US$5.4 billion listing last month by Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing’s (李嘉誠) Singapore Hutchison Port Holdings Trust (和記港口控股信托), which owns deep-water ports in Hong Kong and China, is Asia’s biggest IPO so far this year.
Last week, Swiss commodities giant Glencore announced the world’s biggest IPO so far this year, with a dual listing in London and Hong Kong to raise up to US$11 billion.
REAL ESTATE
Meanwhile, Li’s real estate investment trust raised 10.5 billion yuan (US$1.6 billion) in Hong Kong’s first IPO denominated in the Chinese currency, two people with knowledge of the matter said.
Hui Xian Real Estate Investment Trust (匯賢房地產投資信託基金) sold 2 billion units at 5.24 yuan apiece, at the lower end of a range that was marketed to investors, said the people, who declined to be identified before an announcement.
The REIT will have a forecast yield of 4.26 percent, based on pricing assumptions presented in the company’s share sale document.
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
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”