The Financial Supervisory Commission yesterday approved plans by China Development Financial Holding Co (中華開發金控) to buy all KGI Securities Co (凱基證券) shares on the open market.
Earlier this month, China Development Financial said that it planned to buy KGI Securities at a generous premium and that it would integrate the business with its subsidiary Grand Cathay Securities Corp (大華證券).
The buyout plan, the largest involving a local brokerage at NT$54.63 billion (US$1.85 billion), involves a share swap scheme, under which each KGI share may be exchanged for 1.2 China Development Financial common shares, in addition to NT$5.5 in cash.
China Development Financial, also the owner of China Development Industrial Bank (中華開發工銀), will have a share capital of NT$155.4 billion upon completion of the acquisition and a securities unit with 112 outlets nationwide, the commission said.
To fund the integration, the banking subsidiary will cut its capital by 20.62 percent by canceling 1.6 billion shares, lowering its capital adequacy ratio to 21.17 percent, still way higher than the required 8 percent.
The acquisition would place the buyer first in the underwriting business and second in brokerage services.
Separately, Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控), yesterday said its banking unit, Chinatrust Commercial Bank (中國信託商銀), had signed a memorandum of understanding with China UnionPay Co (中國銀聯), to jointly develop credit cards, online payments and cross-border remittance business across the Taiwan Strait.
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