Nomura Asset Management Co, a subsidiary of Nomura Holdings Inc, announced yesterday it would acquire ING Group’s Taiwan asset management unit, ING Securities Investment and Trust Co (ING SITC, 安泰投信).
“The acquisition is part of our ongoing expansion in Asia and represents a very important opportunity for us to enter the Taiwanese market,” Nomura Asset Management chief executive officer Toshihiro Iwasaki said in a statement.
An investment group led by former ING SITC chief executive officer Ashwin Mehta is helping conduct the acquisition, which is subject to regulatory approval, Nomura Asset Management said.
The company did not disclose the financial terms of the deal.
A Beijing-based communications official at the company said in an e-mail that Nomura Asset Management plans to retain calibrated ING SITC staffers but declined to give numbers.
By leveraging the firm’s existing capabilities, the Japanese buyer aims to build its presence in the local market, while deepening its overall investment management business in Asia, Nomura said.
The deal came more than a year after ING SITC offered NT$256 million (US$8.47 million) in payments in November 2012 to institutional and individual clients in Taiwan for losses related to investments in Ablerex Electronics Co (盈正豫順電子).
ING SITC had come under fire from lawmakers, the Council of Labor Affairs and the Labor Pension Fund Supervisory Committee for mishandling the Labor Insurance, Labor Pension and Public Service Pension funds in 2010.
Nomura and ING are expected to complete the transaction in the second quarter this year, pending regulatory approval, the Dutch company said in a separate statement, adding that the transaction is not expected to have a material impact on its results.
“The transaction announced today is in line with ING’s earlier announced strategy to divest its insurance and investment businesses,” the statement said.
ING SITC is among the top 10 investment management firms in Taiwan with approximately 5.2 billion euros (US$7.08 billion) in assets under management as of Oct. 31 last year, ING said.
Taiwan is one of the leading mutual fund markets in Asia, with offshore funds sized at NT$2.72 trillion in October and onshore funds at NT$1.97 trillion in November, according to Securities Investment Trust and Consulting Association’s statistics.
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
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six