FINANCIAL SERVICES
Fubon to buy Hyundai stake
Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) yesterday said its board has approved a plan to invest NT$6.12 billion (US$197.6 million) in 37 million shares of South Korea-based Hyundai Life Insurance Co. After the transaction, Fubon Financial would hold a 48 percent stake in Hyundai Life Insurance Co via its life insurance arm, Fubon Life Insurance Co (富邦人壽). The deal aims to expand the firm’s presence in northeast Asia, the company said in a Taiwan Stock Exchange filing yesterday.
INVESTMENT
Vietnamese data released
From 1988 to last month, Taiwanese businesses invested US$28.66 billion in Vietnam, making Taiwan the fourth-largest foreign investor in the Southeast Asian nation, according to statistics from Taiwan’s representative office in Vietnam. South Korea is the largest foreign investor in Vietnam, with investments of US$38.73 billion. Japan is second, with US$37.65 billion, followed by Singapore with US$33.15 billion. In the first five months of this year, Taiwanese investment approved by the Vietnamese government totaled US$114.44 million, the seventh-highest among all foreign investors. The top six investors in the first five months of the year were South Korea (US$755.87 million), Turkey (US$660.25 million), the British Virgin Islands (US$441.79 million), Japan (US$230.26 million), Singapore (US$152.38 million) and Hong Kong (US$129.20 million).
LISTINGS
Legend IPO raises US$2bn
Legend Holdings Corp (聯想), a Chinese conglomerate whose holdings include the world’s largest computer maker, raised about US$2 billion in its Hong Kong initial public offering (IPO), people with knowledge of the matter said. Legend sold 352.9 million shares at HK$42.98, near the top end of a marketed range, the people said. They asked not to be identified as the information is private. The offering adds to the more than US$13 billion raised through first-time share sales in Hong Kong this year, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. Legend, founded in 1984, had expanded into a company with US$47 billion of assets and more than 60,000 employees by the end of last year, according to its Web site. It considering selling the shares at the top of the range after receiving orders from institutional investors for at least eight times the amount of stock available, people with knowledge of the matter said on Thursday last week. Chinese shares tumbled 6.4 percent the following day, capping the worst week since the 2008 global financial crisis.
EQUITIES
Greek proposals boost shares
Encouraged by news that the Greek government had put forward new proposals for a deal to solve the nation’s debt crisis, investors jumped back into the stock market yesterday, sparking a rebound that left the index above the 9,300-point mark, dealers said. The TAIEX closed up 123.40 points, or 1.33 percent, at 9,341.77, on turnover of NT$89.3 billion. Most stock categories finished in positive territory, with the bellwether electronics sector gaining 1.18 percent and the financial sector rising 1.31 percent. Plastics shares gained 2.5 percent and textile stocks were up 1.98 percent. In the financial sector, Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) rose 2.75 percent to close at NT$63.6, Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控) increased 1.73 percent to close at NT$53 and Mega Financial Holding Co (兆豐金控) closed 0.72 percent higher at NT$28.
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