China Vanke Co (萬科) and its largest shareholder, a group backed by Baoneng Group (寶能集團), look set for a showdown after Vanke chairman Wang Shi (王石) wrote: “See you on Monday” on Weibo — a Chinese Twitter equivalent — and Baoneng defended its reputation in an exchange filing.
Vanke, China’s biggest home builder, faces a hostile takeover bid by the Baoneng-backed group, Vanke president Yu Liang (郁亮) said on Friday.
Wang said the company does not welcome Baoneng Group and its affiliates, who lack credibility and might have a negative impact on Vanke’s credit ratings and reputation, according to a transcript of an internal meeting obtained by Bloomberg News, the contents of which were confirmed by the company.
Baoneng Group said in a statement on its Web site on Friday that it has a “good” reputation, follows the law and believes in the power of the market.
Vanke, which develops residential properties in Shenzhen, Shanghai, Beijing and other big Chinese cities, has a market capitalization of more than US$40 billion. Baoneng Group replaced China Resources Co (華潤置地) as its largest shareholder this month, prompting the rare public spat.
Vanke, the world’s largest listed property company by market value, suspended trading on Friday pending a share sale, sparking speculation it is seeking to dilute the Baoneng Group’s ownership.
“This could potentially be a counterattack by Vanke to Baoneng,” China Real Estate Information Corp (中國房產信息集團) director David Hong said. “Vanke may try to introduce a third-party investor.”
Wang removed the Weibo post hours after publishing it on Saturday.
“The healthy development of a listed company is inseparable from the support of its employees, customers, suppliers and communities,” he said in a later posting. “When making business decisions, a company not only must consider the interests of its shareholders, but also those of related stakeholders.”
A hostile takeover “disregards the related interests of society,” he said.
Established in 1992, Shenzhen-based Baoneng Group is an investor with its main businesses in property development, logistics and finance, according to its Web site. It has about 40 projects in construction in 23 Chinese cities.
Baoneng increased its stake in Vanke to 22.45 percent as of Dec. 11, from less than 5 percent, within five months.
“What we face today is the same as a hostile takeover,” Yu said during the Friday briefing. “Vanke welcomes shareholders which will not intervene with the business of the company,” he said, citing China Resources as an example of such a holder.
China Resources played an important role in Vanke’s corporate governance when it was the company’s biggest investor, including providing shareholder structure stability, helping business management and internationalization, according to the transcript.
“Whether the old shareholders, led by China Resources, will team up with Vanke, will become an important swing factor,” Chen Shen, a Shanghai-based property analyst at China Securities Co (中信建投證券), wrote in a note on Thursday last week.
Vanke’s shares rose by the 10 percent daily limit in Shenzhen for a second straight day on Friday before they were halted. The shares have advanced 76 percent this year.
Sweeping policy changes under US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr are having a chilling effect on vaccine makers as anti-vaccine rhetoric has turned into concrete changes in inoculation schedules and recommendations, investors and executives said. The administration of US President Donald Trump has in the past year upended vaccine recommendations, with the country last month ending its longstanding guidance that all children receive inoculations against flu, hepatitis A and other diseases. The unprecedented changes have led to diminished vaccine usage, hurt the investment case for some biotechs, and created a drag that would likely dent revenues and
Global semiconductor stocks advanced yesterday, as comments by Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) at Davos, Switzerland, helped reinforce investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI). Samsung Electronics Co gained as much as 5 percent to an all-time high, helping drive South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI above 5,000 for the first time. That came after the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose more than 3 percent to a fresh record on Wednesday, with a boost from Nvidia. The gains came amid broad risk-on trade after US President Donald Trump withdrew his threat of tariffs on some European nations over backing for Greenland. Huang further
Macronix International Co (旺宏), the world’s biggest NOR flash memory supplier, yesterday said it would spend NT$22 billion (US$699.1 million) on capacity expansion this year to increase its production of mid-to-low-density memory chips as the world’s major memorychip suppliers are phasing out the market. The company said its planned capital expenditures are about 11 times higher than the NT$1.8 billion it spent on new facilities and equipment last year. A majority of this year’s outlay would be allocated to step up capacity of multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory chips, which are used in embedded multimedia cards (eMMC), a managed
CULPRITS: Factors that affected the slip included falling global crude oil prices, wait-and-see consumer attitudes due to US tariffs and a different Lunar New Year holiday schedule Taiwan’s retail sales ended a nine-year growth streak last year, slipping 0.2 percent from a year earlier as uncertainty over US tariff policies affected demand for durable goods, data released on Friday by the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed. Last year’s retail sales totaled NT$4.84 trillion (US$153.27 billion), down about NT$9.5 billion, or 0.2 percent, from 2024. Despite the decline, the figure was still the second-highest annual sales total on record. Ministry statistics department deputy head Chen Yu-fang (陳玉芳) said sales of cars, motorcycles and related products, which accounted for 17.4 percent of total retail rales last year, fell NT$68.1 billion, or
RSS