China’s Haier Group (海爾) has agreed to buy General Electric Co’s (GE) appliance business for US$5.4 billion in what would be the nation’s biggest acquisition of an overseas electronics company.
The group’s Qingdao Haier Co (青島海爾) signed an agreement with GE and the transaction is targeted to close in the middle of this year, a statement said.
While the boards of GE and Haier have approved the deal, it is still subject to shareholder and regulatory approval, it said.
Buying a century-old business that makes US$8,500 refrigerators from the likes of GE would underscore the rise of a Chinese company once known for making cheap fridges for college dormitories.
It also highlights Haier’s global ambitions, as the acquisition would help the company expand in the US, one the markets it is trying to focus on besides Europe and Japan.
“It may be a step for the Chinese company to build up an international network, while its overseas exposure now is still small,” Andrew Song (宋濤), an analyst in Guotai Junan Securities Co (國泰君安證券), said before the announcement. “It’s also likely that they will have more synergy, as Haier is developing smart appliances.”
If completed, the size of the deal would make it the largest Chinese purchase of an electronics business overseas, surpassing state-backed Tsinghua Holdings Co’s (清華控股) plans for a US$3.8 billion investment in Western Digital Corp announced last year and Lenovo Group Ltd’s (聯想) US$2.8 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility Group in 2014, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
GE was seeking another suitor for the unit after an agreement with Electrolux AB collapsed following opposition from the US Department of Justice. The business drew offers from suitors that included China’s Midea Group Co (美的集團), according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The sale is part of GE chief executive Jeffrey Immelt’s efforts to reshape the company around industrial-manufacturing operations. Besides the appliance business, he is selling the bulk of GE’s lending arm, while expanding divisions making products such as gas turbines, oilfield equipment and jet engines.
Midea is China’s biggest manufacturer of appliances, with a 17.1 percent share of the nation’s market last year, followed by Qingdao Haier, with 7.9 percent, Euromonitor International data showed.
Haier had a 1.1 percent share of the US appliance market last year, according to Euromonitor.
GE and Haier also announced yesterday that they would cooperate in industrial Internet, healthcare and advanced manufacturing. Both companies also plan to work together to develop and grow affordable consumer health initiatives in China, the statement said.
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