Australian mining magnate Gina Rinehart yesterday increased her joint offer with a Chinese company for one of the world’s biggest cattle estates, to fend off a rival bid by an all-Australian consortium.
Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting Pty and Chinese property developer Shanghai CRED Real Estate Stock Co (上海中房置業) raised their offer from A$365 million to A$386.5 million (US$279 million to US$295 million) for Australia’s biggest private landowner — cattle firm S. Kidman & Co — days after four wealthy grazier families launched their own A$386 million bid.
The local families had argued their proposal was better as it did not need approval from Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB).
While the Kidman sale has attracted keen interest from Chinese firms wanting to secure the sprawling pastoral empire, the Australian government has previously rejected two Chinese-led bids, citing the national interest.
The Rinehart-led bid was supported by Kidman’s board, which “unanimously recommended” it to their shareholders in the absence of a superior proposal.
“Under the Hancock [joint venture] offer the core Kidman business will remain intact and the Kidman staff and legacy will be looked after,” Kidman chairman John Crosby said in a statement.
Rinehart, Australia’s richest woman, also pledged to buy Kidman fully if the Australian-Chinese joint offer — in which Hancock acquires 67 percent of Kidman and Shanghai CRED 33 percent — was knocked back by Canberra or Beijing.
“I stand behind the bid and should FIRB or PRC [People’s Republic of China] approvals not be achieved, then Hancock will proceed with the acquisition on a 100 percent basis,” Rinehart said in a statement. “I hope this provides shareholders with significant comfort and that when they consider the offer they can do so in the knowledge that there is no FIRB or PRC execution risk, and further that we have the money to invest to properly maintain the stations and their hard-working staff.”
Shanghai CRED was part of a Chinese consortium involved in the previous offers. The Chinese stake in the new joint bid, if approved, would be significantly smaller. The first Chinese-led bid was rejected in November last year.
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
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
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