PRODUCE
Dole Food seeks US$400m
Fruit and vegetable producer Dole Food Co is seeking to raise about US$400 million in its third initial public offering, a person familiar with the matter said. Dole’s 94-year-old chairman and 100 percent owner, David Murdock, is bringing the company to market for the third time in its 166-year history. The company raised US$446.4 million the last time it went public in 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Corp and Deutsche Bank AG are leading the offering, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission last month.
RESTAURANT
Chuck E. Cheese talks sale
The owner of Chuck E. Cheese is in talks with investment firm Ares Management LP over a sale that could value the children’s pizza and arcade chain at about US$2 billion, people with knowledge of the matter said. Ares is negotiating with owner Apollo Global Management LLC over the precise valuation, the people said, adding that Bain Capital, Hellman & Friedman and Warburg Pincus dropped out of the bidding process over pricing. Apollo hired Deutsche Bank AG and Credit Suisse Group AG to run an auction process for the company, with the US$2 billion valuation equating to about nine times its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, they said.
FINANCE
Brexit may stall London
Development of London’s financial center will “stall” owing to Brexit, but is unlikely to “totally reverse,” Goldman Sachs chief executive officer Lloyd Blankfein said in an interview on Friday. “It will stall, it might backtrack a bit, it just depends on a lot of things about which we are uncertain, and I know there isn’t certainty at the moment,” he told the BBC. “I don’t think it will totally reverse.” The British government is to soon start negotiations to set the terms of its EU departure.
BANKING
India appoints new CEOs
India appointed new chief executive officers at seven state-controlled lenders, including Punjab National Bank and Bank of India. Sunil Mehta has been appointed managing director and chief executive officer of New Delhi-based Punjab National Bank, and Dinabandhu Mohapatra is to assume charge as managing director and chief executive officer of Bank of India, a statement dated on Friday said. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government announced the appointments on the same day it empowered the Reserve Bank of India to clean up as much as US$180 billion of soured loans on their balance sheets, which have been choking credit and weighing on growth.
CANADA
Airport might be for sale
The government is considering the sale of at least a minority stake in Toronto Pearson International Airport that values the nation’s busiest airport at about C$5 billion (US$3.7 billion), people familiar with the matter said. The stake sale, just one of many options laid out in a report to government prepared by Credit Suisse Group AG, would free up billions of dollars for new infrastructure projects, the people said. Selling the airports would cut costs for travelers and create opportunities for more shops and services, C.D. Howe Institute estimates said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
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
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