Scandal-plagued Brazilian company J&F Investimentos sold its Eldorado paper pulp company to Paper Excellence of the Netherlands for US$4.76 billion, the companies said on Saturday.
The operation is to be completed in a maximum period of 12 months, they said.
The purchase means that Paper Excellence would add 1.7 million tonnes of pulp to its annual production from its current 2.3 million tonnes.
“We always had Brazil on our radar for being a country with a differentiated position in the global scenario of the sector,” said the company, which also has activities in Canada and Europe.
J&F Investimentos group is controlled by brothers Joesley and Wesley Batista, who built their fortune in the meat business and this year confessed to multiple crimes.
JBS SA chairman Joesley Batista in June caused a major political uproar when he was handed to authorities in connection with a wide-reaching corruption scandal, an audio recording in which Brazilian President Michel Temer appeared to condone the payment of hush money to a former lawmaker now in prison.
The chairman’s remarks were made in his first interview since he clinched a plea bargain deal with authorities as the nationwide anti-graft operation codenamed “Car Wash” began targeting his business dealings.
Batista agreed to cooperate in exchange for avoiding a conviction, while Temer, 76, denies the allegations.
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
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
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