Britain is to investigate the national security implications of the purchase of defense company Cobham PLC by US private equity firm Advent International Corp, potentially delaying or even blocking the US$5 billion deal.
British Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Andrea Leadsom’s move yesterday is not unusual where there are potential security concerns and follows British government intervention in the pending acquisition of satellite group Inmarsat PLC by an international private equity consortium that includes US firm Warburg Pincus LLC.
Leadsom has issued a European intervention notice, calling for a report from the British Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) by Oct. 29 to determine whether Cobham, the maker of air-to-air refueling equipment, should be sold.
The CMA could decide to undertake a lengthy inquiry due to Cobham’s role in supporting aircraft such as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and Eurofighter Typhoon, as well as advanced naval vessels, satellites and military vehicles.
Other deals investigated on national security grounds have often been cleared after undertakings from the buyer.
“The CMA will now prepare a report on the national security aspects of the proposed transaction,” the British Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said. “This is a statutory process to ensure national security implications of a proposed sale are fully assessed.”
Cobham, launched in the 1930s by a British adventurer and explorer, employs 10,000 people. It has struggled in the past several years, issuing a string of profit warnings in 2016 and 2017.
Advent has a track record of buying British technology companies, having snapped up electronics company Laird PLC for US$1.65 billion last year.
Cobham investors approved the takeover on Monday.
Some Cobham operations, such as its Advanced Electronic Solutions unit, have special security agreement status that allows them to bid for US defense contracts.
Cobham CEO David Lockwood on Monday said that requirement would disappear under Advent ownership, enabling the group to combine infrastructure and share knowledge more quickly and easily within the company.
Lockwood said that he had already held some discussions with government officials about the takeover, but would not go into details.
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