■BANKING
Allianz to decide bank’s fate
The German insurance group Allianz is to decide on Sunday what to do with troubled banking unit Dresdner Bank, and is in talks with Commerzbank and the Chinese bank CDB, a press report said yesterday. Allianz is expected to retain around 30 percent of the bank’s capital however, to be able to continue selling insurance products at its branches, the business daily Handelsblatt said, quoting sources close to the matter. It added that CDB had offered more for the stake being offered, and would allow Allianz access to the huge Chinese insurance market.
■FOOD
Dairy Farmers co-op bought
National Foods, a unit of Japanese brewing giant Kirin, has acquired Australia’s Dairy Farmers co-operative for A$910 million (US$782 million), the companies confirmed yesterday. The Japanese company is paying 12.8 times this year’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, the Australian company said. “National Foods has the capability and financial strength to leverage the acquisition of ACF to create new business opportunities domestically and in the vitally important Asian region,” National Foods managing director Ashley Waugh said. Ian Langdon, chairman of the Australian Co-operative Foods Limited, which trades as Dairy Farmers, welcomed the move.
■BANKING
Imperial Energy gets offer
British oil and gas explorer Imperial Energy said yesterday that Indian energy giant ONGC has offered to buy the group for £1.4 billion (US$2.6 billion). “Imperial Energy confirms that it is in the course of finalizing the terms of a possible recommended pre-conditional cash offer with ONGC of 1,250 pence per Imperial share,” Imperial said in a brief statement. The offer “would value its entire issued and to be issued ordinary share capital at approximately £1.4 billion,” it said. The London-listed group, which hunts for oil and gas in Russia and in Kazakhstan, said further details would be released later yesterday.
■JAPAN
Yamaha shares rise on story
Yamaha Corp shares rose the most in a year after a newspaper report said managers of the Japanese maker of music instruments and audio equipment may buy out the company. Yamaha denied the report. Company managers are in talks with Mizuho Corporate Bank Ltd to fund buyout plans, the Kabushiki Shimbun, a stock market newspaper, said yesterday, citing unidentified people. Yamaha aims use a management buyout to protect itself and affiliate Yamaha Motor Co from a hostile takeover, the paper reported. Yamaha spokesman Toshiyuki Nihashi said the report was untrue, in a telephone interview yesterday.
■TRADE
Australia to sign trade deal
Australia and New Zealand are likely to sign free-trade agreements with some ASEAN nations within weeks, in a deal aimed at boosting trade between the Pacific countries and a market of over half a billion people. “I understand it’s only a matter of protocol, a matter of procedure. We’re working on one country which has some difficulty in this protocol but we think that it’s within reach,” the ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said. Speaking on the sidelines of a meeting of economy ministers of ASEAN and other Asia-Pacific countries in Singapore, Surin declined to identify the country.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)