■ BANKING
Morgan Stanley buys stake
US banking giant Morgan Stanley has completed a deal to buy a 19.9 percent stake in a medium-sized Chinese trust bank based in Hangzhou, the two companies said yesterday. The purchase of Hangzhou Industrial and Commercial Trust (杭州工商信託投資) company is part of Morgan Stanley’s efforts to tap into China’s growing financial market, a joint statement said. “The investment further demonstrates Morgan Stanley’s willingness and determination to expand its business in the China market,” Sun Wei, chief executive of Morgan Stanley China, was quoted as saying in the statement. The official Shanghai Securities News reported the purchase cost at about 200 million yuan (US$29.3 million), citing senior company officials.
■ SOUTH KOREA
Pyramid scheme busted
Police said yesterday they had busted South Korea’s biggest-ever “pyramid” financial scam involving nearly US$2.6 billion collected from tens of thousands of investors. They said they were hunting 14 swindlers, including Cho Hee-pal, who is accused of raising about 3.9 trillion won (US$2.6 billion) from more than 30,000 investors. Cho, 51, established a company called BMC in 2004 to lease medical devices to hospitals, bathhouses and beauty salons and recruited investors the way multi-level merchandising firms do. Police said Cho’s company lured investors, mostly middle-aged or elderly women with scant financial knowledge, with the promise of high returns. Many reinvested their dividends in the company.
■ BANKING
Norinchukin to raise capital
Norinchukin Bank, the de facto central bank for Japan’s farm and fishery cooperatives, plans a huge US$10.5 billion capital hike to shore up its finances, a report said yesterday. The bank is expected to boost its capital base by more than ¥1 trillion (US$10.5 billion) by March, the Nikkei Shimbun reported, citing unnamed sources. It would be the biggest capital hike yet by a Japanese bank during the current financial crisis. Norinchukin said this month it had booked a loss of about ¥100 billion in the first half of this fiscal year on its securities holdings due to recent market turmoil.
■ AUSTRALIA
Rudd warns of deficit
The Australian government is prepared to see a huge budget surplus run into deficit as it fights the fall-out from the global financial crisis, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said yesterday. The surplus of A$21.7 billion (US$14 billion) forecast in May’s budget was slashed earlier this month by three-quarters to A$5.4 billion as the government warned the crisis would cut tax receipts, growth and jobs. But Rudd’s comments marked the first time he had acknowledged that the government was prepared to run the budget into deficit.
■ COMPUTERS
IBM denies layoff report
International Business Machines Corp (IBM), the world’s largest provider of computer services, denied reports it would cut 1,000 jobs at its Japan unit by the end of the year to offset declining sales. “There is no truth to the reports; we don’t have a specific target for job cuts,” Kazuhiko Suyama, a spokesman at IBM Japan Ltd, said by telephone yesterday. “Rather than reducing the number of unskilled employees, we have a plan to upgrade their skills.” IBM’s Japan unit plans to cut 1,000 jobs, or 6 percent of its workforce, the Nikkei English News reported yesterday, without saying where it obtained the information.
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)