Citigroup Inc and UBS AG will manage the sale of state-run China Steel Corp's (中鋼) stake in overseas markets by October after beating eight other investment banks for the deal, an official at the Cabinet's Development Fund (開發基金) said yesterday.
"We're optimistic about the overseas sale after a successful stake auction in the domestic market last week," said Chen Chang-fen (陳嫦芬), a consultant to the fund which organized last week's sale.
The government disposed of 336.8 million China Steel shares in a three-day auction last week, raising NT$8.19 billion.
Although the auction only unloaded 59.9 percent of the shares the government wanted to sell, it was considered successful due to the fact that the selling prices were only a 1.6 percent discount on the company's closing price of NT$24.60 on the TAIEX.
The unsold 233.2 million shares will be repackaged to overseas investors, Chen said.
The company is expected to unload 1.2 billion shares in total to overseas investors through the issuing of global depositary receipts or GDRs, she said.
The Development Fund set set a minimum biding price ranging from NT$24 to NT$24.2 for the domestic auction.
Chen refused to elaborate on the floor price for the upcoming overseas sales, saying the price will depend on the market price at that time.
If the government sells all 1.2 billion shares in the overseas sale, it will then hold just 23.72 percent of the stock in the nation's largest steelmaker, down from 36.28 percent.
Market watchers generally have high expectations for the overseas sale, deeming China Steel a blue chip for the revival of global steel market.
"The blossoming of the steel industry will last to next year at least owing to strong steel demand from China," said Stanley Yeh (
A recent report released by the Industrial Development Bureau noted that the huge demand for steel in China's infrastructure projects has been helping Tai-wanese steelmakers prosper since 1999.
China consumed 211 million tonnes of steel last year, or 25 percent of global steel production, thanks to the rapid growth of its real-estate sector, the report said.
The report further predicted that the demand for steel in China will persist for two to three years because of its growing auto industry. The report estimated that the production of automobiles in China will reach 3.4 million this year.
The report also noted that Taiwan's steel industry is increasingly dependent on the Chinese market.
Of the 20.4 million tonnes of steel exported by Taiwan last year, 56.4 percent was shipped to China, up from 38 percent in 1999.
Taiwanese steel manufacturers also invested up to NT$7.96 billion in China, the report said.
Elon Musk’s lieutenants have reached out to chip industry suppliers, including Applied Materials Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Lam Research Corp, for his envisioned Terafab, early steps in an audacious and likely arduous attempt to break into the production of cutting-edge chips. Staff working for the joint venture between Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) have sought price quotes and delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, people familiar with the matter said. In past weeks, they’ve contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and other tools, according to the people, who asked not to
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
Taiwan is attracting a growing number of foreign jobseekers as companies increasingly recruit overseas talent to ease labor shortages and expand global reach, recruitment platform 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) said yesterday. More than 40,000 foreign nationals searched for jobs in Taiwan through the platform last year, a 28 percent increase from a year earlier, the company said. Malaysians accounted for the largest share of overseas jobseekers at 12.2 percent, followed by Indonesians at 11.9 percent and Vietnamese at 10.8 percent. Indonesian applicants surged more than 50 percent year-on-year, while Vietnamese jobseekers rose by more than 30 percent. Applicants from the
NO SHORTCUTS: Asked about Elon Musk’s Terafab initiative, TSMC CEO C.C. Wei said it takes two to three years to build a fab and another one to two to ramp it up Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday raised its revenue growth forecast for this year to above 30 percent, up from the 25 percent it estimated three months earlier, citing extremely robust artificial intelligence (AI)-related chip demand. “Our customers and customers’ customers, who are mainly cloud service providers, continue to send us very positive signals and outlook,” TSMC chairman and CEO C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at an earnings conference. The company also hiked its capital expenditure for this year toward the higher end of its forecast, or US$56 billion, as it aims to step up advanced chip capacity expansions, such as
RSS