US-based Newbridge Capital reportedly plans to purchase NT$2.5 billion (US$76 million) of subordinated bonds from local lender Cosmos Bank Taiwan (萬泰銀行), sparking speculation that the finance company will become one of the bank's major shareholders, strengthening its foothold in Asia.
In January last year, Newbridge Capital bought NT$27 billion in securities, including NT$20 billion of stock and NT$7 billion in convertible bonds from Taishin Financial Holdings Co (台新金控) in a private placement.
The purchase made Newbridge the single largest institutional investor in Taishin, with an 18 percent stake.
Cosmos Bank, the nation's largest cash-advance card issuer, applied to the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) last November to issue NT$7 billion in subordinated bonds to improve its asset quality.
Its biggest shareholder, GE Consumer Finance, the consumer lending unit of General Electric Co, will purchase NT$4.5 billion of the products, with the remaining to be absorbed by Newbridge Capital, a report in the Chinese-language Economic Daily News said yesterday, without citing any source.
As of press time yesterday, calls to Cosmos spokesman Shih Kung-liang (
In January last year, Cosmos celebrated the formation of a partnership with GE Consumer Finance, which announced it would acquire a 24.9 percent stake in Cosmos for over NT$9 billion.
The deal is to be done in two stages, with GE Consumer Finance first buying a 10 percent stake in Cosmos through a share subscription of 197 million common shares for US$86 million in the second quarter.
GE Consumer Finance would then acquire the remaining 14.9 percent stake through a convertible bond structure within the next four years, the bank said.
Officials at the FSC's Banking Bureau revealed that GE Consumer Finance agreed to the previous deal to help Cosmos improve its financial structure, which explains its move to buy the subordinated bonds issued by Cosmos, the report said.
As of last November, Cosmos had reported losses of NT$6.97 billion as it booked huge amounts of provisioning costs to cover the mounting bad consumer loans. It generated NT$920 million, or NT$0.52 per share, in pre-tax income in 2005.
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).
RSS