China National BlueStar Group Corp's three publicly traded units suspended trading in their shares, saying their parent is in talks on "a major issue."
Reporting from Dalian, the Daily Telegraph newspaper said yesterday that Blackstone Group LP was close to an agreement to buy a stake in BlueStar, a Beijing-based chemicals maker. An announcement was likely within days, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the talks.
Blue Star Cleaning Co, Shenyang Chemical Industry Co and Blue Star New Chemical Material Co announced the suspensions in separate filings to the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges yesterday.
BlueStar is in talks with a "relevant party," they said.
The South China Morning Post said on June 20 that Blackstone was in talks to buy 30 percent of BlueStar for about US$500 million. The purchase would mark the US buyout firm's first big transaction in China after the government agreed to take a 10 percent stake in Blackstone's initial public offering, the Post said, citing unidentified people.
In the wake of increasing foreigners' purchases of Chinese companies, a central bank official said China should accelerate the development of local private-equity firms.
Deputy Governor Wu Xiaoling (
Her speech was delivered yesterday by another bank official at an investment forum in southeastern Xiamen.
"Setting up domestic private-equity funds can help utilize the excess liquidity in China's market and in the meantime reduce the pressure of foreign-exchange increases from foreign direct investment," Wu said.
Beijing is trying to tame money-supply growth as record trade surpluses pump cash into the financial system, threatening to overheat the world's fourth-biggest economy.
Some officials also see foreign companies' acquisitions as a threat and regulators have rejected purchases by Goldman Sachs Group Co and Carlyle Group.
"In the face of China's surpluses in the current and capital accounts and growing concern over foreign acquisitions, this is a special opportunity to accelerate the development of China's yuan-denominated private equity funds," Wu said.
Her "personal opinions" do not reflect the policies of the People's Bank of China, she said.
Domestic private-equity funds can also give commercial banks, insurers and pension funds another avenue for investing to boost their returns, Wu said.
The Chinese government should allow the establishment of joint-venture private-equity funds to let local managers learn from foreign partners, Wu said.
"If foreign investors own less than a 25 percent stake, those ventures can be considered and regulated as domestic companies," the central banker said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said its materials management head, Vanessa Lee (李文如), had tendered her resignation for personal reasons. The personnel adjustment takes effect tomorrow, TSMC said in a statement. The latest development came one month after Lee reportedly took leave from the middle of last month. Cliff Hou (侯永清), senior vice president and deputy cochief operating officer, is to concurrently take on the role of head of the materials management division, which has been under his supervision, TSMC said. Lee, who joined TSMC in 2022, was appointed senior director of materials management and
Gudeng Precision Industrial Co (家登精密), the sole extreme ultraviolet pod supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), yesterday said it has trimmed its revenue growth target for this year as US tariffs are likely to depress customer demand and weigh on the whole supply chain. Gudeng’s remarks came after the US on Monday notified 14 countries, including Japan and South Korea, of new tariff rates that are set to take effect on Aug. 1. Taiwan is still negotiating for a rate lower than the 32 percent “reciprocal” tariffs announced by the US in April, which it later postponed to today. The
MAJOR CONTRIBUTOR: Revenue from AI servers made up more than 50 percent of Wistron’s total server revenue in the second quarter, the company said Wistron Corp (緯創) on Tuesday reported a 135.6 percent year-on-year surge in revenue for last month, driven by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers, with the momentum expected to extend into the third quarter. Revenue last month reached NT$209.18 billion (US$7.2 billion), a record high for June, bringing second-quarter revenue to NT$551.29 billion, a 129.47 percent annual increase, the company said. Revenue in the first half of the year totaled NT$897.77 billion, up 87.36 percent from a year earlier and also a record high for the period, it said. The company remains cautiously optimistic about AI server shipments in the third quarter,
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Thursday met with US President Donald Trump at the White House, days before a planned trip to China by the head of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, people familiar with the matter said. Details of what the two men discussed were not immediately available, and the people familiar with the meeting declined to elaborate on the agenda. Spokespeople for the White House had no immediate comment. Nvidia declined to comment. Nvidia’s CEO has been vocal about the need for US companies to access the world’s largest semiconductor market and is a frequent visitor to China.
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