Taiwanese shares nearly flat
Taiwanese shares closed up 0.15 percent yesterday after a tug of war between profit taking and interest in select electronic stocks, dealers said.
The weighted index rose 6.74 points to 4,460.49, off a low of 4,419.03 and a high of 4,476.33, on turnover of NT$57.75 billion (US$1.73 billion).
Shinsei to buy Jih Sun
Shinsei Bank Ltd, the Japanese buyer of General Electric Co’s local consumer-finance businesses, plans to invest NT$10 billion (US$300 million) to gain control of Taiwan’s Jih Sun Financial Holdings Co (日盛金控).
The capital injection will bring Jih Sun’s outstanding share capital to about NT$30 billion from NT$20 billion at present and improve its capital-adequacy ratio, Clements Chung (鍾芳程), a spokesman for the Taipei-based company, said by phone yesterday.
The Tokyo-based lender is already Jih Sun’s biggest shareholder with a stake of about 33 percent, Chung said.
Gas, diesel down NT$0.1
Domestic gasoline and diesel prices will both be lowered by NT$0.1 per liter, effective today, state-owned oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) announced yesterday.
After the adjustment, CPC’s price for 1 liter of 98-octane unleaded gasoline will be NT$22.8, 95-octane unleaded gasoline will be NT$21.3, and 92-octane unleaded gasoline will be NT$20.6. Diesel will be priced at NT$17.3.
Marubeni to buy Hsin Tao stake
Marubeni Corp, a Japanese trading house, said it has signed an agreement to buy a 21 percent share in Hsin Tao Power Corp (新桃電力), the operator of a 600-megawatt natural-gas-fired power plant in northern Taiwan, for US$77 million.
Taiwanese lenders will supply US$34 million for the purchase through a syndicate loan, Marubeni said in a statement released in Tokyo yesterday.
Airlines expand services
Taiwanese airlines said Friday they would expand direct services to three more Chinese cities starting next month amid closer cross-strait economic ties. China Airlines (華航) and its unit Mandarin Airlines (華信) will offer four and two flights weekly to Shenzhen and Hangzhou, respectively, the companies said.
Rival EVA Airways (長榮) and its subsidiary UNI Airways (立榮) will operate five and four flights per week to Shenzhen and Hangzhou, respectively, while TransAsia Airways (復興) will fly to Dalian in northeast China.
The airlines will also increase the number of flights to Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Nanjing.
Family Mart to invest NT$4bn
Taiwan FamilyMart Co (全家便利商店), the nation’s second-largest convenience store chain, said on Thursday it planned to invest NT$4 billion (US$120.11 million) in the next three years to add 500 stores to its existing network in an attempt to increase its current 25 percent market share to 30 percent.
Taiwan FamilyMart president Chang Jen-dung (張仁敦) said the company planned to boost its number of stores to 2,800 in three years, while its annual revenue was expected to reach NT$50 billion by 2011.
FamilyMart’s revenue in the first 10 months of this year grew 14.4 percent year-on-year to NT$31.85 billion. Net profit in the first three quarters rose 27 percent year-on-year to NT$555 million, with NT$2.48 earnings per share.
NT dollar gains ground again
The New Taiwan dollar continued gaining ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange Friday, rising NT$0.007 to close at NT$33.295. Turnover was US$627 million.
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