Nan Shan draws interest
Several US private equity firms and Taiwanese financial groups are showing early interest in Nan Shan Life Insurance Co (南山人壽), the Reuters Web site said yesterday, citing unnamed banking sources.
Nan Shan Life is a local subsidiary of American International Group (AIG).
The report said US private equity firms JC Flowers & Co and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co (KKR) as well as local financial holding companies Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) and Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控) were expected to pursue a bid for Nan Shan Life.
Local media have said AIG hopes to fetch around US$2 billion for Nan Shan.
JC Flowers did not immediately return a message. KKR declined to comment. Executives at Fubon declined to comment, while Cathay officials were not immediately available for comment.
TSMC to merge units
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest custom-chip maker, said it would merge two wholly owned investment units to cut costs. TSMC-Partners, its investment arm, will acquire TSMC Technology Inc beginning on June 30, the Hsinchu-based company said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
Solid Oak issues warning
Solid Oak Software Inc said it asked Sony Corp, Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想), Toshiba Corp and Acer Inc (宏碁) to not ship PCs containing anti-pornography software required by China, after claiming the code was stolen from its own product.
Solid Oak sent “cease and desist” letters to the four manufacturers this week, Jenna Di Pasquale, a spokeswoman for the Santa Barbara, California-based company, said in an e-mail. The US software maker said earlier in the week it issued similar documents to Dell Inc and Hewlett-Packard Co, the world’s two biggest PC companies.
Google to battle porn in China
Internet giant Google promised yesterday to work harder to eliminate pornography from its Chinese Web pages as state media reported authorities had shut down some of its search services.
“Google has continually taken measures against vulgar content, particularly material that is harmful to children, on the Internet in China,” a company statement said.
Xinhua news agency reported that the government had already “stopped some of Google China’s searching businesses and asked it to clear up its lewd content.”
Prudential boosts reserves
Prudential Plc, the UK’s second-biggest insurer, boosted capital reserves by transferring its Taiwanese distribution business and agency force to China Life Insurance Co (中國人壽) of Taiwan.
The insurer’s capital surplus, measured by the insurance groups directive, increased 40 percent to £2.8 billion (US$4.6 billion) from £2 billion on May 14 as a result of the deal, the company said in a statement yesterday. Prudential announced the transfer on Feb. 20.
The agreement will free up capital by shedding products that pay guaranteed returns, which reduced profitability after Taiwan began cutting interest rates in 2001.
Farglory to sell GDRs
Property developer Farglory Land Development Co (遠雄建設) said yesterday it plans to sell Global Depositary Receipts (GDRs) to meet the company’s long-term funding needs and diversify its funding sources.
The GDRs will be backed by 100 million common shares that are either all newly issued or include both new and existing shares, Farglory said in a stock exchange statement.
Farglory didn’t provide a time frame for the GDR offering.
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