China Strategic Holdings Ltd (中策集團) yesterday denied media reports that its application to acquire Nan Shan Life Insurance Co (南山人壽) had been turned down by Taiwan’s regulatory authorities.
At the same time, two more ratings agencies expressed concerns of financial risk for Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控) regarding its intention to purchase a 30 percent stake in Nan Shan from China Strategic.
In a statement issued to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, China Strategic said the US$2.15 billion deal it announced on Oct. 13, along with investment partner Primus Financial Holdings Ltd, to purchase a 97.57 percent stake in Nan Shan from American International Group Inc was still under way.
“Approval of the company’s application to the relevant Taiwanese regulatory authorities has not been rejected and is yet to be determined,” China Strategic said in the statement, dismissing a report by the South China Morning Post earlier yesterday that the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) had rejected its application last Friday.
“The proposed transactions remain subject to further negotiations. It remains the intention of the company to have control over Nan Shan, either directly or indirectly,” the company said.
China Strategic chief executive officer Raymond Or (柯清輝) said at a press conference in Hong Kong yesterday that the company aimed to maintain long-term control of Nan Shan and would resubmit its application to regulators shortly, both Bloomberg News and Dow Jones Newswires reported.
China Strategic’s response came amid media reports in Taiwan and Hong Kong that the Hong Kong consortium might face difficulty in obtaining Taiwanese regulators’ approval for the Nan Shan deal, mainly because of concerns on whether Chinese funds are involved.
The MOEA said yesterday it had “returned” rather than “rejected” the Hong Kong consortium’s application last week.
“We asked them to resubmit the documents,” Fan Liang-tung (范良棟), head of the Investment Commission, said by telephone yesterday.
He said the Hong Kong consortium supplied insufficient information in its application on the shareholding structure and the nationalities of the shareholders.
The company’s shareholder structure is what concerns most and the information supplied in the application was not clear enough to satisfy the commission, Fan said.
He said the commission had informed the consortium about which topics required further clarification, but said he was not sure when the consortium would resubmit.
Perhaps in a tactic to win regulatory approval, China Strategic said on Tuesday that it would sell a 30 percent stake in Nan Shan to Chinatrust Financial for US$660 million, making the Taiwanese firm a minority stakeholder. In exchange, Chinatrust Financial would sell 9.95 percent of its shares to China Strategic for NT$20.79 billion (US$644 million) via a private placement.
This new deal prompted Standard & Poor’s (S&P) Ratings Services to place its long-term and short-term counterparty credit ratings on Chinatrust Financial on CreditWatch with negative implications.
“The CreditWatch placement reflects our view that the Chinatrust Financial group may face higher business and operating risks from managing its new life insurance business in partnership with China Strategic,” credit analyst Patty Wang (王珮齡) said in an e-mailed statement.
Fitch Ratings said in a separate statement that the share purchase would have a moderate impact on Chinatrust Financial’s financial profile, adding that Nan Shan’s profitability would be greatly influenced by its investment performance and that would likely increase Chinatrust Financial’s earnings volatility after the share purchase.
However, both S&P and Fitch said the impact of the share purchase on the bank-centric Chinatrust group’s capitalization should be manageable, because the deal would be funded mainly through the issuance of new common shares.
With an approval rating of just two percent, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte might be the world’s most unpopular leader, according to pollsters. Protests greeted her rise to power 29 months ago, and have marked her entire term — joined by assorted scandals, investigations, controversies and a surge in gang violence. The 63-year-old is the target of a dozen probes, including for her alleged failure to declare gifts of luxury jewels and watches, a scandal inevitably dubbed “Rolexgate.” She is also under the microscope for a two-week undeclared absence for nose surgery — which she insists was medical, not cosmetic — and is
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce
RSS