BANKING
UK-based bank to sell shares
British-based emerging markets bank Standard Chartered yesterday said it planned to raise about ￡3.3 billion (US$5.22 billion) by selling new shares to boost its capital. The lender said the rights issue would help it meet new Basel III international banking rules, which regulate how much capital banks should hold in reserve and are designed to avert another financial crisis. Standard Chartered said it would issue a new share for eight existing ones at a unit price of ￡1.28, which is 33 percent lower than its closing level on Tuesday. The extra funding will also allow the bank to continue its expansion in emerging markets around the world, the lender said in a statement.
BANKING
Chinese loans up last month
The value of new loans issued by Chinese banks rose last month from the previous month, the central bank said in Beijing yesterday, as the country steps up efforts to curb rampant lending. New lending for last month reached 595.5 billion yuan (US$89.2 billion), up from the 545.2 billion yuan issued in August, according to figures posted on the People’s Bank of China’s Web site. For the first nine months of the year, lending reached 6.3 trillion yuan — 2.36 trillion yuan less than the same period last year, the bank said. The central bank has ordered six major banks to temporarily increase the amount of money they must keep in reserve as it tries to rein in lending and combat rising inflation, state media reported on Tuesday.
MACHINERY
Japan orders jump
Japan’s machinery orders, a closely watched indicator of future business investment, unexpectedly jumped in August, marking the third straight month of growth, the government said yesterday. Japan’s core machinery orders rose 10.1 percent from the previous month to ￥843.5 billion (US$10.3 billion), the Japanese Cabinet Office said. The August result was far better than a 4 percent drop projected by economists. The figure excludes volatile numbers from shipbuilders and electric power companies. Orders from the manufacturers sector grew 12.5 percent, while those from non-manufacturers climbed 8.3 percent in August.
ENERGY
Seoul unveils five-year plan
Seoul yesterday unveiled a five-year plan to spend US$36 billion developing renewable energy as its next economic growth engine. The plan, approved at a meeting chaired by South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, aims to transform South Korea into one of the world’s five top players in renewable energy. South Korea will spend about 40 trillion won (US$35.680 million) — 7 trillion won in state money and 33 trillion won from private businesses — on new renewable energy projects by 2015, the South Korean Ministry of Knowledge Economy said. It hopes to export US$36.2 billion in renewable energy in 2015.
INVESTMENT
Lone Star to sell IKB
US investment fund Lone Star has begun the process of selling the German bank IKB, the country’s first financial crisis victim, which Lone Star bought in 2008, an executive said in Frankfurt, Germany, yesterday in an interview. “The bank has been cleaned up and is now attractive for a new strategic partner,” Lone Star’s European boss Bruno Scherrer told the business daily Handelsblatt. “We are going to present IKB to potential investors in November. A sale in the first quarter of 2011 is possible.”
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors
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