Standard Chartered Bank is arranging for a visit to Asia by British Premier League soccer club Liverpool next summer as part of the bank’s move to build up its name in the region, a bank executive said on Thursday.
The bank launched a four-year sponsorship deal with Liverpool this summer, signaling a big shift in the London-based bank’s approach to promoting its name, Standard Chartered chairman John Peace said.
The bank has come to realize that a “strong brand is also an important driver,” Peace said, and sponsorship “is a major part of our strategy to build basic brand awareness.”
Standard Chartered wanted more people to know what Standard Chartered stood for and why it was different, he said.
“It’s our intention that in the four-year sponsorship we’ll get Liverpool to our major markets,” Gavin Laws, head of corporate affairs, told reporters.
Asia, Africa and the Middle East account for more than 90 percent of the bank’s annual profits, Peace said, adding that Standard Chartered planned to continue focusing on these emerging markets, which offer significant growth opportunities.
The British bank is aiming to overtake Citigroup to become the nation’s top foreign bank.
It currently leads among foreign banks in Taiwan in terms of the number of branches and in the housing mortgage business. After acquiring Hsinchu International Bank (新竹國際商銀) in July 2007, Standard Chartered now operates 89 branches in the country.
Paul Tyrrell, Liverpool’s head of press, told a media briefing on Thursday at Liverpool’s Melwood Training Ground that an Asian trip was now being planned and would likely take place in July before the beginning of the new season.
After waving good-bye to its 17-year sponsor, Carlsberg, Tyrrell said the soccer team could add more stops in Asia next year.
The players will be sporting shirts bearing the Standard Chartered logo in a four-year deal that began in July and will run until the end of the 2013-2014 season.
The deal is estimated to have cost ￡80 million (US$128 million), marking the biggest commercial sponsorship that Liverpool has ever received, media reports said.
Last year, Liverpool visited Singapore and Thailand, Tyrrell said.
No final decision about the places for this year has been made, he said.
“I will not be surprised that if China is on the list,” Roy Hodgson, who replaced Rafael Benitez as the new manager of Liverpool in summer, told the media briefing.
Last season, Liverpool attracted 75 million TV viewers in Asia alone, with 60 million of them Chinese, according to Standard Chartered.
Asia made up about 25 percent of Liverpool’s global TV audience of 300 million, bank statistics showed.
There are official Liverpool fan clubs in China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan.
Three experts in the high technology industry have said that US President Donald Trump’s pledge to impose higher tariffs on Taiwanese semiconductors is part of an effort to force Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to the negotiating table. In a speech to Republicans on Jan. 27, Trump said he intends to impose tariffs on Taiwan to bring chip production to the US. “The incentive is going to be they’re not going to want to pay a 25, 50 or even a 100 percent tax,” he said. Darson Chiu (邱達生), an economics professor at Taichung-based Tunghai University and director-general of
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) is reportedly making another pass at Nissan Motor Co, as the Japanese automaker's tie-up with Honda Motor Co falls apart. Nissan shares rose as much as 6 percent after Taiwan’s Central News Agency reported that Hon Hai chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) instructed former Nissan executive Jun Seki to connect with French carmaker Renault SA, which holds about 36 percent of Nissan’s stock. Hon Hai, the Taiwanese iPhone-maker also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), was exploring an investment or buyout of Nissan last year, but backed off in December after the Japanese carmaker penned a deal
WASHINGTON POLICY: Tariffs of 10 percent or more and other new costs are tipped to hit shipments of small parcels, cutting export growth by 1.3 percentage points The decision by US President Donald Trump to ban Chinese companies from using a US tariff loophole would hit tens of billions of dollars of trade and reduce China’s economic growth this year, according to new estimates by economists at Nomura Holdings Inc. According to Nomura’s estimates, last year companies such as Shein (希音) and PDD Holdings Inc’s (拼多多控股) Temu shipped US$46 billion of small parcels to the US to take advantage of the rule that allows items with a declared value under US$800 to enter the US tariff-free. Tariffs of 10 percent or more and other new costs would slash such
SENSOR BUSINESS: The Taiwanese company said that a public tender offer would begin on May 7 through its wholly owned subsidiary Yageo Electronics Japan Yageo Corp (國巨), one of the world’s top three suppliers of passive components, yesterday said it is to launch a tender offer to fully acquire Japan’s Shibaura Electronics Co for up to ￥65.57 billion (US$429.37 million), with an aim to expand its sensor business. The tender offer would be a crucial step for the company to expand its sensor business, Yageo said. Shibaura Electronics is the world’s largest supplier of thermistors, with a market share of 13 percent, research conducted in 2022 by the Japanese firm showed. If a deal goes ahead, it would be the second acquisition of a sensor business since
RSS