JPMorgan Chase & Co, the biggest US bank, increased the capital of its China unit by 2.5 billion yuan (US$394 million) to meet rising demand for financial services in the world’s fastest-growing major economy.
The second infusion since the local subsidiary was incorporated in 2007 will bring its capital to 6.5 billion yuan, the New York-based lender said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. The US bank also received approval from the China Banking Regulatory Commission to open a branch in Suzhou.
JPMorgan joins Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd and DBS Group Holdings Ltd in adding to investments in China, seeking a bigger share of the world’s third-biggest banking market, where local currency loans have grown by an average 22 percent a year since 2008. Foreign banks may lend a maximum of 10 percent of their net capital to a single borrower, which limited their participation in the three-year lending boom.
With 114 trillion yuan of assets at the end of last year, China’s banking system is larger than the combined size of the 30 other emerging markets tracked by Fitch Ratings, and smaller than only the US and Japan. About 45 percent of the nation’s 55 trillion yuan of outstanding loans were doled out in the past three years as the government spurred lending during the global financial crisis to resuscitate the economy.
Foreign banks more than doubled their combined profit from China to 16.7 billion yuan last year, according to the banking regulator. JPMorgan’s China unit earned 297.3 million yuan last year, compared with 70.4 million yuan a year earlier, according to its annual report.
ANZ Bank said this month it planned to invest US$300 million in its China unit. DBS, Southeast Asia’s largest bank, announced last month it would inject 2.3 billion yuan into its Chinese subsidiary, adding to a 4 billion yuan initial investment five years ago.
“The additional capital will better position the bank in the evolving regulatory environment and cement our commitment to clients in China,” JPMorgan China chairman and chief executive officer Shao Zili (邵子力) said in the statement. “The capital will be used to expand the bank’s branch network, develop products, increase corporate lending and recruit employees.”
JPMorgan has branches in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Harbin. The company also offers investment banking services in China through a joint venture with First Capital Securities Co.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Apple Inc increased iPhone production in India by about 53 percent last year and now makes a quarter of its marquee devices there, reflecting the US company’s efforts to avoid tariffs on China. The company assembled about 55 million iPhones in India last year, up from 36 million a year earlier, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because the numbers aren’t public. Apple makes about 220 million to 230 million iPhones a year globally, with India’s share of the total increasing rapidly. Apple has accelerated its expansion in the world’s most populous country in recent years, bolstered
HEADWINDS: The company said it expects its computer business, as well as consumer electronics and communications segments to see revenue declines due to seasonality Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it aims to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) server revenue more than 10-fold this year from last year, driven by orders from neocloud solutions clients and large cloud service providers. The electronics manufacturing service provider said AI server revenue growth would be driven primarily by the Nvidia Corp GB300 server platform. Server shipments are expected to increase each quarter this year, with the second half likely to outperform the first half, it said. The AI server market is expected to broaden this year as more inference applications emerge, which would drive demand for system-on-chip, application-specific integrated circuits
PROJECTION: TSMC said it expects strong growth this year, with revenue in US dollars projected to grow by about 30 percent, outperforming the industry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported consolidated sales last month reached NT$317.66 billion (US$9.98 billion), the highest ever for the month of February, driven by robust demand for chips built using the company’s advanced 3-nanometer (3nm) process. Last month’s figure was up 22.2 percent from a year earlier, but fell 20.8 percent from January, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. For the first two months of the year, TSMC posted cumulative sales of NT$718.91 billion, up 29.9 percent from a year earlier. Analysts attributed the growth to sustained global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products
RSS