BANKING
Julius Baer makes purchase
Swiss private banking group Julius Baer said yesterday it will acquire Merrill Lynch’s International Wealth Management business outside the US from Bank of America for about 860 million Swiss francs (US$879 million). The acquisition, subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals, is expected to add up to SF72 billion to assets under management over the next two years, the bank said in a statement. Chairman Daniel Sauter said the transaction will add substantial scale to the bank’s business in Europe and in key growth markets in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.
ENERGY
BP sells off gas plants
Oil company BP is selling two gas processing plants in Texas to Eagle Rock Energy Partners. BP yesterday said that Eagle Rock Energy Partners is paying US$227.5 million in cash for the Sunray and Hemphill gas processing plants which have a combined capacity of 220 million cubic feet of gas per day and a gathering system of about 4,000km of pipelines. Houston-based Eagle Rock Partners says the deal includes a 20-year agreement to process BP’s natural gas production from the existing wells connected to the two plants.
ENERGY
E.ON declares huge profits
E.ON, Germany’s biggest power supplier, said yesterday its net profit more than trebled in the first six months of the year after it struck a price deal with Russian gas giant Gazprom. Confirming a preliminary estimate released last week, E.ON said that its underlying net income for the January-June period rose to “roughly 3.3 billion euros” (US$4.1 billion) from 0.9 billion euros a year earlier. Operating profit, as measured by earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, soared 55.8 percent to 6.7 billion euros on a 23 percent rise in sales to 65.4 billion euros.
AVIATION
Qantas probes jet problem
Australian carrier Qantas Airways said yesterday it was investigating after an Airbus jet carrying 254 passengers suffered an engine problem over the West Australian city of Perth. In the incident late on Sunday, the twin-engined A330, which had flown from Sydney, experienced “an engine control system fault,” the airline said. “Engineers are currently investigating the cause,” a spokeswoman for the airline said, adding that the flight landed safely and without incident. The spokeswoman was unable to confirm reports that the flight lost some power to one engine and was reduced to “idle power” at 914.m saying this would form part of the investigation.
VIETNAM
New bourse product launch
Hanoi Stock Exchange will offer Treasury-bill trading for the first time from next week as the country seeks to establish a yield curve to reflect interest-rate expectations. Trading in the bills will start on Aug. 24 and help create a “more standard yield curve,” Tran Van Dung, general director of the bourse, said in an interview in Hanoi on Friday. “Apart from commercial banks, more investors such as securities firms or financial companies can participate.” Currently, T-bills are auctioned by the country’s central bank and used as a monetary-policy tool. The State Bank of Vietnam has cut its refinancing, discount and repurchase rates by 500 basis points, or 5 percentage points, this year to spur the economy as inflation eased from 17.27 percent in January to 5.35 percent last month.
EXTRATERRITORIAL REACH: China extended its legal jurisdiction to ban some dual-use goods of Chinese origin from being sold to the US, even by third countries Beijing has set out to extend its domestic laws across international borders with a ban on selling some goods to the US that applies to companies both inside and outside China. The new export control rules are China’s first attempt to replicate the extraterritorial reach of US and European sanctions by covering Chinese products or goods with Chinese parts in them. In an announcement this week, China declared it is banning the sale of dual-use items to the US military and also the export to the US of materials such as gallium and germanium. Companies and people overseas would be subject to
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) yesterday said that Intel Corp would find itself in the same predicament as it did four years ago if its board does not come up with a core business strategy. Chang made the remarks in response to reporters’ questions about the ailing US chipmaker, once an archrival of TSMC, during a news conference in Taipei for the launch of the second volume of his autobiography. Intel unexpectedly announced the immediate retirement of former chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger last week, ending his nearly four-year tenure and ending his attempts to revive the
WORLD DOMINATION: TSMC’s lead over second-placed Samsung has grown as the latter faces increased Chinese competition and the end of clients’ product life cycles Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) retained the No. 1 title in the global pure-play wafer foundry business in the third quarter of this year, seeing its market share growing to 64.9 percent to leave South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co, the No. 2 supplier, further behind, Taipei-based TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a report. TSMC posted US$23.53 billion in sales in the July-September period, up 13.0 percent from a quarter earlier, which boosted its market share to 64.9 percent, up from 62.3 percent in the second quarter, the report issued on Monday last week showed. TSMC benefited from the debut of flagship
TENSE TIMES: Formosa Plastics sees uncertainty surrounding the incoming Trump administration in the US, geopolitical tensions and China’s faltering economy Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), Taiwan’s largest industrial conglomerate, yesterday posted overall revenue of NT$118.61 billion (US$3.66 billion) for last month, marking a 7.2 percent rise from October, but a 2.5 percent fall from one year earlier. The group has mixed views about its business outlook for the current quarter and beyond, as uncertainty builds over the US power transition and geopolitical tensions. Formosa Plastics Corp (台灣塑膠), a vertically integrated supplier of plastic resins and petrochemicals, reported a monthly uptick of 15.3 percent in its revenue to NT$18.15 billion, as Typhoon Kong-rey postponed partial shipments slated for October and last month, it said. The
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