MANUFACTURING
Blackstone eyes Gates Corp
Investment fund Blackstone said on Friday it will buy US auto parts maker Gates Corp for US$5.4 billion from its Canadian owners. The deal is the second-largest private equity takeover so far this year, after Cerberus Capital’s US$9.1 billion agreement to merge its Albertson’s supermarket chain with rival Safeway. Blackstone said it had clinched the cash deal to buy all of Pinafore Holdings, the parent company of Gates owned by Canadian private-equity company Onex and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.
PHILIPPINES
Cebu airport upgrades set
A consortium that includes India’s GMR Group has won a 17.52 billion peso (US$389.33 million) contract to upgrade the passenger terminal of the Philippines’ second airport, the government said yesterday. The GMR-Megawide consortium won a 25-year concession to the Mactan-Cebu International Airport that serves the central city of Cebu, the country’s second-largest after Manila, the transportation and communication department said. Over the next three to four years, GMR and its local partner are to renovate Mactan’s passenger terminal, build one for international flights, and operate the facility with an expected annual turnover of 8 million passengers.
AVIATION
Mexican carrier bankrupt
A Mexican judge has declared Mexicana de Aviacion, one of Latin America’s oldest airlines, bankrupt, and ordered the sale of its assets, a court said on Friday. The company, founded in 1921, suspended operations in August 2010 and was under bankruptcy protection, allowing it to negotiate with creditors and make restructuring plans. A district judge declared the company “in a state of bankruptcy” and ordered the sale of “rights and assets” to pay back lenders, the Federal Judicial Council said in a statement. Two subsidiaries, Click and Link, were also declared bankrupt.
HAITI
Heineken sets investment
The Dutch brewer Heineken announced on Friday that it is investing US$100 million in its Haiti production plant that makes the popular lager Prestige. Heineken purchased the Haitian brewery in 2011, and owns 95 percent of Prestige’s brewer. The remaining 5 percent is held by Diageo Ireland, which makes Guinness stout. About one-fifth of the investment has funded the construction of a second 2,257m2 production line that opened in December last year in the same Port-au-Prince facility. The addition will allow the brewery to double output to 40,000 more cases every day.
BANKING
Goldman boss nets raise
Goldman Sachs chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein’s total compensation rose by almost 50 percent to US$19.9 million last year, boosted by the value of his stock awards. The value of Blankfein’s stock awards more than doubled from US$5.3 million to US$11.3 million. Goldman’s stock rose 39 percent in 2013 as the bank’s profits climbed. The executive’s cash bonus also increased, climbing 11 percent to US$6.3 million. Blankfein has been chairman and CEO since 2006. The bank’s earnings rose about 9 percent last year as its investment banking revenues improved.
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
STILL LOADED: Last year’s richest person, Quanta Computer Inc chairman Barry Lam, dropped to second place despite an 8 percent increase in his wealth to US$12.6 billion Staff writer, with CNA Daniel Tsai (蔡明忠) and Richard Tsai (蔡明興), the brothers who run Fubon Group (富邦集團), topped the Forbes list of Taiwan’s 50 richest people this year, released on Wednesday in New York. The magazine said that a stronger New Taiwan dollar pushed the combined wealth of Taiwan’s 50 richest people up 13 percent, from US$174 billion to US$197 billion, with 36 of the people on the list seeing their wealth increase. That came as Taiwan’s economy grew 4.6 percent last year, its fastest pace in three years, driven by the strong performance of the semiconductor industry, the magazine said. The Tsai
RSS