FINANCE
Russel, LSE in talks
The London Stock Exchange Group (LSE) is in talks with the parent company of Russell Investments about a possible acquisition of the asset management and stock index firm. Life insurance company Northwestern Mutual started exploring a sale of Russell, which has US$259.7 billion in assets under management, in January after deciding it was not a core part of its business. Sources said last month that Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, the fifth-largest bank in Canada, was considering a bid for Seattle-based Russell, which provides services including pension consulting, investment management and indexes such as the Russell 1000 Global Index. Private equity firms CVC Capital Partners and Silver Lake have also teamed up to pursue a bid, as have Warburg Pincus and TPG Capital, the sources said.
PAYMENTS
Vantiv to buy Mercury
Payment processor Vantiv says it will spend US$1.65 billion to buy Mercury Payment Systems, which helps retailers process credit, debit and check payments. Cincinnati-based Vantiv says the purchase will expand its online commerce business, and it expects the deal to close during the current quarter. It says the acquisition will add to its adjusted profit in 2014 and will raise its annual revenue growth by 1 or 2 percent per year. Mercury Payment Systems is owned by the private equity firm Silver Laker Partners and is based in Durango, Colorado. It had US$237 million in revenue last year and processed US$34 billion in payments.
BANKING
BNP Paribas in US talks
BNP Paribas chief executive Jean-Laurent Bonnafe met with top US officials last week seeking lower penalties for violating US sanctions laws, a person familiar with the matter said on Monday. US prosecutors have told BNP Paribas they want France’s largest publicly traded bank to plead guilty to charges it did business with sanctioned parties in Iran, Sudan and elsewhere; pay a large fine; and fire 12 employees involved in the transactions, the person involved in the talks said. Bonnafe offered to plead guilty on behalf of the bank’s BNP Paribas USA subsidiary, but US regulators rejected that proposal, the person added.
AUTOMAKERS
Nissan secrets arrest made
A former Nissan Motor employee was arrested yesterday, news reports and officials said, after allegedly stealing corporate secrets from the Japanese automaker. Police in Kanagawa, southwest of Tokyo, arrested Kenichi Okamura, 37, for allegedly violating laws preventing unfair competition, Japan’s public broadcaster NHK and other outlets said. Police suspect the man secretly accessed Nissan’s computer systems in July last year and copied details of its sales plan for sports utility vehicles, the news reports said. Okamura, who was working at the company’s office in Atsugi when the incident occurred, denies involvement.
AEROSPACE
Airbus doubles profit
Airbus Group, formerly EADS, reported on Tuesday a near doubling of quarterly net profit, a rise in sales driven by helicopters, but a fall in new orders after an exceptional performance last year. Net profit for the quarter rose by 93 percent to 439 million euros (US$604.5 million). The value of orders taken fell by more than half to 21.1 billion euros from 49.5 billion euros. This reflected orders taken for 103 aircraft on a net basis, after allowing for cancellations. That was far short of the figure of 410 in the first quarter of last year.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
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