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.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
In a small town in Paraguay, a showdown is brewing between traditional producers of yerba mate, a bitter herbal tea popular across South America, and miners of a shinier treasure: gold. A rush for the precious metal is pitting mate growers and indigenous groups against the expanding operations of small-scale miners who, until recently, were their neighbors, not nemeses. “They [the miners] have destroyed everything... The canals, springs, swamps,” said Vidal Britez, president of the Yerba Mate Producers’ Association of the town of Paso Yobai, about 210km east of capital Asuncion. “You can see the pollution from the dead fish.
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
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
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