UBS AG has been authorized by China’s securities regulator to take a controlling stake in a local business, making the Swiss giant the first foreign bank allowed to do so under new rules.
Beijing in April relaxed the rules in the financial industry in a move to open up the economy.
“The China Securities Regulatory Commission [CSRC] recently approved UBS AG to increase the shareholding ratio of UBS Securities Co Ltd to 51 percent,” the regulator said in a statement late on Friday. “This is the first foreign-controlled securities company approved by the China Securities Regulatory Commission after the implementation of the Measures for the Administration of Foreign-invested Securities Companies.”
USB, which currently owns about 25 percent of shares in the USB Securities Co Ltd joint venture, said in a statement that it would acquire stakes from China Guodian Capital Holdings Ltd (國電資本控股) and COFCO Group (中糧國際).
Other financial firms like Wall Street titan JPMorgan Chase & Co and Japan’s Nomura Holdings Ltd are still awaiting approval.
Laws limiting foreign ownership of local financial firms have long stopped global banks from independently operating in China and limited their growth.
However, Beijing last year said it would liberalize shareholding limits in the financial services industry, soon after US President Donald Trump visited.
Officials in April moved to make good on the pledge, immediately allowing foreign investors to take 51 percent stakes in securities firms and fund managers, with pledges set out to eventually allow full control.
Earlier this week, two European insurance giants, Allianz SE and Axa SA, received approval to expand their footprint in China. Allianz has been allowed to start a company fully funded by foreign capital, while Axa is to take full control of a joint venture. Trade tensions have increased between China and the US, which accuses Beijing of using unfair practices to get an advantage for its own firms and destroying American jobs.
Trump has placed tariffs on more than US$250 billion in Chinese imports so far this year and China responded with its own tariffs on US$110 billion in US goods.
However, Trump has threatened to target the remaining US$267 billion of Chinese imports as well, hitting Apple iPhones and laptops produced in China.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) is expected to share his views about the artificial intelligence (AI) industry’s prospects during his speech at the company’s 37th anniversary ceremony, as AI servers have become a new growth engine for the equipment manufacturing service provider. Lam’s speech is much anticipated, as Quanta has risen as one of the world’s major AI server suppliers. The company reported a 30 percent year-on-year growth in consolidated revenue to NT$1.41 trillion (US$43.35 billion) last year, thanks to fast-growing demand for servers, especially those with AI capabilities. The company told investors in November last year that
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) forecast that its wafer shipments this quarter would grow up to 7 percent sequentially and the factory utilization rate would rise to 75 percent, indicating that customers did not alter their ordering behavior due to the US President Donald Trump’s capricious US tariff policies. However, the uncertainty about US tariffs has weighed on the chipmaker’s business visibility for the second half of this year, UMC chief financial officer Liu Chi-tung (劉啟東) said at an online earnings conference yesterday. “Although the escalating trade tensions and global tariff policies have increased uncertainty in the semiconductor industry, we have not
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