Luxury hotel Mandarin Oriental Taipei (文華東方酒店) yesterday declined to comment on media reports that its owner, Kai Tai Fung International Co (開泰豐國際), has signed an agreement with a Canadian billionaire to sell the property for NT$38.5 billion (US$1.24 billion).
“Questions about the hotel’s ownership structure should be addressed to the owners,” Kai Tai Fung marketing and communications director Luanne Li (李佳燕) said by telephone.
Mandarin Oriental has a long-term management agreement in place in Taipei, Li said, adding that operations are normal.
The low-key and brief responses came after Chinese-language news outlets reported, without citing sources, that Kai Tai Fung chairman Lin Ming-chun (林命群) has agreed to sell the property to 41-year-old Canadian Calvin Lo (盧啟賢).
The deal has been witnessed by lawyers, the reports said.
Lo is the chief executive officer of Hong Kong-based R.E. Lee International, a life insurance brokerage that specializes in estate planning for ultra-wealthy people.
Under the deal, Lo would buy both the hotel building and 4,200 ping (13,884m2) land, the reports said.
Forbes estimated that Lo, who is currently residing in Hong Kong, had a net worth of US$1.7 billion last year.
Lo has been in talks with Lin since last year and sent his team to conduct due diligence in Taipei several times, the reports said.
Lin reportedly did not relinquish all of his stake in the hotel, but would retain some interest.
Kai Tai Fung declined to comment on the reported deal.
Officials at Mandarin Oriental Taipei, which turned five years old in May, said on condition of anonymity that the reports could prove little more than rumors, as local media had published similar stories in the past.
In 2015, Lin was reported to have sold the hotel to a Chinese buyer for NT$48 billion, a report he dismissed as groundless.
The Chinese-language Apple Daily in July ran a similar report, which Lin again denied at the time.
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves hit a record high at the end of last month, surpassing the US$600 billion mark for the first time, the central bank said yesterday. Last month, the country’s foreign exchange reserves rose US$5.51 billion from a month earlier to reach US$602.94 billion due to an increase in returns from the central bank’s portfolio management, the movement of other foreign currencies in the portfolio against the US dollar and the bank’s efforts to smooth the volatility of the New Taiwan dollar. Department of Foreign Exchange Director-General Eugene Tsai (蔡炯民)said a rate cut cycle launched by the US Federal Reserve
Handset camera lens maker Largan Precision Co (大立光) on Sunday reported a 6.71 percent year-on-year decline in revenue for the third quarter, despite revenue last month hitting the highest level in 11 months. Third-quarter revenue was NT$17.68 billion (US$581.2 million), compared with NT$18.95 billion a year earlier, the company said in a statement. The figure was in line with Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co’s (元大投顧) forecast of NT$17.9 billion, but missed the market consensus estimate of NT$18.97 billion. The third-quarter revenue was a 51.44 percent increase from NT$11.67 billion in the second quarter, as the quarter is usually the peak
The US government on Wednesday sanctioned more than two dozen companies in China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, including offshoots of a US chip firm, accusing the businesses of providing illicit support to Iran’s military or proxies. The US Department of Commerce included two subsidiaries of US-based chip distributor Arrow Electronics Inc (艾睿電子) on its so-called entity list published on the federal register for facilitating purchases by Iran’s proxies of US tech. Arrow spokesman John Hourigan said that the subsidiaries have been operating in full compliance with US export control regulations and his company is discussing with the US Bureau of
Pegatron Corp (和碩), a key assembler of Apple Inc’s iPhones, on Thursday reported a 12.3 percent year-on-year decline in revenue for last quarter to NT$257.86 billion (US$8.44 billion), but it expects revenue to improve in the second half on traditional holiday demand. The fourth quarter is usually the peak season for its communications products, a company official said on condition of anonymity. As Apple released its new iPhone 17 series early last month, sales in the communications segment rose sequentially last month, the official said. Shipments to Apple have been stable and in line with earlier expectations, they said. Pegatron shipped 2.4 million notebook
RSS