Clients of Citibank Taiwan Ltd (台灣花旗) have had one of their busiest years, as the bank’s institutional businesses supported them across capital raising, merger and acquisitions (M&As) and trade, among other areas.
Citi remains optimistic that clients would continue to drive growth across its institutional franchise, given the momentum and aspirations of local companies.
Over the past couple of years, Citi has been an adviser on five Taiwan-related M&As, which included industries such as technology, retail sales, renewable energy and financial services. The transactions were transformational, making the companies global leaders in their industries.
Photo courtesy of Citibank Taiwan Ltd
This year, Citi has used pre-initial public offering placements, block trades, convertible and exchangeable bonds, and US dollar bond issuances to raise billions of dollars across the local and global capital markets for Taiwanese corporations.
“Taiwan is home to many world-class companies and we are committed to supporting their ambitions. There is a massive transformation happening across all industries and with a global network, this has helped sharpen Citi’s dialogue with clients in Taiwan, as they increasingly want a regional and global perspective,” said Christie Chang (張聖心), head of banking, capital markets and advisory at Citibank Taiwan and chair of Asia-Pacific Corporate Banking.
Citibank Taiwan has seen solid growth in its local corporate banking business as it supports the domestic and international banking needs of companies, whose supply chains are evolving further.
The bank’s local and regional networks connect Taiwanese corporations to the rest of Asia, while Citigroup connects them to a global network of 160 markets.
Some of the bank’s inflows that have grown the most this year have been across trade corridors involving Taiwan.
This year, outflows from Taiwan to India have increased nearly 50 percent, while outflows from Taiwan to ASEAN members have risen about 20 percent, as firms continue to diversify their supply chains.
The bank has also seen steady growth in inflows to Taiwan, too, most notably from companies in Australia, India and Japan.
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
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
Asian e-commerce giant Shein’s (希音) decision to set up shop in a historic Parisian department store has ruffled feathers in the fashion capital. Anger has been boiling since Shein announced last week that it would open its first permanent physical store next month at BHV Marais, an iconic building that has stood across from Paris City Hall since 1856. The move prompted some French brands to announce they would leave BHV Marais, but the department store had already been losing tenants over late payments. Aime cosmetics line cofounder Mathilde Lacombe, whose brand was among those that decided to leave following