The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) on Friday said that it has approved food and retail conglomerate Uni-President Group’s (統一集團) bid to take full ownership of hypermarket operator Carrefour Taiwan (家樂福), with several conditions attached.
The commission said the acquisition was approved on Wednesday.
To protect the interests of small and medium-sized suppliers and curb monopolistic price gouging, the conglomerate must not take advantage of its dominant distribution channels to discriminate against suppliers without legitimate reasons, the commission said.
Photo: CNA
In the three years following the acquisition, Presicarre Corp (家福) should maintain its special transaction program for small and medium-sized suppliers — those with annual trading value of less than NT$1 million (US$32,636) — and ensure that any change to the program does not put those suppliers in a less favorable position, the commission added.
Presicarre, the operator of Carrefour Taiwan, was established by Carrefour SA and Uni-President in 1987 as a joint venture to introduce hypermarkets to Taiwan under the Carrefour brand.
For three years after the closing of the acquisition, Presicarre and Uni-President may not discuss “copurchasing” of goods with individual suppliers, unless requested by the latter, the commission said.
During that period, Uni-President must submit a report to the commission by June 1 every year to verify that it has complied with the conditions.
The agency also stipulated several conditions about the composition of the board of directors at Presicarre after the acquisition.
Uni-President Group in July last year announced that its two affiliates — President Chain Store Corp (統一超商) and Uni-President Enterprises Corp (統一企業), which together hold 40 percent of Carrefour Taiwan — had agreed to take full ownership of Carrefour Taiwan by acquiring the 60 percent stake owned by the hypermarket’s French parent company.
The group at the time said that Uni-President Enterprises would acquire an additional 49.5 percent share in Carrefour Taiwan for NT$23.9 billion and President Chain Store would acquire 10.5 percent for NT$5.1 billion.
The NT$29 billion valuation translates into a price of about NT$65 per share, Uni-President said.
Following the acquisition, Uni-President Enterprises would have a 70 percent stake in Carrefour Taiwan and President Chain Store would have 30 percent, it said.
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves fell below the US$600 billion mark at the end of last month, with the central bank reporting a total of US$596.89 billion — a decline of US$8.6 billion from February — ending a three-month streak of increases. The central bank attributed the drop to a combination of factors such as outflows by foreign institutional investors, currency fluctuations and its own market interventions. “The large-scale outflows disrupted the balance of supply and demand in the foreign exchange market, prompting the central bank to intervene repeatedly by selling US dollars to stabilize the local currency,” Department of Foreign
Intel Corp is joining Elon Musk’s long-shot effort to develop semiconductors for Tesla Inc, Space Exploration Technologies Corp and xAI, marking a surprising twist in the chipmaker’s comeback bid. Intel would help the Terafab project “refactor” the technology in a chip factory, the company said on Tuesday in a post on X, Musk’s social media platform. That is a stage in the development process that typically helps make chips more powerful or reliable. The chipmaker’s shares jumped 4.2 percent to US$52.91 in New York trading on Tuesday. The Terafab project is a grand plan by Musk to eventually manufacture his own chips for
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) yesterday said it plans to resume operations at two coal-fired power generators for three months to boost security of electricity supply as liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply risks are running high due to the Middle East conflict. The two coal-fired power generators are at Mailiao Power Plant in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮). The plant, operated by Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), supplied electricity to Taipower’s power grid until the end of last year. Taipower’s decision came about one month after Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) on March 10 said that the nation had no imminent
Some robotaxi passengers were left stranded in the middle of fast-moving traffic in a major Chinese city after their driverless vehicles stopped running, according to police and media reports on Wednesday. A preliminary investigation indicates more than 100 robotaxis came to a halt because of a “system malfunction,” police in the city of Wuhan said in a statement, without elaborating. No injuries were reported. One passenger told Chinese media that their robotaxi stopped after turning a corner. An instruction on a screen read: “Driving system malfunction. Staff are expected to arrive in 5 minutes.” After no one showed up, the passenger pushed
RSS