The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) yesterday said it has approved Nokia Corp’s bid to acquire California-based Infinera Corp.
While it is an extraterritorial merger, it required the commission’s approval because the two companies have subsidiaries in Taiwan, it said in a statement.
The merger would not restrict competition or create barriers to market entry, as there are other competitive businesses, while downstream trade partners such as telecoms and cable television operators hold considerable bargaining power, it said.
Photo: Reuters
Finland-based Nokia is seeking to acquire 100 percent of Infinera’s shares, and control of its business operations and personnel, which is defined as a merger, the commission said, citing Article 10 of Fair Trade Act (公平交易法).
The two companies are important players in the optical transmission equipment market, posing horizontal competition to each other, the commission said.
However, they are each focused on different aspects of technology and product applications, with little overlap in their main customer base and regional operations, it said.
As the optical transmission equipment industry rapidly advances, the merger of Nokia and Infinera would speed up product development and innovation, creating economic benefits that would outweigh any disadvantages that might arise from reduced competition, it added.
Nokia in June last year announced that it had reached an agreement to acquire Infinera for US$2.3 billion and said the deal was expected to close in the first half of this year.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
PRESSURE EXPECTED: The appreciation of the NT dollar reflected expectations that Washington would press Taiwan to boost its currency against the US dollar, dealers said Taiwan’s export-oriented semiconductor and auto part manufacturers are expecting their margins to be affected by large foreign exchange losses as the New Taiwan dollar continued to appreciate sharply against the US dollar yesterday. Among major semiconductor manufacturers, ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光), the world’s largest integrated circuit (IC) packaging and testing services provider, said that whenever the NT dollar rises NT$1 against the greenback, its gross margin is cut by about 1.5 percent. The NT dollar traded as strong as NT$29.59 per US dollar before trimming gains to close NT$0.919, or 2.96 percent, higher at NT$30.145 yesterday in Taipei trading
RSS