Merrill Lynch & Co, Asia's top arranger of share sales last year, fell to seventh place this year, failing to win a share of US$2 billion of business in Taiwan, where it's the No. 2 foreign broker.
The biggest securities firm by capital wasn't hired to sell shares for Taiwan Semiconductor Man-ufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and four other companies in the nation, which accounted for more than half the US$4.3 billion of stock sold to global investors this year by Asian companies outside Japan.
"Taiwan is becoming increasingly important given the state of the markets elsewhere in Asia," said Ernest Ip, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers' capital markets service group. "All the banks need a good presence in Taiwan or they will be dead in the water."
Investment banks are chasing fees from bond and share sales by computer-related companies and banks in Taiwan that need money to expand as the nation emerges from recession. Merrill says it's suffered from the loss of key bankers in Taiwan, including David Kao, its former investment-banking director in Taiwan, who left to join a unit of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co in September.
"It's not as if we're not at the party," said Ajmal Rahman, Merrill's co-head of investment banking in Asia outside Japan.
"What we should be doing is leading the party. You can't expect to win the spoils when you've been through a bit of turnover in your ranks." Goldman Sachs Group Inc is the No. 1 manager of global share sales in Asia outside Japan this year, capturing a quarter of the market by selling US$1.1 billion of shares for TSMC. The chipmaker's Chairman, Morris Chang (
Cathay Financial Holdings Ltd (
Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd(
Hon Hai Precision Industry Ltd(鴻海) and Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp(奇美)are among other Taiwan-based companies planning share sales.
Merrill's research on Taiwan companies ranked third behind UBS Warburg and Credit Suisse First Boston, according to last year's poll of investors by AsiaMoney magazine. Merrill's brokerage share among foreign firms in Taiwan trailed only UBS Warburg this year, according to the island's stock exchange.
Still, it has half as many bankers focused on Taiwan as some of its rivals. Samuel Poon, Merrill's co-head of investment banking in Asia outside Japan, is also covering Taiwan until a new banker can be hired.
"As yet, we have not had a high profile addition or enhancement to the team," Rahman said. "We're planning to step up further coverage." Merrill's success last year managing share sales owed much to its China business, run by Charles Li and Erh Fei Liu. It helped CNOOC Ltd, the third-largest oil company, raise US$1.43 billion from an initial public share offering. Chinese companies may also provide the bulk of fees this year.
CNOOC has hired Merrill to advise on the sale of shares in its oil services and shipping units later this year. The sales may raise as much as US$400 million.
It's one of three banks that will arrange a share sale by China Telecommunications Corp, an offer previously estimated by analysts to be worth as much as US$8 billion. The sales may proceed before the end of this year, bankers said.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary