■ IPO
Bank offering price set
China Construction Bank Corp (中國建設銀行) yesterday priced its US$8 billion initial public offering (IPO) -- the world's biggest this year -- at the high end of the expected range due to strong demand, according to an investment banker familiar with the deal. The bank, the first of China's big state-owned banks to list shares overseas, will begin trading on the Hong Kong stock exchange next Thursday. The offering was priced at HK$2.35 a share (US$0.30) said the source, who asked not to be named because the information was not yet made public. That was at the high end of its expected range of HK$1.90 to HK$2.40, which itself was raised last week due to strong institutional demand for the offering. The bank sold a total of 26.49 billion shares and raised US$8.02 billion, the source said. The retail tranche of the IPO was 42 times oversubscribed, so the percentage of shares to be offered to retail investors would be bumped up to 7.5 percent from 5 percent, the person said.
■ Communications
Windows for phones
Microsoft Corp, Sharp Corp and Willcom Inc will sell the first mobile phone in Japan running on the Windows operating system that will allow document and e-mail downloads from personal computers. Willcom is a Japanese wireless service operator owned by Carlyle Group Inc. Microsoft is bringing its Windows Mobile to Japan after Motorola Inc released a phone in July for NTT DoCoMo that has handheld computer functions and runs on another operating system. "This is our very first step in the Japanese market place with a mobile PC that also has phone capabilities," said Darren Huston, president of Microsoft's Japan unit. "We're in talks with other operators as well to spread Windows Mobile," he said. The W-ZERO3, which operates on Willcom's personal handy phone network, will be priced below ¥50,000 (US$432) when it goes on sale in December, the companies said in a statement.
■ Electronics
Matsushita going small
Matsushita Electric Indus-trial Co started production this month of small-sized chips that would allow the company to make more compact digital devices. Matsushita will begin shipments by the end of the year for the 65-nanometer semiconductors made at its Uozu plant in Toyama prefecture, the company said today. It will produce the chips on 300mm wafers at a rate of 6,500 wafers a month. The new semiconductors would allow Matsushita to make smaller DVD players, flat-panel TVs and other electronics that it sells under the Panasonic brand. ``It's important that we keep our chip investment steady at about ¥80 billion [US$692.7 million] a year, regardless of the economic situation,'' Susumu Koike, head of the company's semiconductor business, said at a news conference in Tokyo.
■ Telecoms
Motorola sues ex-president
Motorola has brought suit against former president Mike Zafirovski, accusing him of breaching agreements by accepting the top job at Nortel Networks Corp. The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in Chicago, alleges that Zafirovski's new job will mean the use or disclosure of Motorola's trade secrets. Zafirovski, who left Motorola in January after being passed over for the top job there, is to begin with Nortel on Nov. 15. The lawsuit seeks to stop Zafirovski from working for Nortel for two years.
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that a delegation that visited China for an APEC meeting did not receive any kind of treatment that downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Department of International Organizations Director-General Jonathan Sun (孫儉元) said that he and a group of ministry officials visited Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting last month. The trip went “smoothly and safely” for all Taiwanese delegates, as the Chinese side arranged the trip in accordance with long-standing practices, Sun said at the ministry’s weekly briefing. The Taiwanese group did not encounter any political suppression, he said. Sun made the remarks when
The Taiwanese passport ranked 33rd in a global listing of passports by convenience this month, rising three places from last month’s ranking, but matching its position in January last year. The Henley Passport Index, an international ranking of passports by the number of designations its holder can travel to without a visa, showed that the Taiwan passport enables holders to travel to 139 countries and territories without a visa. Singapore’s passport was ranked the most powerful with visa-free access to 192 destinations out of 227, according to the index published on Tuesday by UK-based migration investment consultancy firm Henley and Partners. Japan’s and
BROAD AGREEMENT: The two are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff to 15% and a commitment for TSMC to build five more fabs, a ‘New York Times’ report said Taiwan and the US have reached a broad consensus on a trade deal, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday, after a report said that Washington is set to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent. The New York Times on Monday reported that the two nations are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent and commit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to building at least five more facilities in the US. “The agreement, which has been under negotiation for months, is being legally scrubbed and could be announced this month,” the paper said,
MIXED SOURCING: While Taiwan is expanding domestic production, it also sources munitions overseas, as some, like M855 rounds, are cheaper than locally made ones Taiwan and the US plan to jointly produce 155mm artillery shells, as the munition is in high demand due to the Ukraine-Russia war and should be useful in Taiwan’s self-defense, Armaments Bureau Director-General Lieutenant General Lin Wen-hsiang (林文祥) told lawmakers in Taipei yesterday. Lin was responding to questions about Taiwan’s partnership with allies in producing munitions at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. Given the intense demand for 155mm artillery shells in Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion, and in light of Taiwan’s own defensive needs, Taipei and Washington plan to jointly produce 155mm shells, said Lin,
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