■ Banking
ICBC completes IPO
China's biggest bank, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC, 中國工商銀行), yesterday priced its mammoth initial public offering at the top end of expectations owing to overwhelming investor demand, completing the biggest IPO in history. ICBC raised a total of US$19 billion in the first ever simultaneous stock sale in both Hong Kong and Shanghai. ICBC will officially announce its share pricing on Monday. The bank priced its Hong Kong offering at HK$3.07 a share, Dow Jones Newswires reported, citing an unidentified person familiar with the deal. At that price, the bank is raising US$13.9 billion from the Hong Kong offering. The Shanghai portion of the offering was priced at 3.11 yuan, Dow Jones said. The mainland portion will raise US$5.1 billion.
■ Natural Gas
Russia rethinking project
Russia's Industry and Energy Ministry is in talks with investors in Sakhalin-2 on changing the business model of the liquefied natural gas project after costs more than doubled to nearly US$22 billion, news agencies said. The comments by Deputy Minister Andrei Dementyev came at a specially convened discussion of the Shell-led project in Russia's upper house of parliament. The project has come under intense pressure from environmental regulators. Analysts say probes into the cost overrun are being used to pressure Shell to reconsider the terms of the original agreement to develop the fields and to secure access for a Russian state-run firm to the project.
■ Automobiles
Kia US to start operating
Kia Motors, South Korea's second-largest automaker, was to start work on its first US plant yesterday after a six-month delay over a bribery scandal, company officials said. "This will be our third overseas plant. The US plan will boost our production abroad and sales in the American market," spokesman Kim Jun-Myung said. Kia originally planned to start work on the plant in West Point, Georgia, in April. But the ribbon-cutting was delayed after Chung Mong-koo, chairman of parent firm Hyundai Motor, was arrested on charges of bribery.
■ Stock exchange
Court tells Grasso to pay up
A court on Thursday ordered the former head of the New York Stock Exchange, Richard Grasso, to return US$100 million in pension payments and other benefits to the bourse, state officials said. The order was made in a partial summary judgment issued by New York State Supreme Court judge Charles Ramos following a protracted legal battle between Grasso and New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Grasso resigned as the exchange's chairman in 2003, but made headlines with his generous US$187 million severance and compensation package. Spitzer then sued Grasso for the return of US$120 million of his package.
■ Copyrights
Nine jailed for piracy
Nine people convicted of selling illegally copied DVDs and other goods have been jailed for up to 13 years in China's biggest anti-piracy crackdown to date, the official Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday. The sentences were the longest reported since China stepped up penalties for product piracy in the middle of last year, imposing jail time in addition to fines. Four people were sentenced to 13 years in jail for producing and selling pirated publications in separate cases in Ningbo and Xiamen, Xinhua said.
Taiwanese Olympic badminton men’s doubles gold medalist Wang Chi-lin (王齊麟) and his new partner, Chiu Hsiang-chieh (邱相榤), clinched the men’s doubles title at the Yonex Taipei Open yesterday, becoming the second Taiwanese team to win a title in the tournament. Ranked 19th in the world, the Taiwanese duo defeated Kang Min-hyuk and Ki Dong-ju of South Korea 21-18, 21-15 in a pulsating 43-minute final to clinch their first doubles title after teaming up last year. Wang, the men’s doubles gold medalist at the 2020 and 2024 Olympics, partnered with Chiu in August last year after the retirement of his teammate Lee Yang
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
The government is considering polices to increase rental subsidies for people living in social housing who get married and have children, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. During an interview with the Plain Law Movement (法律白話文) podcast, Cho said that housing prices cannot be brought down overnight without affecting banks and mortgages. Therefore, the government is focusing on providing more aid for young people by taking 3 to 5 percent of urban renewal projects and zone expropriations and using that land for social housing, he said. Single people living in social housing who get married and become parents could obtain 50 percent more
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