Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) said it was in talks with Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc to buy ABN Amro Holding NV’s investment banking and corporate finance business in Australia and New Zealand, a day after National Australia Bank Ltd ended discussions.
The proposal is incomplete and talks are ongoing, Australia’s largest bank by market value said in a statement to the nation’s stock exchange. Sydney-based Commonwealth Bank is in exclusive negotiations, it said.
RESERVES
The sale by RBS, the UK’s second-biggest bank, is part of a push to shed assets and raise capital to bolster reserves depleted by credit-related writedowns and the ABN Amro purchase last year.
RBS, which also wants to sell its insurance unit, must raise about £4 billion (US$8 billion) in disposals even after amassing £12.3 billion in Europe’s biggest rights offering last month, to help bring capital ratios in line with peers.
“It’s an avenue for CBA to bulk up their financial side of the business, not a strategic necessity,” said Angus Gluskie, who helps oversee the equivalent of US$500 million at White Funds Management in Sydney, including shares of Commonwealth Bank and National Australia Bank.
ACQUISITIONS
The acquisition would be the first for Commonwealth Bank since teaming with JPMorgan Chase & Co to buy United Utilities Plc’s power distribution unit in December.
Commonwealth Bank bought 83 percent of Indonesia’s PT Bank Arta Niaga Kencana in January last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
National Australia Bank, the country’s biggest by assets, said yesterday it ended talks to buy ABN Amro’s local investment- banking businesses, without providing further details.
Authorities have detained three former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TMSC, 台積電) employees on suspicion of compromising classified technology used in making 2-nanometer chips, the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday. Prosecutors are holding a former TSMC engineer surnamed Chen (陳) and two recently sacked TSMC engineers, including one person surnamed Wu (吳) in detention with restricted communication, following an investigation launched on July 25, a statement said. The announcement came a day after Nikkei Asia reported on the technology theft in an exclusive story, saying TSMC had fired two workers for contravening data rules on advanced chipmaking technology. Two-nanometer wafers are the most
Tsunami waves were possible in three areas of Kamchatka in Russia’s Far East, the Russian Ministry for Emergency Services said yesterday after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit the nearby Kuril Islands. “The expected wave heights are low, but you must still move away from the shore,” the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app, after the latest seismic activity in the area. However, the Pacific Tsunami Warning System in Hawaii said there was no tsunami warning after the quake. The Russian tsunami alert was later canceled. Overnight, the Krasheninnikov volcano in Kamchatka erupted for the first time in 600 years, Russia’s RIA
CHINA’s BULLYING: The former British prime minister said that he believes ‘Taiwan can and will’ protect its freedom and democracy, as its people are lovers of liberty Former British prime minister Boris Johnson yesterday said Western nations should have the courage to stand with and deepen their economic partnerships with Taiwan in the face of China’s intensified pressure. He made the remarks at the ninth Ketagalan Forum: 2025 Indo-Pacific Security Dialogue hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Prospect Foundation in Taipei. Johnson, who is visiting Taiwan for the first time, said he had seen Taiwan’s coastline on a screen on his indoor bicycle, but wanted to learn more about the nation, including its artificial intelligence (AI) development, the key technology of the 21st century. Calling himself an
South Korea yesterday said that it was removing loudspeakers used to blare K-pop and news reports to North Korea, as the new administration in Seoul tries to ease tensions with its bellicose neighbor. The nations, still technically at war, had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone, Seoul’s military said in June after the election of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung. It said in June that Pyongyang stopped transmitting bizarre, unsettling noises along the border that had become a major nuisance for South Korean residents, a day after South Korea’s loudspeakers fell silent. “Starting today, the military has begun removing the loudspeakers,”
RSS