Asia News Briefs: Hong Kong Official Is Named to Top China Post
China has picked a Hong Kong woman to help combat stock market abuses, in the first time Beijing has filled a high government position with someone from outside the mainland. The Chinese government has tapped Laura Cha, a senior Hong Kong securities regulator, to serve a two-year term as vice chairman with the China Securities Regulatory Commission. Ms. Cha, deputy chairman and executive director of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, confirmed Tuesday that she will begin her new job in March. Her appointment comes as Chinese regulators step up efforts against rampant stock price manipulation and other market abuses. "I have a lot of work to do," Ms. Cha, a U.S.-educated lawyer, said. "It is definitely going to be very interesting." Ms. Cha, 50, was born in Shanghai but moved to Hong Kong as an infant. To take up her post she was obliged to renounce her U.S. citizenship and obtain a Hong Kong passport. Ms. Cha is one of a number of international professionals, most of them overseas Chinese, who have been asked to advise on China's financial affairs since reformist Premier Zhu Rongji took office.
CyberWorks' iLink Plans to Raise $20 Million From GEM Listing0
Data center operator iLink.net, which is controlled by Pacific Century CyberWorks Ltd., plans to raise about 155.6 million Hong Kong dollars (US$20 million), from a listing on Hong Kong's Growth Enterprise Market, an underwriting source said Wednesday. It originally aimed to raise about HK$200 million from the floatation, but was forced to scale back the size of its offer due to sour sentiment among investors for technology shares, the source said. iLink.net, which provides server hosting, facilities management, Internet connectivity and network management services, plans to place 25% of its shares with institutional investors. The company, which currently has two data centers in Hong Kong, plans to use the proceeds to develop at least four data centers in China and other parts of Asia. CyberWorks will have about 41% in iLink.net after the listing. Its stake will rise to 48% upon exercising a convertible bond.
Philippines' Ayala Confirms Talks to Sell Pure Foods Unit
Philippine conglomerate Ayala Corp. said Wednesday it is in talks with several companies to sell its Pure Foods Corp. unit. "We confirm that we have had talks with several parties for the sale of Pure Foods, but we are not at liberty to disclose who they are because we have signed a confidentiality agreement," Rufino Manotok, Ayala's managing director and head of strategic planning, told reporters.
NEC May Cut Semiconductor Spending
NEC Corp. may slash group capital spending for semiconductor production in the next fiscal year from April 1 by as much as 20% from 217 billion yen ($1.86 billion) earmarked for the current year, company officials said Wednesday. Japan's largest microchip manufacturer has not finalized details of its business plan for the fiscal year ending March 2002, but its semiconductor-related capital investment in the coming fiscal year is likely to be set below that of the current year given market conditions, the officials said. This cautious estimate came as prices of memory microchips such as dynamic random access memory chips have begun to soften.
Indonesia's IBRA Sells Final 0.9% Stake in First Pacific
The Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency sold its final 0.9% stake in Hong Kong's First Pacific Co. at 2.575 Hong Kong dollars (33 U.S. cents) a share. IBRA's sale of 25.919 million shares raised a gross US$8.55 million, IBRA's director of asset management investment Dasa Sutantio said. The shares were jointly held by IBRA and one of its holding companies, Holdiko Perkasa. "This transaction concludes the sale of IBRA's and Holdiko's entire ownership in First Pacific, raising gross proceeds of US$77.5 million," Mr. Dasa said in a statement.
China Hopes to Wrap Up GITIC Bankruptcy in 2001
China hopes to wrap up bankruptcy proceedings for Guangdong International Trust & Investment Corp. this year, China's Securities Times said, quoting the head of the court in charge of the proceedings. The paper quoted Lu Botao of the Guangdong provincial high court as saying that a key task for the court will be to transfer the operations of GITIC's nine brokerage outlets to interested parties this year. GITIC went into liquidation in 1999 after the central government refused to help it repay billions of dollars in debt owed to foreign and domestic institutions. GITIC's default and failure sent shivers through the international banking sector, because bankers had expected Beijing to bail out the firm. The Guangdong court official said the court has confirmed that GITIC has 26.138 billion yuan ($3.16 billion) in debt. The court has also helped recover 755 million yuan in debts extended to nonaffiliate firms. The company was able to convert some of its assets into 476 million yuan in cash. The court has also completed its first allocation of GITIC's assets to creditors, giving the creditors a total of 1.0027 billion yuan, or 3.836% of the claims filed on average by creditors, the report quoted Lu as saying. GITIC's failure was the first by the so-called "ITICs" -- essentially fund-raising companies of local governments -- and sparked a credit crunch among Chinese investment companies.
Hitachi, Veritas Plan to Form Global Storage Solution Alliance
Hitachi Ltd., its subsidiary Hitachi Data Systems Corp., and California-based Veritas Software Corp. said Wednesday they have signed a deal to form a comprehensive global business alliance in the area of data storage solution. Under the alliance, the three companies will jointly work on marketing, sales, customer support, and development in the data storage business, targeting both small/medium-sized and big corporations, they said. Specifically, they will try to provide value-added storage solution services by combining Hitachi's hardware and Veritas' storage management software, the companies said. Hitachi and Veritas plan to set up data storage evaluation centers in Japan and the U.S. The three firms will increase staff for marketing, sales, and customer support to meet global users' needs, they added.
-- Compiled from Dow Jones Newswires
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