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NORTH ASIA DIGEST
November 2008
US ho!
Tokyo Marine Holdings, Japan’s largest non-life insurer by sales, is buying Philadelphia Consolidated Holdings, an American non-life insurer, for US$4.7 billion.
Early death Zhang Sheng Yu, 39, has become the latest of Chinese listed company CEOs to suffer an early death. The head of the venerable pharmacy chain Tong Reng Tang, listed in Shanghai, died of a sudden heart attack on July 22.
Loan shark days The credit crunch has hit China so badly that some smaller companies and individuals are borrowing money at 600% per month, according to local media.
Early death Zhang Sheng Yu, 39, has become the latest of Chinese listed company CEOs to suffer an early death. The head of the venerable pharmacy chain Tong Reng Tang, listed in Shanghai, died of a sudden heart attack on July 22.
Loan shark days The credit crunch has hit China so badly that some smaller companies and individuals are borrowing money at 600% per month, according to local media.
August 2008
Please wait
Australia will make a decision "in a few months" on whether Sinosteel Corp can take a stake in Murchison Metals, after Sinosteel made a A$1.36 billion (US$1.3 billion) bid for Murchison’s rival, Midwest Corp.
Empty space Demand for prime office space in Japan has shown signs of waning as foreign financial institutions hold back expansion plans in the face of the fallout from the subprime crisis.
Video game winner Almost written off two years ago, Nintendo has captured the top spot in Japan for "Innovation in Responding to Customer Needs" with its Wii in the Wall Street Journal Asia’s latest Asia 200 survey of readers.
Empty space Demand for prime office space in Japan has shown signs of waning as foreign financial institutions hold back expansion plans in the face of the fallout from the subprime crisis.
Video game winner Almost written off two years ago, Nintendo has captured the top spot in Japan for "Innovation in Responding to Customer Needs" with its Wii in the Wall Street Journal Asia’s latest Asia 200 survey of readers.
July 2008
Japanese annual inflation hit 1.2% in March, the highest in a decade. This helped trigger a huge sell-off in yen bonds in late April after the figures were released.
Investors feared Japan had little immunity from price increases and its central bank might be forced to raise rates, despite a weak economy.
