Business news with words billion+commission+million. 48 news.

SANYO Electric Co, the Japanese electronics maker targeting its first profit in four years, may have its shares removed from the Tokyo Stock Exchange after misstating six years of financial results. The shares are on watch for possible delisting, the exchange said on its Website after Osaka-based Sanyo disclosed yesterday it understated losses from April 2000 to March 2006. Japan's Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission recommended Sanyo be fined 8.3 million yen (US$72,650), Bloomberg News said. The misstatements may hamper recovery efforts by a company that had to be bailed out by creditors including Goldman Sachs Group Inc last year. Sanyo last month said it plans to invest 350 billion yen to focus on operations such as rechargeable batteries and cells that convert sunlight into energy. "Sanyo would have to further reorganize its business" if the shares become delisted, said Naoki Fujiwara, who helps oversee US$3.2 billion as chief fund manager at Shinkin

NANYANG Commercial Bank plans to at least double its network on the Chinese mainland in two years, after it opened its local incorporation yesterday to fully tap the mainland market. The bank said in Shanghai yesterday it would offer unlimited yuan services. The Hong Kong-based bank gained the approval to set up the local incorporation with a registered capital of 2.5 billion yuan (US$341 million) from the China Banking Regulatory Commission on December 4. The local incorporation was set up on December 14. Nanyang Commercial Bank has six branches and one sub-branch on the Chinese mainland in cities of Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Dalian and Haikou. "Network expansion is a key part of the local incorporation's business development," a bank spokesman said. He said the bank would first focus on major cities in the Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta and coastal areas in the geographic expansion. It will also seek opportunities to open outlets in

NANYANG Commercial Bank plans to at least double its network on the Chinese mainland in two years after it opened its local incorporation today. Nanyang Commercial Bank (China) Ltd opened in Shanghai yesterday to offer unlimited yuan services to Chinese. The Hong Kong-based bank gained approval to set up the local incorporation with a registered capital of 2.5 billion yuan (US$341 million) from the China Banking Regulatory Commission on December 4. Nanyang Commercial Bank has six branches and one sub-branch on the Chinese mainland in Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Dalian, Haikou and Shanghai. "Network expansion is a key part of the local incorporation's business development," the bank said. The bank will first focus on major cities in the Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta and the coastal area. It will also seek other opportunities in other areas. The bank will focus on personal financial planning products and services in retail banking. In corporate banking,

MORGAN Stanley, the second-biggest United States securities firm, awarded Co-President Walid Chammah an US$8.9 million stock bonus for 2007, the highest among the firm's executives after Chief Executive Officer John Mack abstained from a year-end award. Chammah, 53, was granted 173,679 restricted shares on Thursday, when the stock closed at US$51.37, the New York-based company said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Co-President James Gorman, 49, was awarded 155,380 restricted shares valued at US$7.98 million. The company didn't disclose any cash payments in Friday's filings, Bloomberg News reported. Mack, who received US$40 million last year, is forgoing a 2007 bonus after the firm wrote down US$9.4 billion in debt securities during the fourth quarter and reported its first loss. Mack, 63, last month ousted Zoe Cruz, the co-president who oversaw the securities unit, and demoted trading chief Neal Shear. Cruz, 52, and Shear, 53, were the highest-paid

TIANJIN Port Co, operator of the busiest port in northern China, says it has received "conditional" regulatory approval for a private share placement to buy assets worth 4.1 billion yuan (US$556 million) from its parent. In May it said it planned to issue up to 226 million new A shares at 18.17 yuan each to acquire berths and the container handling business from its state-owned parent, Tianjin Port (Group) Co. China Securities Regulatory Commission gave approval for the deal on Friday with some conditions, Tianjin Port said in a brief statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange, without elaborating. Formal approval is expected later, it said. After the announcement, Tianjin Port rose 2.56 percent to 24.88 yuan yesterday when its shares resumed trading after a suspension on Friday. The Shanghai Composite Index was down 2.62 percent. The deal would reduce business overlap between Tianjin Port and its parent and the amount of connected transactions, as well as improve the

LEHMAN Brothers Holdings Inc awarded Chief Executive Officer Richard Fuld US$35 million in stock for 2007 after the largest US underwriter of mortgage bonds reported limited losses from the collapse of the subprime market. Fuld, 61, received 551,442 units of restricted stock, valued at US$35 million as of the December 7 grant date, according to a filing yesterday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Bloomberg News reported. The payout is four percent more than a year ago. Lehman probably will report record earnings of US$4.1 billion this year, according to analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. The profit increase of three percent compares with estimated declines for New York-based securities firms Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch & Co and Bear Stearns Cos. "Those leaders who've managed to steer their companies clear of the problems during these really difficult times should be rewarded handsomely," said John Challenger, head of the Chicago recruiting firm Challenger,

BOSTON (MarketWatch) -- Wachovia Corp. in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Wednesday said it now estimates that its loan loss provision for the fourth quarter will be approximately $1 billion in excess of charge-offs. Its previous forecast was between $500 million and $600 million due to slowing loan growth and ongoing credit deterioration in its loan portfolio. Wachovia shares were down more than 1% in premarket trading.

CHINA has rejected an application by American International Group Inc to turn its Shanghai life insurance branch into a wholly owned subsidiary, the top insurance regulator said yesterday. AIG's American International Assurance unit has applied to transform its Shanghai branch into a subsidiary, which "actually" equals setting up a wholly owned life insurer and is against Chinese regulations, the China Insurance Regulatory Commission said yesterday on its Website. The attempt by the world's biggest insurer contravenes China's World Trade Organization agreements - overseas life insurers can only set up joint-venture life insurance business in China and can own no more than 50 percent. Legal barriers The plan has "legal barriers" and won't be approved, the regulator said. AIA was not available for immediate comment yesterday. AIA is one of the first overseas life insurers to tap the Chinese market. Its premiums topped 7.02 billion yuan (US$949 million) at

CHINA has started building an 80,000-ton press forge in Deyang, in southwestern Sichuan Province, paving the way for making large planes, a longtime dream of the nation. The project, with an investment of 1.517 billion yuan (US$204.7 million), has won the approval of the National Development and Reform Commission and is expected to be the world's largest when it is finished in two and a half years, said Zeng Xiangdong, project director and vice general manager of China National Erzhong Group Co yesterday.

CHINA has approved Sinopec Corp's US$5 billion joint venture oil refinery and petrochemical project with Kuwait Petroleum Corp in the southern Guangdong Province, a company newsletter said yesterday. The project will have annual ethylene capacity of one million tons, according to a brief statement carried by the online Sinopecnews. Ethylene is a basic petrochemical building block. The statement didn't specify the size of the refinery. Sinopec officials said earlier the plant would process 12 million tons of crude oil from Kuwait per year and expected it to come on stream in 2010. China's top industry planner, the National Development and Reform Commission, has approved the project, it added. Accordingly, Sinopec will stop an 800,000-ton-a-year ethylene expansion project in its Guangzhou unit, near the proposed Nansha plant. The existing 200,000-ton-a-year ethylene cracker at the Guangzhou unit will be closed when the new project starts, it said. Sinopec said earlier that the

China Pacific Insurance Group, which is part-owned by the Carlyle Group and Prudential Financial, has received approval to sell a billion new shares in a Shanghai offering to bolster its finances and compete with domestic rivals. The listing committee of China’s securities watchdog agency approved the share sale yesterday, the China Securities Regulatory Commission said on its Web site. China Pacific also plans to sell as many as 900 million shares in a Hong Kong public offering “as soon as possible” after the mainland initial public offering. The two offerings are expected to raise as much as $6 billion.

CHINA insured 44.5 percent of sows nationwide by November 23 as a way to ease a pork shortage and curb the rising price of China's staple meat, according to the China Insurance Regulatory Commission. The commission said more than 21.24 million sows have been covered, with insurance fees totaling 21.6 billion yuan (US$2.9 billion). The top insurance regulator authorized five domestic insurers last August to undertake a pilot sow insurance scheme for pig breeders in response to the short supply of pork fueled by feedstuff price hikes and outbreaks of the blue-ear pig disease. The insurance covers losses from blue-ear disease and natural disasters such as floods, fires, typhoons and other epidemics. The price of pork, which almost doubled this year before starting to decline in mid-August, rebounded 54.9 percent in October, according to figures from the National Bureau of Statistics. Analysts say the higher pork and food prices pushed up the consumer price index, a main

CHINA Pacific Insurance (Group) Co will issue no more than one billion yuan-backed A shares in Shanghai, the insurer said yesterday on the Website of the China Securities Regulatory Commission. It will also seek a listing in Hong Kong by issuing no more than 900 million H shares after the completion of the A shares sale. The pricing of the H shares will not be lower than the A shares, the pre-disclosure statement said.

INDUSTRIAL and Commercial Bank of China today in Tianjin opened the country's first leasing firm wholly owned by a domestic bank. ICBC Financial Leasing Ltd, registered in Binhai District in Tianjin with a capital of two billion yuan (US$271 million), will offer aircraft and ship financing services, said Yang Kaisheng, director of the country's biggest lender. The bank signed cooperation agreements with China National Aviation Holding Company, COSCO Group, Hainan Airlines and a Canadian company at the opening ceremony. The commission has also given approval to Minsheng Bank, China Merchants Bank, Bank of Communications and China Construction Bank to enter the leasing business. The leasing business may help reduce strong demand for ships and planes as the country's economy continues to grow quickly. Over the past 10 years, China's demand for planes has doubled while about 90 percent of the financing for plane leases on the mainland are provided by foreign companies. The

THE Chinese joint venture of GMAC, the financing unit of General Motors Corp, has gotten the go-ahead to be the first non-banker in China to issue asset-backed securities, the banking regulator said yesterday. GMAC-SAIC Automotive Finance will sell a pool of auto loans worth 1.995 billion yuan (US$270 million) through Fortune Trust on the interbank bond market before the end of the year, Zhang Xiaojun, deputy general manager and chief finance officer of GMAC-SAIC Automotive Finance, told Shanghai Daily yesterday. GMAC-SAIC Automotive Finance is a joint venture between GMAC, Shanghai Automotive Industry Group Finance Co and Shanghai GM. The company filed its application earlier this year to the People's Bank of China and the China Banking Regulatory Commission. The CBRC, the country's banking industry regulator, gave the green light, the Shanghai Bureau of the CBRC said yesterday. The company is now awaiting the central bank's approval, which is expected before the year's end.

GUOHUA Life Insurance opened in Shanghai today to tap the country's rising need for financial protection. The Shanghai-based life insurer has registered capital of 300 million yuan (US$40.5 million). The insurer got the go-ahead from the China Insurance Regulatory Commission to start business in October. Hubei Biocause Pharmaceutical Co, a Shenzhen-listed drug maker, holds a 19.99 percent stake in Guohua Life as its biggest shareholder. Biocause invested 59.97 million yuan in the life insurer. Shanghai is gearing up to be an international financial hub and is already home to big name financial players from the banking, insurance and securities sectors. Life insurance premiums topped 29.27 billion yuan in the first ten months in Shanghai, up 16 percent from a year ago. At the end of October, there were 33 life insurance companies in Shanghai.

XI'AN Aircraft International Corp said today it had gained regulatory approval to issue shares to buy assets from its parent, taking a lead among domestic military industrial firms to conduct group listings. The green light came just two weeks after China unveiled new guidelines to encourage military-related companies to go public as a whole group and attract investments from listed firms and foreigners. Xi'an Aircraft said it had received the approval from the China Securities Regulatory Commission to conduct a private placement with as many as 10 investors, according to an exchange filing. The Shenzhen-listed aircraft maker had proposed to collect up to 6.6 billion yuan (US$890 million) selling shares at no lower than 9.18 yuan apiece. Its parent Xi'an Aircraft Industry (Group) Co will take at least 55 percent of the offering. Xi'an Aircraft Industry (Group) has planned to inject assets of civil aircraft manufacturing, research and development as well as services into the listed

CHINA'S city-level commercial banks recorded an average non-performing loan (NPL) ratio at four percent for this year, down from the 15.26 percent level at the end of 2003, according to Jiang Dingzhi, deputy head of the China Banking Regulatory Commission. Jiang said smaller commercial banks nationwide, including rural cooperative banking institutions, are developing in a healthier way, with their capital adequacy and assets quality improved substantially. City commercial banks had their average capital adequacy ratio raised to 8.6 percent this year, up from -1.6 percent at the end of 2003. Rural cooperative banking institutions reported 183.1 billion yuan (US$24.74 billion) in combined net assets, and their capital adequacy ratio averaged 9.1 percent, as against the -6.8 percent four years ago. They had made losses for 10 consecutive years but reversed the situation last year, when they garnered 18.6 billion yuan in net profits, compared with 550 million yuan of losses in

H&R Block Inc, the biggest US tax preparer, received US$350 million of extra funding for its money-losing mortgage unit from Greenwich Capital Financial Products Inc. The agreement boosts credit available for Option One Mortgage Corp to US$750 million, Missouri-based H&R Block said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The accord lasts through October 1. H&R Block has been allowing some Option One credit lines to expire, saying they weren't needed as demand for subprime home loans waned. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Mark Ernst quit last week after US$1 billion of losses on mortgages. Richard Breeden, the new chairman, won a seat on the board in September through a proxy fight after urging Ernst to "stop the bleeding." Ernst was the latest CEO to resign because of losses caused by subprime mortgages, or loans given to people with the weakest credit and highest risk of default. Citigroup Inc and Merrill Lynch & Co ousted their CEOs

MERRILL Lynch & Co, the securities firm that ousted its chief executive officer less than a month ago, said it will pay incoming CEO John Thain at least US$44 million in bonus, salary and stock grants. Thain, who is giving up his post running the New York Stock Exchange, will receive an annual salary of US$750,000, a bonus this year of US$15 million and 500,000 restricted shares in Merrill worth US$28.1 million based on Friday's closing price, Bloomberg News reported. Thain will also receive 1.8 million options for Merrill shares, the New York-based brokerage said in a filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Merrill's former CEO Stan O'Neal was forced to resign on October 30 after the firm disclosed US$8.4 billion of writedowns on mortgage-related investments and bad loans. Deutsche Bank AG analyst Michael Mayo estimates the world's biggest brokerage may face another US$10 billion in losses. Thain, 52, was paid a total of US$9.4 million by NYSE in 2006,