Foreign banks step up in Taiwan

摘要

Taiwan's ultra-competitive loan market, dominated by highly-liquid domestic lenders, is turning out to be an unlikely source of opportunities for international banks. Mizuho Bank is the coordinator on a NT$28.5bn (US$977m) acquisition loan for pou chen corp, the world's biggest footwear maker, in a rare instance of a Japanese bank leading a high-profile domestic currency loan in Taiwan. The five-year loan, which will fund Pou Chen's buyout of Chinese sportswear retailer Pou Sheng International Holdings, follows a NT$90bn acquisition financing for advanced semiconductor engineering also with a foreign bank as lead - in this case Citigroup.