China Investment Corp News

Commodities trader Noble Group reported a second- quarter loss of $1.75 billion on Thursday, weeks after warning it faced its steepest quarterly loss in a year and a half and would slash jobs and sell assets to cut debt. Once Asia's largest commodities trading house, Noble is slimming down drastically to its core Asian coal trading business after a crisis-wracked two years. Last month, it announced the sale of its U.S. gas and power business and began a process to sell its oil liquids unit. "Conservative liquidity management, scaling back of risk positions and constraints placed on the group's access to trade finance lines led to disruption costs and prevented the group from taking advantage of profitable opportunities," the Singapore-listed company said in a statement on Thursday.

With the aim to dominate maritime industry China has been acquiring overseas ports with huge investments which crossed USD 20 bln last year, Financial Times reported. Beijing has spent billions expanding its ports network to secure sea lanes and establish itself as a maritime power, says the report. China is aggressively pushing its  “One Belt One Road”, a grand scheme to win diplomatic allies and open markets in around 65 countries between Asia and Europe. It is pushing ahead with plans to open new shipping routes through the Arctic circle, the report said. The report quoted a study by Grisons Peak, a London-based investment bank, found that Chinese companies have announced plans to buy or invest in nine overseas ports in the year to June in projects valued at a total of $20.1bn.

An Australian port and a stake in the Empire State Building's operator were among assets acquired by sovereign investors such as wealth funds and state pension funds in the third quarter of 2016, with deals totalling $21.2 billion. The combined value of deals was up 38 percent from the previous quarter, helped by a handful of jumbo-sized transactions in the infrastructure, energy and real estate segments, although the number of direct investments fell to 35 from 43 in the second quarter, according to data from Thomson Reuters.

A consortium of global and domestic funds, backed by investors including China Investment Corp, agreed to buy Australia's busiest port for a higher-than-expected A$9.7 billion ($7.3 billion), a sign that tough equity markets are helping fuel appetite for infrastructure. Australian leaders will also hope the deal shows they still welcome Chinese investment in infrastructure. The federal government last month blocked the sale of the country's biggest power network, Ausgrid, to state-owned State Grid Corp of China and Hong Kong-listed Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings on security concerns.

Canada's Brookfield Asset Management (BAMa.TO) is planning a fresh $6.4 billion bid for Australian port and rail firm Asciano (AIO.AX) with Qatar's sovereign fund, two sources told Reuters, widening the global battle for the haulage heavyweight. The willingness of Brookfield to raise its offer and Qatar Investment Authority's (QIA) entry as a potential co-investor underscore the immense appetite for Australian infrastructure, especially mining-exposed companies whose share prices have been battered by the commodities downturn. Asciano, which had a market capitalization of $4.3 billion a year ago, said on Tuesday it was dumping Brookfield's…

In an industry first, the Miami-based  Carnival Corp. will develop a multi-ship domestic Chinese cruise brand with Chinese partners. Carnival, the world’s largest cruise company, formed a joint venture with China State Shipbuilding Corp., the largest shipbuilder in China, and China Investment Corp., a sovereign wealth fund with $740 billion in assets. Carnival Chief Executive Officer Arnold Donald formalized the accord Wednesday in a meeting in London with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is on a state visit to the U.K., according to a statement released by Carnival. All parties will collectively invest $4 billion into the venture in the first 10 years, Carnival Corp Chief Operating Officer Alan Buckelew said.

China Merchants Holdings (International) Co. Ltd. along with Cosco Pacific Ltd., a unit of China Investment Corp. and Euro-Asia Oceangate will pay US$919.9 million to buy a 64.5% stake in Fina Liman from Fina Holding. Fina Liman is an investment-holding company that owns and operates a port terminal in Turkey. The acquisition gives the consortium access to the terminal of Fina’s subsidiary Kumport. Kumport Terminal is a modern container terminal in the Ambarli Port Complex, which is on the northwest coast of the Marmara Sea on the European side of Istanbul, Turkey. The Company, CMHI and CIC Capital, through their respective wholly-owned subsidiaries, hold 40%, 40% and 20%, respectively, of the shares in the Consortium SPV.

China's $40 billion fund to finance its most ambitious global plan - the Silk Roads and Maritime Silk Road is moving forward steadily as its management team has taken shape. China has appointed top officials to manage the fund. A team headed by Wang Yanzhi, an official with China's foreign exchange regulator, has been formed to formally operate the fund. People's Bank of China (PBOC) assistant governor Jin Qi will be the fund's chief executive and Zhu Surong, governor of PBOC's Urumqi branch in Xinjiang, has been appointed board member of the fund. The fund was announced by President Xi Jinping last year to build major infrastructure projects aimed to enhance its strategic influence and blunt the US' big push into Asia-Pacific.