National pension fund reports 15.19% return rate

    CHINA’S National Social Security Fund recorded a 15.19 percent rate of return last year, with income of 229.46 billion yuan (US$34.86 billion), according to an annual report released on its website Friday.

    The rate of return exceeded the average of 8.82 percent since the fund was founded 15 years ago, it said. It did not give details on its investments. Total assets under the social security fund amounted to 1.9 trillion yuan at the end of 2015, an increase of 24.62 percent from the year before, it said. Appropriations from the government for the fund, including shares, were 70.6 billion yuan, 20 billion yuan of which came from the central government’s budget, it said.

    Wolong Electric interested in Emerson unit

    CHINA’S Wolong Electric Co., which lists shares in Shanghai, and other Asian firms are seen as possible buyers of U.S. automation equipment maker Emerson Electric’s alternator unit Leroy Somer, two sources with knowledge of the situation said.

    Other potential buyers could include sector peers such as Brazil’s WEG, U.S.-based Regal Beloit and Chinese groups Shanghai Electric and Harbin Electric, the sources said. The sources said Emerson hopes to sell France-based Leroy Somer to an Asian company as it expects Asian firms will be willing to offer a higher price than investment funds or European and U.S. industry peers.

    BAIC targets 5,000 car sales a year in Mexico

    BAIC Motor Corp. has started selling its own cars imported from China in Mexico and aims to reach 5,000 sales a year by 2018, a senior company executive said.

    BAIC, the Hong Kong-listed unit of Beijing Automotive Group Co., joins a host of international automakers who have set up operations in Mexico to access auto markets in the United States and Latin America. It sold its first car in Mexico on Thursday.

    ICAP bags deal for China’s forex trading system

    ICAP Plc. said Friday it won a contract to provide technology for China’s main fixed income and foreign exchange trading system.

    The deal, which uses ICAP’s EBS BrokerTec systems, is worth US$65 million over three years. ICAP will open an office and a development center in Shanghai. ICAP chief executive Michael Spencer said in a statement Friday that China was an “extremely important” financial market.