Hua Yi Buys Chinese Professional Baseball League Team Brother Elephants

The Brother Hotel sold its popular Chinese Professional Baseball League team Brother Elephants on Tuesday to Hua Yi, "a company involved in the entertainment industry linked to CTBC Financial Holding Co." for NT$400M ($13.5M), according to the CNA. CTBC, Taiwan's third-largest publicly traded financial firm by market value, is acting as a financial sponsor for the deal, "as regulations bar financial service providers from investing directly in non-financial firms." However, the deal specifies that the holding company's CTBC Bank has been granted naming rights and advertising cooperation rights for 10 years, "allowing the bank-focused conglomerate to use baseball events to boost its corporate image without infringing on the investment ban, although it will not be involved in the day-to-day management of the team." Hua Yi "will commission a study before deciding on the team's new name, mascot and team colors" (CNA, 12/3).