After reaping a 112 percent growth in profit last year, Taishin Financial Holding Co (
"Our merger partners don't necessarily have to be banks," Taishin Financial chairman Thomas Wu (吳東亮) told an investors' conference yesterday. "We're also cooking small- and medium-sized acquisitions."
The company is one of 14 financial holding companies that the government aims to halve the number to seven in two years, in a bid to compete with foreign rivals.
Speculation is rife that Taishin Financial, the nation's seventh-largest financial service provider in terms of total assets, was the deal-breaker behind last week's planned merger between International Bank of Taipei (IBT, 台北商銀) and SinoPac Financial Holdings Co (建華金控).
According to local media reports, Taishin Financial expressed interests to merge with SinoPac Financial, and offered to pay NT$25 a share through a share-swap deal, which caused both SinoPac and IBT to stop discussing the proposed merger deal at their prospective board meetings held on Thursday.
But Wu yesterday kept a very low profile regarding this issue. He also refused to comment on the possibility of merging with SinoPac Financial in any way.
On the local bourse, Taishin Financial rose 0.7 percent to close at NT$29.3, SinoPac Financial was up 1.1 percent at NT$19.0, while IBT dropped 1.3 percent to NT$23.7.
Wu, however, expressed confidence that Taishin Financial would meet its NT$13.5 billion profit goal with a projected NT$3.19 earning per share (EPS) this year after having reported better-than-expected performance to successfully achieve its profit goals in the past three years.
"Our five-year goal is to increase our market value from less than US$1 billion [since the start-up in 2002] to the goal of US$5 billion [next year]," Wu said, adding that Taishin Financial currently has a market value of around US$4 billion.
According to the company's chief financial officer Carol Lai (賴昭吟), Taishin Financial saw its net profit up 55 percent to NT$11.3 billion last year from NT$7.3 billion in 2003 while the EPS growing from NT$2.16 to NT$2.8 during the same period.
Taishin Financial -- awarded last week by AsiaMoney magazine as the best managed company in Taiwan in 2004 -- saw a 31.5 percent loan growth in 2004 with consuming loan increasing by 38.9 percent and corporate loan by 16.7 percent while reaping a year-on-year 58 percent growth in the gross fee income performance, Lai said.
In the mean time, Taishin Financial also lowered its bad-loan ratio from 1.78 percent to 1.18 percent last year, she added.
SELL-OFF: Investors expect tariff-driven volatility as the local boarse reopens today, while analysts say government support and solid fundamentals would steady sentiment Local investors are bracing for a sharp market downturn today as the nation’s financial markets resume trading following a two-day closure for national holidays before the weekend, with sentiment rattled by US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff announcement. Trump’s unveiling of new “reciprocal tariffs” on Wednesday triggered a sell-off in global markets, with the FTSE Taiwan Index Futures — a benchmark for Taiwanese equities traded in Singapore — tumbling 9.2 percent over the past two sessions. Meanwhile, the American depositary receipts (ADRs) of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the most heavily weighted stock on the TAIEX, plunged 13.8 percent in
A wave of stop-loss selling and panic selling hit Taiwan's stock market at its opening today, with the weighted index plunging 2,086 points — a drop of more than 9.7 percent — marking the largest intraday point and percentage loss on record. The index bottomed out at 19,212.02, while futures were locked limit-down, with more than 1,000 stocks hitting their daily drop limit. Three heavyweight stocks — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (Foxconn, 鴻海精密) and MediaTek (聯發科) — hit their limit-down prices as soon as the market opened, falling to NT$848 (US$25.54), NT$138.5 and NT$1,295 respectively. TSMC's
TARIFFS: The global ‘panic atmosphere remains strong,’ and foreign investors have continued to sell their holdings since the start of the year, the Ministry of Finance said The government yesterday authorized the activation of its NT$500 billion (US$15.15 billion) National Stabilization Fund (NSF) to prop up the local stock market after two days of sharp falls in reaction to US President Donald Trump’s new import tariffs. The Ministry of Finance said in a statement after the market close that the steering committee of the fund had been given the go-ahead to intervene in the market to bolster Taiwanese shares in a time of crisis. The fund has been authorized to use its assets “to carry out market stabilization tasks as appropriate to maintain the stability of Taiwan’s
STEEP DECLINE: Yesterday’s drop was the third-steepest in its history, the steepest being Monday’s drop in the wake of the tariff announcement on Wednesday last week Taiwanese stocks continued their heavy sell-off yesterday, as concerns over US tariffs and unwinding of leveraged bets weighed on the market. The benchmark TAIEX plunged 1,068.19 points, or 5.79 percent, to 17,391.76, notching the biggest drop among Asian peers as it hit a 15-month low. The decline came even after the government on late Tuesday authorized the NT$500 billion (US$15.2 billion) National Stabilization Fund (國安基金) to step in to buoy the market amid investors’ worries over tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump. Yesterday’s decline was the third-steepest in its history, trailing only the declines of 2,065.87 points on Monday and
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