Employees of state-run Taiwan Business Bank (台灣企銀) are threatening to go on strike over job security next Friday, a move which an analyst said could actually benefit the bank's potential buyers by depressing its share price.
"The planned strike may not obstruct the bank's share sale and could be welcomed by interested bidders," Shirley Yang (楊慶祺), a fund manager who manages NT$1.2 billion worth of funds at Invesco Taiwan Ltd (景順投信), said in a phone interview yesterday.
The strike could weaken the bank's share price and therefore help drag down costs to interested buyers, Yang said.
The bank, in which the government currently holds a 44-percent stake, plans to sell all of its shares through a 100-percent share swap, as part of the government's goal to halve the number of state banks to six by the year's end.
The winner bid will have to acquire both the bank's common shares and its new preferred shares, priced at NT$10 per share and valid for six months after issuance, and to pay in cash to redeem the preferred shares when they are due.
Given that the bank has more than 100 outlets nationwide, valuable assets and the government's credit assurance funds to cover bad loans made to small and medium enterprises, interested parties could offer NT$12 to NT$14 per share, or between NT$50 billion (US$1.53 billion) and NT$60 billion in total, for the bank, Yang said.
Since the bank is slated to open the tender on Sept 10, Taiwan Business Bank Industrial Union (台灣企銀工會) decided on Tuesday to stage a strike on Sept. 9, hoping to get management to sign a collective agreement before the share sale is settled.
"We have asked all members to participate in the strike. We are not giving way over our demands for a three-year job security guarantee after the bank is taken over," union chairman Lin Wan-fu (林萬福) said in a phone interview yesterday.
Employees are also dissatisfied with the way the share sale has been conducted by the bank's five-person task force, Lin said, noting that none of the board directors who represent the union are on the task force.
However, Minister of Finance Lin Chuan (林全) said yesterday that while the ministry respects the union's decision and employees' right to strike, it did not necessarily accept the union's demand for a three-year job guarantee. Last week the ministry said that its bottom line was a two-year job guarantee.
Jong Huey-jen (鍾慧貞), deputy director-general of the Financial Supervisory Commission's Banking Bureau, said that the agency has asked the bank to keep communicating with employees while formulating personnel and technology resources to maintain financial stability during a strike.
The bank said in a statement yesterday that it will continue to talk with the union while taking steps to maintain its operations. It urged customers to use automatic-teller machines as well as online and telephone banking services if a strike occurs.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS