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.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
RSS