Fuhwa Financial Holding Co (
The drawn-out merger finally took effect yesterday. Yuanta had been delisted from the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE) in the meantime.
"We expect earnings per share to exceed NT$1 this year," Michael Ma (馬維辰), vice chairman of Fuhwa Commercial Bank (復華銀行), said on the sidelines of the merger ceremony yesterday.
The drivers for the renewed profitability come mainly from the lucrative securities arm, coupled with the banking unit's recovering financial condition, Ma said, who will be the chief operations officer of Fuhwa Financial in the future.
Fuhwa Financial incurred a loss of NT$3.08 billion last year, or negative NT$0.98 per share, due to mounting bad loans in its banking unit.
The ceremony attracted high-profile operators from the nation's financial sector, including Daniel Tsai (
Fuhwa Financial will develop into a brokerage-centric financial holding firm, with the securities business contributing over 70 percent of income in future, with the remainder coming from its banking unit, said Victor Ma (馬維建), chairman of Fuhwa Securities Finance Co (復華證金).
Victor Ma will take over the presidency of the financial group in the second half of the year.
The company plans to undertake a NT$22 billion capital reduction from its brokerage arm after completing the integration between Yuanta Core Pacific Securities and Fuhwa Securities Co (
It would then inject up to NT$12 billion into the weaker banking unit in order to lift the capital adequacy ratio above 10 percent -- from the current 9.5 percent -- in order to facilitate the bank's overseas expansion.
The remaining NT$10 billion would be used to acquire targets locally and internationally in the securities and banking arena, but not problematic financial institutions recently taken over by the government, Michael Ma and Victor Ma said.
For its planned overseas expansion, the bank will target the Vietnamese market and leverage the footing already established by Yuanta through its close ties with Vietnam-based Taiwanese firms in order to tap into the fast-growing economy, Victor Ma said.
Victor Ma added that he expects overseas businesses to contribute 25 percent of the financial group's income within the next five years, compared to 15 percent currently at the Yuanta unit.
The company is also mulling whether to seek a strategic partnership with an overseas bank to introduce management and product know-how, Michael Ma said.
The merger means that Fuhwa Financial now leads the nation's brokerage market with a 12 percent share and has boosted its total number of outlets to 220.
Fuhwa Financial closed down 5 percent at NT$15.20 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday said that its research institute has launched its first advanced artificial intelligence (AI) large language model (LLM) using traditional Chinese, with technology assistance from Nvidia Corp. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), said the LLM, FoxBrain, is expected to improve its data analysis capabilities for smart manufacturing, and electric vehicle and smart city development. An LLM is a type of AI trained on vast amounts of text data and uses deep learning techniques, particularly neural networks, to process and generate language. They are essential for building and improving AI-powered servers. Nvidia provided assistance
DOMESTIC SUPPLY: The probe comes as Donald Trump has called for the repeal of the US$52.7 billion CHIPS and Science Act, which the US Congress passed in 2022 The Office of the US Trade Representative is to hold a hearing tomorrow into older Chinese-made “legacy” semiconductors that could heap more US tariffs on chips from China that power everyday goods from cars to washing machines to telecoms equipment. The probe, which began during former US president Joe Biden’s tenure in December last year, aims to protect US and other semiconductor producers from China’s massive state-driven buildup of domestic chip supply. A 50 percent US tariff on Chinese semiconductors began on Jan. 1. Legacy chips use older manufacturing processes introduced more than a decade ago and are often far simpler than
STILL HOPEFUL: Delayed payment of NT$5.35 billion from an Indian server client sent its earnings plunging last year, but the firm expects a gradual pickup ahead Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), the world’s No. 5 PC vendor, yesterday reported an 87 percent slump in net profit for last year, dragged by a massive overdue payment from an Indian cloud service provider. The Indian customer has delayed payment totaling NT$5.35 billion (US$162.7 million), Asustek chief financial officer Nick Wu (吳長榮) told an online earnings conference. Asustek shipped servers to India between April and June last year. The customer told Asustek that it is launching multiple fundraising projects and expected to repay the debt in the short term, Wu said. The Indian customer accounted for less than 10 percent to Asustek’s
Gasoline and diesel prices this week are to decrease NT$0.5 and NT$1 per liter respectively as international crude prices continued to fall last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to decrease to NT$29.2, NT$30.7 and NT$32.7 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, while premium diesel is to cost NT$27.9 per liter at CPC stations and NT$27.7 at Formosa pumps, the companies said in separate statements. Global crude oil prices dropped last week after the eight OPEC+ members said they would
RSS