Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金), Taiwan’s fourth-largest financial company by market value, will allow Morgan Stanley to take a board seat after the US securities firm became its second-biggest shareholder.
Morgan Stanley will appoint a director to one of Chinatrust’s seven board seats by the end of the year, Daniel Wu (吳一揆), chief investment officer at Taipei-based Chinatrust, said yesterday.
The New York-based firm owned a 4.01 percent stake as of May 30, and has increased its holding since then, Wu said. Chinatrust chairman Jeffrey Koo (辜濂松) is the biggest shareholder with 7.29 percent, Bloomberg data showed.
Wu refuted a report by the Economic Daily News that it plans to buy a stake in Nan Tung Bank (南通銀行) to expand in China, saying the report was inaccurate.
Daily News didn’t say where it got the information.
Morgan Stanley acquired the Zhuhai, Guangdong Province-based Nan Tung Bank in October 2006.
Chinatrust and Morgan Stanley are in talks about possible cooperation in consumer and institutional banking and issuing credit cards, Wu said.
Chinatrust also owns the biggest credit-card issuer in Taiwan.
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