State-run First Financial Holding Co (第一金控) yesterday reshuffled its 15-member board, with the government seizing nine seats as well as the appointment of three government-nominated independent directors.
Incumbent chairman Chen Yu-chang (陳裕璋), after garnering the highest number of votes, will retain his chairmanship for another three years until mid-May, 2012.
The Ministry of Finance, the company’s biggest shareholder, was previously expected to snap up 10 of the seats, but lost a total of three seats to private-sector directors, including Chen An-fu (陳安甫), a manager from MSIG Mingtai Insurance Co (明台產險).
First Financial president Chien Ming-ren (簡明仁) attributed yesterday’s vote to the smaller stake in the company owned by foreign investors, who often throw their support behind government-nominated directors. The stake owned by foreign investors dropped to 16 percent in mid-March from a high of more than 30 percent late last year, Chien said.
To the government’s surprise, Chen An-fu, representing his own company Global Vision (全球通) — a holding company with a working capital of NT$50 million (US$1.5 million) — solicited the second-highest number of votes at yesterday’s meeting.
“With my experience in both the life and non-life insurance businesses, I hope to be able to make a big contribution to First Financial,” Chen told the Taipei Times yesterday.
Among the five supervisors seats, the government successfully won four via Bank of Taiwan’s (臺灣銀行) shareholding.
The meeting also approved the nomination of three independent directors Lee Tsun-siou (李存修), a finance professor at National Taiwan University, Yophy Huang (黃耀輝), an associate professor of taxation at National Taipei College of Business, and Liu Day-yang (劉代洋), a finance professor at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology.
First Financial’s market value was NT$126.69 billion at the close yesterday. Its share price closed at NT$20.55 on the local bourse, up 19.13 percent this year.
COMPETITION: AMD, Intel and Qualcomm are unveiling new laptop and desktop parts in Las Vegas, arguing their technologies provide the best performance for AI workloads Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD), the second-biggest maker of computer processors, said its chips are to be used by Dell Technologies Inc for the first time in PCs sold to businesses. The chipmaker unveiled new processors it says would make AMD-based PCs the best at running artificial intelligence (AI) software. Dell has decided to use the chips in some of its computers aimed at business customers, AMD executives said at CES in Las Vegas on Monday. Dell’s embrace of AMD for corporate PCs — it already uses the chipmaker for consumer devices — is another blow for Intel Corp as the company
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday said it is teaming up with Nvidia Corp to develop a new chip for artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputers that uses architecture licensed from Arm Holdings PLC. The new product is targeting AI researchers, data scientists and students rather than the mass PC market, the company said. The announcement comes as MediaTek makes efforts to add AI capabilities to its Dimensity chips for smartphones and tablets, Genio family for the Internet of Things devices, Pentonic series of smart TVs, Kompanio line of Arm-based Chromebooks, along with the Dimensity auto platform for vehicles. MeidaTek, the world’s largest chip designer for smartphones
TECH PULL: Electronics heavyweights also attracted strong buying ahead of the CES, analysts said. Meanwhile, Asian markets were mixed amid Trump’s incoming presidency Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) shares yesterday closed at a new high in the wake of a rally among tech stocks on Wall Street on Friday, moving the TAIEX sharply higher by more than 600 points. TSMC, the most heavily weighted stock in the TAIEX, rose 4.65 percent to close at a new high of NT$1,125, boosting its market value to NT$29.17 trillion (US$888 billion) and contributing about 400 points to the TAIEX’s rise. The TAIEX ended up 639.41 points, or 2.79 percent, at 23,547.71. Turnover totaled NT$406.478 billion, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. The surge in TSMC follows a positive performance
RSS