State-owned Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行) is poised to outperform its China-bound Taiwanese peers by injecting between 400 million yuan (US$58.69 million) and 600 million yuan into upgrading its Shanghai-based representative office after regulators across the Taiwan Strait finalize market access terms, a bank executive said yesterday.
That will far exceed the minimum capital requirement — 200 million yuan — which Chinese authorities currently impose on any foreign banks that open branches in the country, chairman Wang Yao-shing (王耀興) told a media briefing yesterday.
“Our [initial China-bound] investment won’t lag behind our [Taiwanese] peers,” he said.
Wang said the bank didn’t rule out the possibility of adding capital if its Taiwanese rivals also beef up their China-bound investments, or seeking city bank-level strategic partners in China.
He also said the bank would turn a profit in Shanghai after the second year since the regulator there would only allow foreign banks — which must stay in the red for two of their first three years in-country — to operate Chinese yuan-denominated businesses. Wang said the bank was mulling the possibility of launching its second China-based branch in Qingdao, Shandong Province, where many Taiwanese businesses have also made investments, should the weather pose no difficulty to employees.
“We will facilitate a greater China platform to serve Taiwanese businesses, linking our China-based outlets, offshore units and branches in Hong Kong and Singapore,” he said.
Land Bank yesterday posted NT$8.17 billion (NT$254.56 million) in net income for last year, up 8.4 percent year-on-year, or NT$3.25 per share.
Wang said the bank vowed to maintain its earnings per share at above NT$1.5 for this year after its working capital was doubled to NT$50 billion earlier.
The bank yesterday touted its robust performance in syndicated loan businesses after it arranged US$2.5 billion in outstanding syndicated loans to Taiwanese businesses last year — the largest in Taiwan.
In Asia, the bank also arranged US$2.35 billion in outstanding syndicated loans — the 10th largest after Standard Chartered Bank and RBS.
At the end of November, the bank claimed to be the largest domestic mortgage lender with NT$635.4 billion in outstanding loans, or an 11.17 percent market share, Wang said.
“We don’t think there are bubbles in the domestic real-estate market because only high-end properties have seen price hikes,” he said, adding that his bank expects to see steady growth in mortgage lending.
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
STIMULUS PLANS: An official said that China would increase funding from special treasury bonds and expand another program focused on key strategic sectors China is to sharply increase funding from ultra-long treasury bonds this year to spur business investment and consumer-boosting initiatives, a state planner official told a news conference yesterday, as Beijing cranks up fiscal stimulus to revitalize its faltering economy. Special treasury bonds would be used to fund large-scale equipment upgrades and consumer goods trade-ins, said Yuan Da (袁達), deputy secretary-general of the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission. “The size of ultra-long special government bond funds will be sharply increased this year to intensify and expand the implementation of the two new initiatives,” Yuan said. Under the program launched last year, consumers can
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
FUTURE TECH: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang would give the keynote speech at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, which is also expected to highlight autonomous vehicles Gadgets, robots and vehicles imbued with artificial intelligence (AI) would once again vie for attention at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week, as vendors behind the scenes would seek ways to deal with tariffs threatened by US president-elect Donald Trump. The annual Consumer Electronics Show opens formally in Las Vegas tomorrow, but preceding days are packed with product announcements. AI would be a major theme of the show, along with autonomous vehicles ranging from tractors and boats to lawn mowers and golf club trollies. “Everybody is going to be talking about AI,” Creative Strategies Inc analyst Carolina Milanesi said. “From fridges to ovens
RSS