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.
Mercuries Life Insurance Co (三商美邦人壽) shares surged to a seven-month high this week after local media reported that E.Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金控) had outbid CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控) in the financially strained insurer’s ongoing sale process. Shares of the mid-sized life insurer climbed 5.8 percent this week to NT$6.72, extending a nearly 18 percent rally over the past month, as investors bet on the likelihood of an impending takeover. The final round of bidding closed on Thursday, marking a critical step in the 32-year-old insurer’s search for a buyer after years of struggling to meet capital adequacy requirements. Local media reports
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