Amid the snowballing oil scandal centering on the Ting Hsin International Group (頂新集團) food manufacturing giant, the Ministry of Finance yesterday announced that it would stop any attempts by the group to increase its stock holdings in banks and Taipei 101.
Vice Minister of Finance Wu Tang-chieh (吳當傑) said the ministry has expressed to Cathay Financial Holdings (國泰金控) and CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控) its determination that Ting Hsin would not obtain management over the skyscraper and that both financial groups have agreed to follow the ministry’s stance.
The board managing Taipei 101 is to be elected next year and Ting Hsin reportedly hoped to become the largest shareholder and thus, manager. Currently, Ting Hsin holds the second-largest share of the building’s stock, after the government’s 44 percent. Cathay Financial and CTBC Financial hold 7.73 percent and 6.12 percent respectively.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
“We had not thought that Ting Hsin and its subsidiaries could have betrayed consumers to this level,” Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Alex Fai (費鴻泰) yesterday said, referring to the widening cooking oil scandal.
On the Wei (魏) family’s — Ting Hsin Group’s founders — investment in Taipei 101, Fai said he would be keeping a close eye on the group so it is not allowed to manage the building.
As for the group’s other investments and attempts to buy out banks and China Network Systems Co (CNS, 中嘉網路), Fai said that financial groups should be wary that Ting Hsin would tunnel its money from the banks.
Photo: Chang Jui-chen, Taipei Times
That said, Fai asked banks to reconsider loans to the Wei family over the family’s purchase of units within Taipei’s The Palace (帝寶) luxury apartment complex, saying that the family may attempt to transfer ownership to other accounts and hide their assets.
Meanwhile, as more local governments and consumer groups echoed the call to boycott products from Ting Hsin and its subsidiaries, a number of public and private universities, including National Taiwan University, National Chengchi University, National Taiwan Normal University and Soochow University, also joined the boycott.
Other universities, such as National Chiao Tung University, National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) and Ming Chuan University said they complied with Ministry of Education’s announcement by offloading products that have been identified by the Ministry of Health and Welfare as problematic.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
According to NCKU secretary-general Chen Chin-cheng (陳進成), having a general boycott of Ting Hsin and its subsidiary companies’ products was “a little too passionate” a response, adding that laws should be amended so the government can better protect the public’s interests.
Elsewhere, all products from Wei Chuan Foods Corp (味全食品工業), also a subsidiary of Ting Hsin, went off the shelves of Taipei’s schools, related cooperatives and social organizations.
“This restriction will remain in place until related agencies have cleared up all concerns,” Taipei City Department of Education spokesman Chen Shun-ho (陳順和) said.
The company’s juice and milk products are to be most affected by the city’s decision, as the firm had provided more than 18,000 bottles of milk to the school system each week — 15 percent of the school system’s supply, he said.
As the city provides free milk once a week to all elementary-school students, he said some schools would be unable to provide milk to students this week and the city is working to obtain new suppliers by next week.
Separately, National Federation of Teachers’ Unions president Chang Hsu-cheng (張旭政) said that Ting Hsin should exit domestic markets entirely.
“The company has betrayed Taiwanese people’s trust in it by selling adulterated products,” Chang said, adding: “The Wei family should donate more than NT$10 billion [US$328.87 million] to the establishment of a food security foundation fund.”
The union added that today it would submit an appeal to the Control Yuan for an investigation of the Ministry of Health and Welfare to determine whether it has neglected its duty.
Additional reporting by Abraham Gerber
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