Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控), which owns the nation’s third-largest credit card issuer, Taishin International Bank (台新銀行), is aiming to expand through mergers and acquisitions (M&As), although there is no timetable for expansion, senior executives said on Saturday.
The conglomerate will first seek to increase the size of the banking subsidiary to make it one of the leading lenders in the local market, chief financial officer Welch Lin (林維俊) told a media gathering.
The bank-centric group posted NT$9.44 billion (US$320.42 million) in net income last year, which translated into earnings of NT$1.27 per share and was 20 percent higher than the previous year, company data showed.
Last year’s results, the best in seven years, were underpinned by earnings at Taishin Bank that more than offset losses incurred by the securities brokerage unit, company data showed.
“The expansion strategy will target banks, insurance companies and other financial services to strengthen our earnings and product lines,” Lin said.
Market share gains for Taishin Bank are based on the expansion plans, and these plans accounted for the group’s 2005 acquisition of a 22.5 percent stake in Chang Hwa Commercial Bank (彰化銀行), Lin said.
The deal gave Taishin Financial majority control of Chang Hwa’s board, but political challenges have prevented further integration.
Taishin Financial is still interested in acquiring a life insurance company after losing the bid for MetLife Inc’s Taiwanese unit to Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控) in March last year, Lin said.
Having a life insurance subsidiary would strengthen the group’s product lines and bring synergistic benefits, Lin said.
Taishin Financial also aims to deepen its presence in other financial service businesses that will help boost earnings, Lin said.
“This explains why in December 2010 we acquired IBT Asset Management Co (台灣工銀投信),” a subsidiary of the Industrial Business Bank (台灣工銀), for NT$437.5 million, he said.
Taishin Securities Investment Trust Co (台新投信) saw its assets under management advance 50 percent to NT$90 billion in January from NT$60 billion upon the integration 14 months ago, Taishin Investment Trust chairman Johnson Chen (陳瓊讚) said.
The figures meant a 10 percent increase from one month earlier and a 50 percent gain from the year-ago level, company data indicated.
The performance pushed Taishin Securities Trust’s ranking in the local market to ninth place from 24th, Chen said, adding that it was approaching the NT$100 billion goal set to be achieved next year.
The fund manager will continue to differentiate itself from its peers by specializing in emerging markets, Chen said.
Taishin Financial president Joseph Jao (饒世湛) said the group planned to open its second capital leasing company in Tianjin, China, in July, as long as Chinese regulators approve the application.
Jao said he hoped that Taiwan and China would ease access rules faster to allow so that service providers could expand more quickly.
Taishin Financial is scheduled to hold an investor conference tomorrow.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
RSS