The Central Deposit Insurance Corp (CDIC) will likely need to continue its stewardship of debt-ridden Chung Shing Bank (中興銀行), government officials said yesterday.
CDIC took control of the ailing bank two years ago. It was scheduled to relinquish management authority on March 25, but now government officials say CDIC may stay in charge for another three months.
A senior official at the Ministry of Finance said yesterday the government is attempting to find a buyer for Chung Shing, but additional time was needed.
"We're still cooking up a deal with other banks, each of which may need at least two months to conduct due diligence on Chung Shing's books before offering a price," Gary Tseng (曾國烈), deputy director general of the Bureau of Monetary Affairs under the finance ministry, told lawmakers yesterday.
Tseng said the ministry hopes to close a deal "within three months, but it would be the buyer's call."
There are several possible candidates interested in Chung Shing, the finance official said.
But he refused to confirm media reports that the ministry has instructed Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行), Bank of Taiwan (台灣銀行) and Chiao Tung Bank (交通銀行) to take over the ailing financial institution, saying "confidentiality agreements have been signed."
In addition, there have been reports that a multinational bank has recently expressed interest in buying Chung Shing.
Tseng in his comments yesterday also acknowledged that the bank may have to write down roughly NT$29.8 billion in bad loans.
Minister of Finance Lee Yung-san (
The government in January invited foreign and domestic banks to bid for Chung Shing, but none so far have shown interest in bailing out the sinking financial institution.
To shore up the bank's operations, finance officials plan to tap the Financial Restructuring Fund -- similar to the Resolution Trust Corp in the US -- which has about NT$60 billion on hand.
But the fund's assets are too few to deal with the nation's bad-loan problem.
"The fund, accounting for just 1.4 percent of the country's GNP, is too small to provide flexibility in dealing with [bad loans]," Tseng said. The finance official said the ministry plans to raise another NT$200 billion to add to the fund, although the government hasn't yet said how.
DPP legislators Chiang Chao-yi (江昭儀) and Chen Mao-nan (陳茂男) yesterday sought an explanation as to why Chung Shing's financial health seemed to worsen after the government took over two years ago.
Pan Lung-cheng (
"The property market has declined by 20 to 30 percent over the past two years, further diminishing the value of the bank's non-performing assets," Pan said.
To keep Chung Shing going, Pan said officials have taken steps to reduce the bank's credit risks when it comes to underwriting loans. Also, 223 staff members have been cut and salaries have been reduced between 3 percent and 30 percent.
"We've helped the bank save an average of NT$20 million monthly," Pan added.
Fred Chen (
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Apple Inc increased iPhone production in India by about 53 percent last year and now makes a quarter of its marquee devices there, reflecting the US company’s efforts to avoid tariffs on China. The company assembled about 55 million iPhones in India last year, up from 36 million a year earlier, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because the numbers aren’t public. Apple makes about 220 million to 230 million iPhones a year globally, with India’s share of the total increasing rapidly. Apple has accelerated its expansion in the world’s most populous country in recent years, bolstered
HEADWINDS: The company said it expects its computer business, as well as consumer electronics and communications segments to see revenue declines due to seasonality Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it aims to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) server revenue more than 10-fold this year from last year, driven by orders from neocloud solutions clients and large cloud service providers. The electronics manufacturing service provider said AI server revenue growth would be driven primarily by the Nvidia Corp GB300 server platform. Server shipments are expected to increase each quarter this year, with the second half likely to outperform the first half, it said. The AI server market is expected to broaden this year as more inference applications emerge, which would drive demand for system-on-chip, application-specific integrated circuits
PROJECTION: TSMC said it expects strong growth this year, with revenue in US dollars projected to grow by about 30 percent, outperforming the industry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported consolidated sales last month reached NT$317.66 billion (US$9.98 billion), the highest ever for the month of February, driven by robust demand for chips built using the company’s advanced 3-nanometer (3nm) process. Last month’s figure was up 22.2 percent from a year earlier, but fell 20.8 percent from January, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. For the first two months of the year, TSMC posted cumulative sales of NT$718.91 billion, up 29.9 percent from a year earlier. Analysts attributed the growth to sustained global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products
RSS